The Still Skill: Making Peace in the Heart of Conflict

How often are you still? Really still. In our face-paced and non-stop culture, when was the last time you were intentionally still and fully settled?

This week’s parsha is titled “Vayeshev,” which means “and he settled.” It refers to Jacob, who, we are told in the opening verse of the parsha, settled in the land of Canaan. Expounding on the word “vayeshev” Rashi writes that the term indicates that Jacob not only established his new residence at this point, but that he desired for his harried and hectic life to “settle” down into a more carefree and placid existence: “Jacob wished to live in tranquility, but the troubles with Joseph were thrust upon him” (Rashi on Genesis 37:2).

After the many challenges that Jacob had experienced in his life so far (his murderous brother Esau, his thieving father-in-law Lavan, and the rape of his daughter Dina), Jacob returned to his birthplace and hoped for some peace and quiet in his latter years. But this was not to be, as Rashi continues: “When the righteous wish to live in tranquility, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: ‘Is it not enough for the righteous what has been prepared for them in the World to Come, that they also wish to live in tranquility in this world?!’” (Ibid).

This is difficult to understand. Why can the righteous not have tranquility in this world? Is this too much to ask? Was Jacob wrong to seek serenity after all he had been through? Was the rivalry of his sons and the loss of his beloved Joseph a punishment in response to his desire for a simpler and less challenging life in his old age?

As always in Torah, it is important to examine the specificity of the Hebrew text. Rashi comments that “בִּקֵּשׁ יַעֲקֹב לֵישֵׁב בְּשַׁלְוָה/bikesh Yaacov leishev b’SHALVA/Jacob wished to live in TRANQUILITY.” What Rashi does not write is that Jacob sought to live in SHALOM/peace. Throughout Rashi’s comment, he continues to employ the word “shalva” rather than “shalom.” What is the distinction between these two terms?

“Shalva” is translated as “tranquility,” “serenity,” or a “carefree” state of “quiet.” “Shalom” means “peace,” but it does not connote the same condition of undisturbed and unchallenged placidity. “Shalom” is the peace that is made or reached amidst strife. It is not merely the absence or avoidance of tension, but rather it is the ability to tolerate and abide the demanding vicissitudes of life with a state of equanimity, acceptance, and constructiveness.

While the pursuit of shalom/peace is always appropriate – so much so that the Torah itself is referred to as “Toras shalom/the Torah of peace” – the pursuit of shalva/tranquility is not, particularly for tzaddikim like Jacob who are here to engage the world in order to correct it. While shalva/tranquility “has been prepared for the righteous in the time to come,” we are not sent into this world to sit on a bucolic mountaintop or in a far-off monastery to transcend all discord and attachment. Rather we are assigned the task in this world of making shalom/peace amidst the chaos and friction.

The tribulations of Joseph were not a punishment for Jacob, they were the means for him to continue his lifelong process of trusting Hashem and honing His deep faith in spite of the turmoil that embroiled him. The Friederker Rebbe wrote that a chassid is one for whom “worldly affairs do not disturb or distract him. Every individual can, and every individual must, attain this level” (Hayom Yom, Kislev 14).

In order to achieve this level and effectuate shalom/peace around us, we must learn to “shev/sit,” which is the root of Vayeshev, the parsha’s title. We must learn to settle and still our mind even though we have not yet succeeded in settling and stilling our environment. We must not wait for “shalva/tranquility” and the absence in our surroundings of tension or antagonism, for this is not the nature of the world we inhabit. Rather, we must make time within the chaos to center ourselves and temporarily transcend the tumult.

This is the point of our thrice-daily prayers and of our weekly shabbat (which, like “Vayeshev” also derives from the root “shev/sit”). While “shalva” connotes a full time and permanent escape from struggle, Torah prescribes a life of entanglement and wrestling with only periodic breaks. We pause three times a day to pray, meditate, and refocus, and we observe a full day of sabbath rest every seventh day – all of this in able to regather ourselves at those periods of quiet and calm in order to then re-enter the fray and create shalom even in the heart of conflict.

The Torah lifestyle must be understood as a practice that trains us to endure and perfect this imperfect creation. The stories of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs provide us the lessons that will enable us to quiet ourselves in spite of the noise, to still ourselves in the midst of the frenzy, and to prepare the earth for the ultimate “settling” that will come as the result of our toil and faith.

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