GEN951 We gain a good sense of just how dear peace was to the rabbis when we read some of their exaggerated statements they made to “prove” shalom’s importance. For example, they had Adonai compromise plans for our planet’s basic structure in order to keep peace among God’s creations. “When God created people, God said, ‘If I create them as part of the heavenly world, there will be one more creation in heaven than on earth and there will be no peace in the universe. But if I create them as part of the earthly world, there will also be imbalance and controversy. So if I am to have peace in the universe, I will have to create humanity as partaking of both the heavenly and the earthly worlds.’ And so God did” Genesis Rabbah 12:8 A second instance of rabbinic hyperbole: “R. Ishmael taught: Great is peace, for we are commanded to treat God’s name with the greatest sanctity.  Look what God did for the sake of peace. If a husband suspects his wife of adultery, the Torah says that he should bring her to the Temple. There, the sacred letters of the Torah, with God’s name among them, are written on paper and ‘washed’ into a cup. The accused adulteress must then drink this portion and is proven guilty if her body becomes swollen. God allows the blasphemy of having God’s Name blotted out in water so that all the innocent women may be restored to their households in peace” Numbers 5:16-29., Hashalom 9, the Chapter about Peace, attached to the Talmudic tractate Derekh Eretz Zuta, the “smaller” version of The Way of the World. God, say some of the braver rabbis, even fudged the truth so that people might live in peace. “R. Ishmael said: Great is peace. When Sarah is told she will bear a son, she laughs, saying, “Shall I, so withered, have the joy of a child, my husband being so old?’ But when the Torah relates that God asks Abraham why Sarah laughed, God diplomatically, though untruthfully, omits Sarah’s reference to Abraham’s age, all for the sake of peace [this and preceding verse]. Bava Kamma 87a “R. Simeon b. Gamaliel said: Great is peace, since an untrue statement is made in the Torah to maintain peace between Joseph and his brothers after Jacob had died, as it is written: ‘And they sent a message to Joseph saying: Before he died, your father commanded that you forgive your brothers for the sin they committed against you’ Genesis 50:16-17 But nowhere in the Torah do we find that Jacob had so charged him” Leviticus Rabah 9:9 Bar Kapara reports a similar subtlety after an angel visits Samson’s mother-to-be: “He said to her, ‘Behold, now you are barren … but you shall conceive and bear a son’ Judges 13:3.  When she repeats this to her husband, she only says, ‘Behold you shall conceive and bear a son’ 13:7, and there is no mention of her infertility” Perek Hashalom 7. Such statements caused R. Simeon b. Gamaliel to observe: “See how much ink was spilled, how many pens broken, how many hides cured, how many children spanked—to learn in the Torah something that had never been said. Great indeed, then, is the power of peace!” Tanhuma, Buber Ed., Tzav 10. Traditional Jewish teachings cites four major areas meriting peace that touch us all: family, neighbors, community, and the hereafter. We moderns have extended shalom to two additional themes: the world of politics and our personal, inward search for meaning. BOROJMV 238-40