The Blessing of Peace/The Reality of War- B’Har/B’chukotai

With this week’s double Torah portion, B’Har and B’Chukotai, we come to the end of the Book of Leviticus. It is a dramatic conclusion. The Torah lays out a series of blessings promised to the Israelites if they follow God’s guidance—and a much longer, far more frightening list of curses if they do not.

Among those curses: your food will be consumed by your enemies; you will be conquered and ruled by those who hate you; you will live in such fear that even the sound of a rustling leaf will send you fleeing.  This is the source of Milton Steinberg’s great novel, As a Driven Leaf.” And, truthfully, it gets worse- you can read it yourself.  The Torah does not shy away from painting a terrifying picture of a world without stability or security.

One blessing stands out.  In Chapter 26, verse 6, “And there will be peace in the land.”  Shalom. 

When I was first learning Hebrew as a child, I was taught that shalom means hello, goodbye, and peace. Hello and goodbye I understood. But peace? It felt abstract, distant—certainly not something I encountered in everyday vocabulary. Why was this word so central?

Now I understand.

The Torah itself explains what peace means. It is not merely the absence of war. It is security. It is freedom from fear. It is the ability to lie down at night without trembling. It is the strength to live without constant anxiety about what tomorrow might bring.

How little our concerns have changed since biblical times.

The medieval commentator Rashi, reflecting on this verse, offers a striking teaching: “If there is no peace, there is nothing.” Everything else—prosperity, health, success—depends upon it. Without peace, none of it can truly be enjoyed.

We read in Psalms: “Seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalms 34:14)  Not simply wish for it. Not passively hope for it. But actively seek it—and then pursue it, as if it might run away from us.

We are still pursuing peace.

We live in a world that often feels frightening and unstable. And when there is no peace in the land, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to cultivate peace within our own hearts.

Jewish teaching reflects the complexity of shalom. 

The Midrash teaches: peace that is unaccompanied by honest reproof is not true peace. In other words, silence in the face of wrongdoing is not peace—it is avoidance. The ability to question authority, to challenge policy, to speak truth—these are essential to a healthy society and a genuine peace.

The Hebrew word shalom shares a root with shalem, meaning whole or complete. Peace is not just quiet—it is wholeness, integrity, a world aligned with justice.

And so, our tradition insists on something remarkable: even when preparing for war, we must first seek peace.

In Deuteronomy, we are instructed that when approaching a city to wage battle, we must first offer terms of peace. Those who wish to surrender should be allowed to do so. Even in conflict, there are limits: we may not destroy fruit trees, sustaining sources of life. Newlyweds and the faint-hearted are exempt from battle. War is treated not as triumphant, but as a tragic necessity.

The Torah understands war as what later tradition calls a milchemet chovah—an obligatory war—when it is fought in self-defense. But even then, the obligation to pursue peace does not disappear.

Maimonides goes so far as to teach that when besieging a city, one must leave one side open, allowing an escape route for those who wish to flee. Even in war, there must be an opening toward life.

And yet, our tradition does not ignore the harsh reality that there are times when war may be justified.

The Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us: there is a time for war and a time for peace.

There are moments when evil emerges in forms so destructive, so dehumanizing, that inaction becomes its own moral failure. As the Torah commands: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”

The challenge, of course, is that there is no simple formula for recognizing those moments. In ancient times, leaders might consult the Urim and Thummim for divine guidance. Today, we are left with human judgment—fallible, complicated, and often uncertain.

That uncertainty should humble us.

It should make us cautious, even when we believe force is necessary. It should remind us that every act of violence carries a cost—not only for those who suffer it, but for those who carry it out.  We are learning more and more about moral injury and the long term consequences veterans pay for serving our country.

Judaism holds both truths at once: that sometimes war is necessary, and that it is always tragic.

Which is why, throughout our tradition, we find rituals that temper triumph with sorrow. We spill drops of wine during the Passover Seder as we recount the plagues, diminishing our joy because others suffered. We recite only half Hallel on Passover, acknowledging that redemption came at a cost.

In ancient Israel, the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) was a hereditary office, passed down through the priestly line of Aaron, usually from father to son. By contrast, the priest anointed for war (kohen mashuach milchamah), who addressed and encouraged the troops before battle (as described in Deuteronomy 20), was not hereditary. He was specially appointed for each period of military need.  There was always the hope that there would be no more war and no more need for a chaplain for the troops.

Even King David, a warrior, was not permitted to build the Temple. That sacred task was given to Solomon, a man of peace.

The vision toward which Judaism ultimately points is not one of endless conflict, but of transformation. Maimonides describes the messianic era as a time when there will be no famine and no war, no jealousy and no strife—when blessings will be abundant and peace will define human existence.

That is the world we are meant to move toward.

And until then, we are called to live as its builders.

Hillel teaches: be among the disciples of Aaron—loving peace and pursuing peace.

Not loving peace passively, but pursuing it actively. In our words. In our actions. In our willingness to listen, to challenge, to repair.

As we conclude this book of Torah, we say: Chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek—be strong, be strong, and let us strengthen one another.

May the strength that has carried us to this moment guide us forward.
And may we continue, together, the challenging and holy work of seeking peace and pursuing it.