The Rambam, in his sefer Yad HaHazaka, on the laws of Hanukah (chapter 4), tells us the well-known law that if a person does not have enough money for both the candles of Shabbat and the candles of Hanukah, he should purchase candles for Shabbat, because the purpose of lighting Shabbat candles is to bring peace to the home. If there is no light, there is no peace. People stumble and get into arguments.
And, he says, we can see how great shalom is because God‘s holy name is erased, in order to bring peace between a husband and a wife. This is referring to when a man is suspicious of his wife, and God performs a miracle wherein the Parasha of Sotah is erased into waters, which acts as a sort of truth potion, to reveal whether the wife had sinned. The husband’s doubt would be removed forever, and peace could be reinstated in the home.
So through this miracle, God allows His name to be erased, in order to bring peace.
The Rambam continues and says, “How great is peace? The whole purpose of Torah is to bring peace.“ This is a very strong statement. There is a Gemarah in Kiddushin that says, “I created the Yetzer Hara and I created the Torah in order to cure it,” so that is what I would guess to be the purpose of the Torah.
And the Gaon of Vilna says that the goal of Torah is to bring us to Bitachon.
But there really is no contradiction. If you have bitachon in Hashem, you get along with people, and you have peace. And if your Yetzer Hara is controlled, you will also have peace.
But the Rambam is saying that the end goal of overcoming your Yetzer Hara, and the end goal of Bitachon, which are both reasons that the Torah was given, is shalom.
He proves it from a pasuk, “The ways of Torah are the ways of sweetness, and all its paths, Shalom..” which means that all roads lead to peace in the Torah.
This is an eye-opening way of looking at the Torah. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we can break the Torah, and just follow the spirit of the law, which is peace. We can’t think that just to make peace, we can do whatever we want. We can’t eat unkosher or not keep Shabbat in order to bring peace.
Rather, we are referring to keeping the Torah properly, and understanding that the end goal is to bring to peace.
This is a new way to look at Torah, at least for myself. I hope this was enlightening to others as well. Have a wonderful day.