בריתי שלום
Achieving Balance
Who am I?
You are always very close to me. You almost never let me go. You look at me all the time. I know your deepest secrets. I am almost always the last thing you look at before you go to sleep. Sometimes you stay up late at night because you’re so interested in me. When you wake up in the morning, I’m the first thing you look at. You protect me and take care of me to make sure nothing happens to me.
Who am I?
I am your cellphone.
This is no joke. This is what our world has turned into. We are so distracted at all times because of all our calls, messages, emails, notifications and everything else, that many people can hardly function. In many ways, technology is improving our lives, but in many other ways, it is ruining our lives, causing stress and anxiety, and consuming us, preventing us from living.
Defining שלום
To help us tackle this difficult, but ever so critical, issue, let us turn to the opening verses in Parashat Pinhas. The context is the story of Pinhas, who stood up to oppose something terrible that was happening among Beneh Yisrael. After Bilam’s attempts to curse Beneh Yisrael failed, he advised the nation of Moav to send their women to seduce Beneh Yisrael to sin, and this plot succeeded. At one point, a leader of one of the tribes of Israel, Zimri, got up and sinned with a woman from Midyan. The people looked on in horror, until Pinhas arose and killed Zimri and Kozbi. This brought an end to the plague that G-d had brought upon Beneh Yisrael as punishment for their sins.
Parashat Pinhas begins with G-d proclaiming the reward He would be giving to Pinhas for his heroic deed. And this reward, ironically, was בריתי שלום – “My covenant of peace.” By killing two sinners, Pinhas was rewarded with peace.
How was this an appropriate reward? Wasn’t Pinhas’ act the diametric opposite of peace?
To begin answering this question, we need to refine our definition of the word שלום – peace. We commonly think that שלום means simply the absence of fighting. When a country is not at war, we say that it lives in “peace.” When we are not in a fight with any neighbors, family members or work associates, then we say we have “peace.” But this is not what שלום means. The proof is in the prayer that we recite several times each day: עושה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו – “He who makes peace in His upper worlds shall bring peace upon us.” G-d does not need to make “peace” – in the conventional sense of the term – in the upper worlds. There is never any reason for the angels to fight or compete with one another. Heaven is not a place where peace needs to be “made.” What, then, do we mean when we speak of Hashem as bringing שלום to the heavens?
The Malbim explains that שלום means balance and harmony. The heavenly bodies don’t just merely avoid fighting, but they coexist in seamless harmony and synthesis.
The Malbim proceeds to explain that human beings consist of four components: 1) “fire” – meaning, passion and energy; 2) “water” – an inclination towards calmness, or perhaps even laziness, which can “extinguish” passion; 3) “earth” – base physical needs and desires; 4) “air” – the spirit, a level of spirituality and religious awareness. These various forces are constantly at war with one another. Our energetic ambitions clash with our lazy nature; our physical needs clash with our spiritual goals; and so on. From the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep, there is a struggle waged within us between the various forces and tendencies that comprise the human being. True שלום, the Malbim writes, is achieved when a person’s various forces are at ease, when he is able to find the perfect balance between his energy, his desire for calmness, his physical needs, and his spiritual ambitions. When we are able to fulfill each of our innermost drives in just the right proportion, then we have achieved שלום. This happens when we have appropriate outlets for our energies, we enjoy rest and relaxation, we fulfill our bodily needs, and we strive for spiritual, idealistic goals – all in perfect balance and harmony. This is שלום.
For good reason, the blessing of שלום is found throughout our liturgy. The Amidah prayer ends with a prayer for peace; birkat ha’mazon ends with a prayer for peace; birkat kohanim ends with a prayer for peace. If a person has this element of שלום, and manages to maintain balance and order in his life, then no matter what else is happening, no matter what else he has or does not have, he is blessed. And if a person lacks this sense of balance, and his life is in disarray, then regardless of how much money he has, how many friends he has, or how religiously devoted he is, he does not experience true blessing. Balance is that important. Unless we live balanced lives, we are not blessed. And thus the ultimate blessing is the blessing of שלום, of inner peace and harmony.
ה' עוז לעמו יתן – Peace Through the Boldness
How does one achieve שלום? How can we help ensure that we achieve true balance in our lives?
There are several elements that contribute to the attainment of שלום, but we will focus here on just one.
A famous pasuk in Tehillim (29:11) says, ה' עוז לעמו יתן ה' יברך את עמו בשלום – “Hashem shall give His nation boldness; Hashem shall bless His nation with peace.” Surprisingly, this pasuk associates שלום with עוז – boldness and strength. Normally, when we think of “peace,” we think of somebody who is pleasant, unassuming and perhaps even meek. This pasuk, however, teaches us that peace is achieved through עוז, through strength and courage. What kind of strength leads to שלום?
When I speak to youngsters, I often tell them that the most important word in the English language is a simple two-letter word: “no.” In order to achieve true שלום, we need to have the strength to say “No” to things that are not in our best interest. We need to say “No” to other people, to distractions, and to ourselves.
The world around us is grabbing for our attention and our time at every corner. Wherever we turn, there is media, there is somebody or someone that wants us to focus on him or it, and to give our time. This is why life has become so stressful and anxiety-ridden – because our time is being consumed by the countless distractions that surround us and call out for our attention. Our lives are imbalanced and disorganized, as our time is recklessly and haphazardly distributed among things that we do not really need to spend time on. In order to achieve שלום, we need עוז, we need the strength and discipline to say “No,” to limit ourselves, to set boundaries, to know which calls for attention we should answer and which we shouldn’t.
On one level, this means not saying “Yes” to everybody who asks us for our time. Of course, we should be generous and giving, not just in sharing our money with those who need it, but also in sharing our time with those who need it. Still, we need to set limits. As a Rabbi, I learned the hard way the devastating effects of always saying “Yes,” of agreeing to every meeting and every speaking engagement. Unless we employ עוז to set limits, even limits to worthwhile projects, we will not experience שלום, the balance and peace we desire.
Additionally, this means saying “No” to distractions. We do not need to look at every link, to attend every event, to get every app, or to check our phones every three minutes. We need to say “No” to ourselves and to the media that will otherwise overtake our lives and prevent us from ever experiencing peace.
This is why Pinhas was rewarded with בריתי שלום, with a special blessing of peace. Moav came to Beneh Yisrael and sought to disrupt the balanced Torah life they lived. They offered something else, something different, something new, something exciting. Pinhas was the one who had the עוז to stand up and say “No,” to set limits. This is the key to שלום – the courage to say “No,” to turn off the device, to turn away from distraction, to maintain our focus on the things we need to focus on even when other things are calling for our attention and trying to lure us away.
A Date in a Hospital Bed
Sometime ago, I suffered from kidney stones. For about two weeks, I was in so much pain that I could barely get up off the couch.
At one point, on Shabbat, I needed to go to the hospital. My wife brought me there, and the medical staff in the hospital tended to me and gave me the medications I needed. Until the end of Shabbat, my wife and I sat together and talked. It dawned on us that we are on a date. We were doing something we hadn’t done in a very long time – spending several hours together, talking and enjoying each other’s company.
In my pajamas in the hospital room, I realized this message of שלום. My condition forced me to restore some balance into my life by putting me and my wife in a position where we will able to focus exclusively on each other.
Today’s world is so frenzied that many of us fail to experience שלום, to apportion our lives, to give the appropriate amount of time to Torah, to our marriages and to our families. We are so frazzled, constantly trying to keep up. Especially in today’s day and age, we need to muster a great deal of עוז, the strength and discipline to say “No,” to set appropriate limits so we live properly balanced lives.
The pasuk says in Tehillim (147:14), השם גבולך שלום – “He who makes peace on your borders.” Although this is not the literal meaning of the pasuk, it has been explained to mean that when one masters the skill of setting limits – השם גבולך – he can then achieve שלום. Not everything or everyone who wants our attention should be given it. Sometimes, we need to just stay at home and spend quality time with our families, or open a book and study. If we master this skill, then we will experience true שלום and enjoy a complete, wholesome and well-balanced life.