Sim Shalom
Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt”l (whose 31st yahrzeit is today) often spoke about the connection between shaleim as wholeness, and that of another conjugation, “shalom“, peace. Shalom is not simply a cessation of violence. That wouldn’t be an expression of sheleimus, wholeness. Rather, shalom is a time when all the nations “will come together in a single union to do Your will with a leivav shaleim, a whole heart.”
.שָׁלוֹם רָב, לְאֹהֲבֵי תוֹרָתֶךָ; וְאֵין-לָמוֹ מִכְשׁוֹל
Shalom rav is granted those who love Your Torah, and they have no obstacles.
– Tehillim 119:165
Shalom rav is the unity and wholeness of self that eliminates all obstacles from the path of the lover of Torah. Sheleimus within each heart being expressed as sheleimus within humanity as a whole.
And since learning this idea, I have had a warm spot for the version of the last berakhah of Shemoneh Esrei used by Ashkenazim for Minchah and Maariev, which begins Shalom Rav. More so than the other version of the barachah, Sim Shalom.
Until I noticed something. There are two lists of berakhos that we ask Hashem to bestow on us in Sim Shalom (tr. Metsudah linear siddur, by Rabbi Avrohom Davis, 1981):
שִׂים שָׁלוֹם טוֹבָה וּבְרָכָה חֵן וָחֶֽסֶד וְרַחֲמִים עָלֵֽינוּ וְעַל כָּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל עַמֶּֽךָ. בָּרְ֒כֵֽנוּ אָבִֽינוּ כֻּלָּֽנוּ כְּאֶחָד בְּאוֹר פָּנֶֽיךָ. כִּי בְאוֹר פָּנֶֽיךָ נָתַֽתָּ לָּֽנוּ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ תּוֹרַת חַיִּים וְאַהֲבַת חֶֽסֶד וּצְדָקָה וּבְרָכָה וְרַחֲמִים וְחַיִּים וְשָׁלוֹם. וְטוֹב בְּעֵינֶֽיךָ לְבָרֵךְ אֶת עַמְּ֒ךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּכָל־עֵת וּבְכָל־שָׁעָה בִּשְׁלוֹמֶֽךָ: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’ הַמְ֒בָרֵךְ אֶת־עַמּוֹ יִשְׂרָאֵל בַּשָּׁלוֹם:Grant (1) peace, (2) goodness, and (3) blessing, (4) favor, (5) kindness and (6) compassion upon us and upon all Israel, Your people. Bless us, our Father, all of us as one with the light of Your countenance. For by the light of Your countenance You gave us Hashem our G-d, (1) a Torah of life and (2) the love of kindliness, (3) righteousness, (4) blessing, (5) compassion, (6) life and (7) peace. And may it be good in Your sight to bless Your people, Israel, at all times and at every moment with Your peace. Blessed are You, Hashem, Who blesses His people Israel with peace.
The first list has six items. The second has seven. The first are all things that are about how we relate to the world and how the world relates to us. The second includes “Toras Chaim” and “Ahavas Chessed”, describing gifts that change us internally.
As the Maharal writes that the number six represents the six directions (two in each of three dimensions). The six faces of a cube. Surfaces. Things made on the Six Days of Creation. The seventh is the hidden unreachable center of the cube. Internality. Holiness.
The six blessings in the first list, it would therefore seem to me, are those of Shalom. Having peaceful and harmonious relationship with others. That we receive peace, good, berakhah, favor… The second list is internal. The wholeness that generates real peace: Torah, loving Chessed, being a source of Berakhah, etc…
This would explain why we ask that the first list, of six items, is “sim … aleinu ve’al kol Yisrael“, that Hashem “place” them “upon us and all of Israel”. Bestowed upon. Externally. Whereas the second lost, that of seven items, “nasatana lanu – You gave to us”, in a manner we can choose to internalize.
If so, Sim Shalom speaks of the concept of Shalom Rav, as my Rebbe developed it, no less than the berakhah that opens with the words “Shalom Rav”. The true peace that is an external expression of an internal wholeness and an internal wholeness that comes from living peaceably with others. In fact, Sim Shalom may be making that point even more explicitly.
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