On his final album, Prince sang, “If there ain’t no justice then there ain’t no peace.” Tragically, he would die the following year, in April of 2016. The line comes from the first track on that album, “Baltimore.”
Nobody got in nobody’s way / So, I guess you could say it was a good day / At least a little better than the day in Baltimore/Does anybody hear us pray / For Michael Brown or Freddie Gray?/Peace is more than the absence of war …
Turns out, the Jewish concept of shalom (peace) is also about much more than the absence of war. In fact, the slogan “no justice, no peace” — which resounded through the streets of Baltimore in 2015 and around the world in 2020 — has strong support in Jewish tradition.
Peace, like justice, is about persistence. Peace isn’t a state of being, it’s a way of being. “Be of the disciples of Aaron,” says Hillel, “loving peace and pursuing peace, loving fellow creatures and bringing them closer to Torah” (Pirkei Avot 1:12).
Peace is to be pursued, not just loved. This is probably why the Psalmist writes, “Shun evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it” (Ps. 34:15).
The most famous prayer Jews say about peace is probably Oseh Shalom. We say it at the end of every Amidah and every Mourner’s Kaddish. “Oseh shalom bimromav … May the One who makes peace in the heavens …” (Job 25:2), “hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu, also bring peace upon us.”
The language of the prayer is strange. Surely, we need peace here on earth, but why in heaven? Isn’t heaven the place where peace reigns? Actually, no. In a Jewish idiom, the cosmos is not a perfect place filled with fluffy clouds where everyone is happy. The divine realm is a place of dynamic tension.
Consider the creation narrative. “The earth was unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water” (Gen. 1:2). When God speaks the world into existence, it is a response to chaos, not order. God imposes peace (oseh shalom bimromav). The prayer asks that God play a similar role in our world, helping us to achieve peace here as well.
The relationship between justice and peace becomes clear as early as Chapter 9 of Genesis when the world has become supersaturated with hamas (violent lawlessness), and God determines the only solution is to send a flood and start creation anew. When a truce is finally declared, a rainbow appears in the sky. But don’t mistake the rainbow for just some pretty cosmic event. The ancients saw in the rainbow a weapon of the gods, and the Torah picks up the metaphor. Maimonides explains that God relinquishes the cosmic bow, putting it down with the business end facing upward. “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures, all flesh that is on earth” (Gen. 9:16).
The Talmud elaborates: “As Rabbi Yoanan said: ‘Why is written: “Dominion and fear are with God; God makes peace in the high places” (Job 25:2)?’ [It means] the sun has never seen the concave side of the new moon, nor has it ever seen the concave side of a rainbow …[Why?] So that the worshippers of the sun should not say [as though the sun is a god] that the sun is [shooting arrows at those who deny its divinity], using the rainbow as its bow.” The concave side of the rainbow faces away from heaven so humanity knows they will never again be in the crosshairs of divine justice. “Justice, justice you shall pursue” (Deut. 16:20). Which means it’s up to us to pursue both justice and peace.
Peace, Prince sang, “is more than the absence of war.” Shalom is, by definition, a thing to be pursued. That’s the fundamental relationship between peace and justice. Each needs to be sought and vigilance in pursuit of one is inseparable from the other. This is the fundamental problem with “broken windows”-style policing that led to the death of Freddie Gray. Pursuing order at the expense of justice ignores systemic problems at best and exacerbates them at worst. As Sen. Ben Cardin said in 2020 when he introduced his bill to prevent racial profiling, “The preamble to the constitution mentions justice before tranquility.”
We crave tranquility, we yearn for quiet. But quiet for some must not mean suffering for others. We earn peace by seeking it. And until justice is achieved, peace will remain elusive.
No justice, no peace.
Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg is spiritual leader of Beth Am Synagogue in Reservoir Hill. This column and others also can be found on his blog, The Urban Rabbi.
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