Blessing 19: Place Peace

Sim Shalom- Place Peace

“Sim Shalom” is sometimes mistranslated as “grant peace”. The word “sim” does not mean grant.

Let us look at another place where the same word is used: “V’Zot haTorah asher sam Moshe lifnei Bnai Yisrael…” Moshe is not granting the Torah, he is placing it in front of us- we are supposed to be actively involved in taking from it.

“Grant” implies a gift you are simply given, “sim”, placing, is something that is placed for you to take of. “Sim Shalom” means that God is putting peace into our existence, peace into our home, into our synagogue, into our community, into our world, and we have to learn how to use it.

The peace is there for us to take. This is going to change entirely how we define peace. It is placed there and it is just a question of whether and how we are going to be able to access it.