The pursuit of peace. The Parachar of Nassau seems on the face of it to be a heterogeneous collection of utterly unrelated items.

First, there's the account of the Levitical families of Gershen and Marari on their tasks in carrying parts of the tabernacle when the Israelites journeyed.

Then after two brief laws about removing unclean people from the camp

and about restitution, there comes the strange ordeal of the Sota, the woman suspected by her husband

of adultery. Next comes the law of the Nazarite, the person who voluntarily, and usually for a

fixed period, took on himself special holiness restrictions,

among them the renunciation of wine and great products, of haircuts, and of defilement

by contact with the dead body. This is followed, again seemingly with no connection,

by one of the oldest prayers in the world still in continuous use,

the priestly blessings. Then with inexplicable repetitiousness comes the account of the gifts

brought by the princes of each tribe at the dedication of the tabernacle, a long series of paragraphs

repeated no less than 12 times since each prince

brought an identical offering. Why does the terror spend so much time describing an event that

could have been stated far more briefly by naming the princes and then simply telling us generically that each brought a

silver dish, a silver basin, and so on. The question that overshadows all others, though, is

what is the logic of this apparently disconnected series? The answer lies. In the last word of the priestly blessing, Shalom, peace.

In a long analysis, the 15th century Spanish-Sanish-Jewish commentator Rabbi Isaac Arama

explains that Shalom does not mean merely the absence of war or strife.

It means completeness, perfectionally harmonious working of a complex system.

Integrated diversity, a state in which everything is in its proper place and all is at

one with the physical and ethical laws governing the universe. Peace is the thread of grace.

Issuing from him, may he be exalted,

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