Page "Shalom" Paragraph 5

Shalom, in the liturgy and in the transcendent message of the Christian scriptures, means more than a state of mind, of being or of affairs.

Derived from the Hebrew root shalam – meaning to be safe or complete, and by implication, to be friendly or to reciprocate.

Shalom, as term and message, seems to encapsulate a reality and hope of wholeness for the individual, within societal relations, and for the whole world.

To say joy and peace, meaning a state of affairs where there is no dispute or war, does not begin to describe the sense of the term.

Completeness seems to be at the center of shalom as we will see in the meaning of the term itself, in some derivatives from its root, shalam, in some examples of its uses in Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and in some homophone terms from other Semitic languages.