Shalom Bayit - Peace in the Home

Rabbi Melanie Aron

NCCJ Women's Study Day
October 18, 2001

In English we say a man's home is his castle. But the Jewish equivalent is a little different. We say a home should be a mikdash me'at, a little sanctuary. That is it should partake in some way of the holiness of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.

Many rituals that Jewish families observe come from this sense of their homes as a mikdash me'at, and their tables as little altars. That is why Jews eat kosher meat on their tables at home and why people put salt on the challah bread when we say the blessing hamotzi on Friday nights.

Jewish homes were also a sanctuary for the many centuries when Jews suffered from ill-treatment in the outside world. Outside your home you might be called a dog or a swine, but within your home, you were honored as a being created in the image of God. A historian writing about Jewish life in the middle ages observed: "The purity of the Jewish home life was a constant antidote to the poisonous suggestions of life in the slums."

Preserving peace and harmony in the home was a very important Jewish value. Men were advised:

• Be not like a lion in your home, tyrannous and terrible.
• Make not those who live under your roof dread your presence.
• If your wife is short, bend over to hear her whisper.
• Love your wife as much as yourself and honor her more than yourself.

The commandment "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" was seen to apply also to the members of your own family and there was no such thing as company manners.

A contemporary Orthodox rabbi, wrote about this in an interesting way. He noted that he often discussed with families the need to keep one's temper within the home, and people would respond that their wife or husband or child had just made them so angry that they could not control themselves. "If you say you can't control yourself," he said, "that you are that mad - then imagine if the President of the United States were to walk into your home at that very moment. Surely then you would speak in a restrained and dignified manner. You can control yourself. You just have to be properly motivated to think of your spouse and your children as important as any visiting dignitary."

Keeping things peaceful at home was so important that on occasion one was allowed to shade the truth just a little bit. This comes from the one example of God not being totally forthcoming in the Bible. This is in the story of Abraham and Sarah. As you recall, three angels visit and tell Sarah that next year she would have a son. Sarah says: "Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment, with my husband so old" But when God reports her words to Abraham, God says: "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I in truth bear a child, as old as I am?" God did not want to create any friction between husband and wife. God wanted to preserve Shalom Bayit peace in the home.

The creation of peace in the home was considered a key to the creation of peace in the community, and peace in the community was a start towards making peace in the world.

Thus our prayerbook includes the words: "Those who have made peace in their house, it is as though they brought peace to all Israel, indeed to all the world." But continues, in the theme of our afternoon program: "Be not content to make peace in your own household alone: go forth and work for peace wherever men and women are struggling in its cause."