 There has been a long-standing custom among Jewish people to study Perke Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, during the period between Passover and Shavuot, which is the holiday that comes seven weeks after Passover, commemorating the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Some people continue studying this little beautiful book of ethical teachings and aphorisms. Past Shavuot, all the way until Rosh Hashanah. And the last Mishnah, the last teaching in the first chapter of Perke Avot, Ethics or Chapters of the Fathers, Rabban Shimon Bengamliel teaches that the world endures. The world exists. The world is able to endure and exist on account of three things. There are three things that are necessary for our world to be able to endure and exist. MS Din Vashalom, Truth, Justice and Peace. Truth, Justice and Peace. And according to the commentary of the Yavats, peace is listed last because without it the other two would be worthless. Similarly, in our daily prayers, it's a Jewish practice to pray three times a day. Our prayer is called the Amida, the standing meditation. It's sometimes called the Shmone Esra, the 18, which is a misnomer because now there are 19 blessings in our prayer. It includes vital requests for our personal and national needs. But the very last blessing is one for peace. Because without peace, all the other blessings are not of any value or are of very little value. This idea is echoed in the very last teaching of the entire Talmud. The Talmud is a huge body of Jewish teaching. And the very last Mishnah, the very last teaching of the entire Talmud in a book called Uqtsin, the third chapter, Rabbi Shimon Ben-Khalafta said, the Holy One blessed as He could not find a vessel that could hold Israel's blessings other than peace. As it says in Psalm chapter 29, verse 11, Adonai-e-Ozliyamo-Yitain, Adonai-yivorech-esamo-bashalom, that God will give might to His nation and God will bless His nation with peace. Peace is the ultimate vessel. It's a cleat, it's a vessel that is able to contain all the other blessings in life. And without this vessel of peace being intact, everything else can slip right through. Not only of course do we end our daily prayer, our daily prayer meditation with a blessing for peace, but each time we eat a meal and we say the Birkat Hamazon, the Grace After Meals, we end with the same verse from the book of Psalms that concludes the Talmud, God will give might to His nation and God will bless His nation with peace. And as well in the Birkat Kohanim, the priestly benediction, the priestly blessings that are found in the book of Numbers chapter 6, that in some communities, especially in Israel and in Svarda communities here in outside of Israel, this is said regularly in communities outside of Israel and Ashkenazda communities, it's said during the holidays, but the last of the three priestly blessings ends with a blessing for peace. And finally the well-known Qadish prayer, probably the most well-known prayer in the entire Jewish liturgy, ends by saying, may he who makes peace in his exalted realms, he should make peace upon us and upon all of Israel, etc. Now the end of the third book of the Torah, which is the book of Vayikra, Leviticus, which is the book that we're reading now, the end of the third book is a chapter called Bechukotai, and it begins by describing the rewards that we will receive for following the directives of the Torah, and after promising reign and crops, etc., verse 6 of chapter 27 says, I will provide peace in the land, and you will lie down with none to frighten you. And Rashi, the famous commentary writing about a thousand years ago in France says that by ending all the blessings here for following the ways of God with one for peace, Rashi says the Torah is teaching that peace is equivalent to all the other blessings combined. That's how great peace is. The Talmud in Tractai Gitan, page 59b, understands a verse in the book of Proverbs, in the book of Proverbs chapter 3 verse 17, it says, its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all of its pathways are peace. The Talmud understands that that passage in the book of Proverbs is referring to the Torah. And so the Talmud says that the entire Torah, everything in our Torah, is for the sake of peace. Everything that we're taught ultimately is for the sake of peace, of how to gain peace in our lives, how to gain peace in the world. The Midrash in Leviticus, Vayikur Araba chapter 9 teaches that one of God's names is peace, and it bases upon a verse in the book of Judges chapter 6 verse 24 where it speaks about an altar that's built, and part of the name is God is peace. I remember years ago when I first became a student at Yeshiva University, I purchased a doormat from my dorm room, and the doormat had the word Shalom written on it. And someone came over to me and said, well, it's not a good idea to have a doormat saying Shalom, because that's one of God's names, and you don't want to be stepping all over it. So that was the end of that doormat. I'm not sure how I promoted it. The Midrash also teaches in the book of the Midbar Numbers chapter 7 that our prophets, all the prophets in our Bible taught our people to care for nothing as much as caring for peace. Now we all know that the messianic hope, the great messianic hope of our Bible has one of its main components and elements, the promise of peace. The rabbi said in again Numbers, rabba chapter 11 that great is peace, seeing that when the Messiah king is to come, he will commence with peace. As it says in Isaiah chapter 52 verse 7, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger of good tidings that announces peace. Hopefully, one day the United Nations in New York will actualize and even internalize the beautiful message that's emblazoned upon the Isaiah wall that stands on the street outside the General Assembly calling for all nations to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore. Unfortunately, as we all know, the United Nations has not been a great catalyst for world peace. Of course, the standard greeting that Jewish people use when greeting each other is either shalom or shalom aleichem, may you have peace. And peace, of course, is not simply an end, an absence of war and an absence of hostility. That's not what peace is all about. Shalom is related to the word shalem. We find this word in Genesis chapter 33 verse 18 after we know that Jacob had an incredibly difficult relationship with his brother Asav. Asav at one point was seeking to kill him and Jacob has to flee and when he finally comes back and reunites with his brother they have a very, could have been a frightening meeting. And after they meet, they embrace, they seem to come to some kind of peace between them. We're told that Jacob and Asav departed from each other and the Torah says that Jacob arrived shalem at the city of Shchem. He came shalem. Shalem means complete, whole. It means that your life is harmonious. All the areas complimenting each other, you're integrated, you're together. And so when we speak about shalom, we're talking about not just an absence of conflict, but we're talking about completeness, being together, being integrated, being harmonious. And when it comes to our relationships with other people, shalom is a state of harmony and cooperation. Now we know that our universe is characterized by a measure of disorder and entropy. At least that's what I learned when I was a student in high school. The Hebrew word for the heavens is shamaim. And it's said to be a combination of two components. Shamaim is a combination of ash and mayim, fire and water, two complete and antagonistic opposites. So when we say in our Qadish prayer, at the end of the Qadish, or ses shalom bim romav, that God makes peace in the upper exalted realms, the understanding is that this refers to bringing some cooperation to the cosmic manifestations of ash and mayim, of fire and water in shamaim in the heavens. And if shalom, if peace is from the word shalem, complete and perfect and whole, the opposite is a word called machloket. If shalom from shalem means whole and complete, the opposite is machloket, which means discord or dispute, and machloket comes from the Hebrew word chaelek, which means a part or a fragment. If peace is completeness, then the opposite is fragmentation. The Sfasemes, a great Hasidic teacher, maintains that machlokes, discord, is actually the natural state of mankind. Why? Because each one of us is different. We're individuals. We have separate identities. And we're very invested in our identities. We're very invested in who we are. We're invested in our differentness. And so the natural state of mankind is not harmony, is not togetherness, unless we make a tremendous effort to come together with other people who are often so different than we are. If we don't make that kind of effort, if we don't strive for that, then we will probably remain separate rather than moving closer together. The truth is that each one of us is a highly complex being and a bundle of contradictions and opposing qualities, each one of us within ourselves. And the truth is that we have to struggle to integrate ourselves and to keep ourselves whole. The task of becoming a whole person is not so easy, even within ourselves. Inner peace is an incredibly difficult thing to attain. And we've dealt with this in a previous lecture entitled .com that you can find on YouTube. Tonight, we'll be focusing on the area not of inner peace, but on interpersonal relationships and the goal of achieving shalom in our relationships. First, let's just say that there are numerous personal character traits that when cultivated facilitate living harmoniously with others. We're not going to have time to go into each of these tonight, but it's important to understand that in order to work on peace with others, a great deal of that means to develop who we are as individuals. With that, listing these in any particular order, number one, getting a life. You know, we have this expression, just get a life. And probably one of the most critical qualities to cultivate within ourselves is having an inner joy and happiness. Because we are clear about who we are and the purpose of our lives, and we realize that our lives are short. And there are incredibly important things to achieve in life. And getting a life means that we are dedicated to pursuing the most important things in life. And as the Chazanish once said, that to a person living with a light of truth, there can be no sadness. Which means that if we are living our lives according to what we were meant to be doing, if we're pursuing what we should be doing in life, we will have joy and inner peace. Secondly, working on becoming a more patient and tolerant person. Tolerance is an incredibly important quality and value within Judaism. We have an entire lecture on the theme of tolerance also that you can find on YouTube. And just becoming someone who's patient with ourselves and with others is an incredibly important quality to work on. Thirdly, seeking to be a person who does kindness for others and to grow in our love and compassion for other people. Becoming people of love, becoming people of compassion. It's more difficult to get into tremendous quarrels with others when we want to be loving people and compassionate people. Fourth, striving to be people of humility. Learning that life is not about me. Now one of the most useful tools to employ is the Torah's directive to judge others favorably. It's one of the commandments in the Bible to judge other people favorably. So many quarrels would be nipped in the bud if we just got into the habit of always seeking to give other people the benefit of the doubt. There's a wonderful book that I recommend highly by Yehuda Samet called The Other Side of the Story. It's a book that's based upon a group of women in Jerusalem that meet or have met regularly for years. And what they would do each time they met was they would brainstorm over different personal struggles and quarrels and conflicts that they had in their lives. One was not invited to a wedding they expected to be invited to. Another one had a friend that dishonored them. I mean we each run into these occasions, into these instances so many times in our daily lives, small things, bigger things, from our friends, from our relatives, sometimes from strangers. And so this group of women got together and they would sit and they would try to help each other, judge the other person favorably. Maybe this was going on in their life. There's a wonderful story I once heard about a woman who was waiting for her flight at Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel. And she was munching on a pack of crackers when an elderly man came and sat down next to her right across from her on the small table. And she started to feel thirsty from the crackers so she got up to buy a drink somewhere in the lounge. And when she came back to her seat she was shocked to see this old man casually eating out of her box of crackers. Like it was his. And she says to herself, is he for real? I can't believe this. What an incredible chutzpah. So she finally reached out and pulled a cracker out of the box hoping that he'd get a hint and he would just stop, maybe even go away. But he didn't. And after she put her hand in and took out a cracker, he did the same thing. He put his hand in and took out a cracker. She says to herself, he's got to be crazy. So again she reached in for a cracker and he did the same thing. And this continued back and forth until they reached the end of the box. And finally he took out the last cracker and he broke it in half and gave her a piece. By this time she had enough. And she got up and started making her way over to the plane. She got on the plane and she was placing her bag in the overhead compartment and she opened it just to check for something. And she was shocked to see that in her carry-on bag was an opened box of crackers. She suddenly realized that when she got up to buy her drink, she placed the crackers in her own bag. And now she realized that she was the one who had been the uninvited guest eating the old man's crackers. It's so easy to judge people negatively and jump to the worst conclusions. About what someone did that we didn't think they should have done. Or what someone didn't do that we feel they should have done. This and that disappointment that we have routinely in life. So Artura says, try to see if it's possible to imagine that they may have had a reason for what they did. Or maybe they were in a very difficult or stressful situation. Or maybe this or maybe that. Don't we wish that other people were less judgmental of us? It says in Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers. Have they done at Kohlha Adam, the Kaffs-Russ, judged the entire person, the whole person, to the scale of merit. Meaning don't just condemn people or write them off because of a small disappointment. Because what about all the other good things they do? What about all the other great qualities they have? In the book of Exodus chapter 22 verse 30, the Torah says, People of holiness you shall be to me. You shall not eat the flesh of an animal that was torn in the field. To the dog you shall throw it. Now obviously in Torah law we cannot eat an animal, kosher animal unless it was slaughtered properly. So if an animal was mauled by a predator in the field, it was not slaughtered properly by a shochet, a ritual slaughterer, and we can't eat it. It's called a novella. And what do we do with that animal? So the Torah says you throw it to the dog. The wonderful commentary that Das Kahn in Ibali Atosvus says, It's very interesting when it says throw it to the dog. What dog is it referring to? And they suggest that it probably refers to the dog that was normally guarding your flock. If you had a flock of sheep, you weren't out there all night long watching your sheep to make sure your sheep were safe. Usually your dog, your guard dog, was out there trying to protect your flocks. And usually your dog did a great job. It did a wonderful job. What does your dog normally get to eat? Not much. Maybe after you've had your entire meal, a bone that you throw under the table, a tiny scrap. Here, it sounds strange. Here the dog didn't do his job. Here the dog allowed a wolf or some other predator come in and maul one of your sheep. And now you're not going to be able to eat it. And what happens? You have to throw the carcass to the dog. The dog that let you down, the dog that didn't do its job. The dog that allowed this wolf to get into the flock and kill one of your herd. It's getting rewarded now at the very moment that it let you down. And the Dossacanum says yes. Because at this moment, you want to remember that you know what, this dog usually does a wonderful job for you. This dog usually takes care of your flock. This dog usually actually even risks its life to help you. And you don't usually reward it that much. You usually take it for granted. So now the Torah says thank it. Give it a beautiful meal. Give it the entire sheep or whatever was mauled. We got to judge people, the entire person. People are bigger and more than the thing that they did to hurt us or disappoint us. These character traits that I mentioned in these practices are like antibodies to fractured relationships. Of course sometimes we get into disagreements with others. We disagree about money, about business, about politics, about beliefs, about honor, about occurrences in life. But when these disputes get personal and they develop into a machloket, a division and people stop speaking to each other, this is a serious problem. My monotheist wrote to his son the following. Do not sully yourself with strife with machlokis that destroys the body, the soul and property, leaving nothing. I have seen the bright blackened. I've seen leaders diminished, families broken, princes demoted from their positions, large cities weakened, groups disbanded, pious people lost and trustworthy erased and honored people shamed and disgraced. All as a result of strife. Prophets prophesied, wise men shared their wisdom and philosophers explored and elaborated on the evils of strife and they all could not truly capture the extent of it. Thus I urge you, my son, to despise it and distance yourself from it and from all those who consider themselves its friends and supporters. The truth is that when we get involved with a dispute of other people, it can lead to many transgressions, many Torah prohibitions, including Lashon Harah, speaking evil, slandering others, the prohibition against taking revenge, the prohibition against bearing a grudge, the prohibition against hating your friend in your heart, the prohibition against saying hurtful words to people, and most seriously the prohibition against Khilal Hashem, disgracing and dishonoring God, among other transgressions. Now some people maintain that there's actually a general prohibition in the Torah against getting involved with quarrels and disputes. The classic example of a quarrel in the Torah is Korach's rebellion against Moses. Many people got involved in this fight and it doesn't end up well for any of them as we see in the book of Numbers chapter 16. In the aftermath of this debacle, the Torah warns in Numbers chapter 17 verse 5, do not be like Korach and his followers. And the Talmud and some commentaries say this is actually a Torah prohibition, not just something that was relevant back then, but it's a warning for all time we should not get involved with quarrels and disputes. Interestingly, arguing is a treasured and essential part of Judaism. Our sages call these arguments for the sake of heaven. Arguments for the sake of heaven are arguments in the pursuit of truth. An argument not for the sake of heaven is one in pursuit of victory. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught that an obsession with victory, with winning, prevents us from taking the other person seriously. Because it's all about me. It's all about my position. And it's all about me being right. And the other person therefore has to be wrong. That's what happens with an obsession with winning, with victory. The dispute between Moses and Korach is seen as the epitome of an argument not for the sake of heaven, not for the sake of truth. Korach and his cohorts never even attempt to confront Moses directly with their complaints. We don't see in the Torah anywhere where they actually come to Moses with their complaints. When Moses tried to have a dialogue with them, he was just rebuffed and insulted. They instead went behind Moses' back and spread all kinds of rumors and lies about him. The sages hold up the disputes of Hillel and Shamai as arguments for the sake of truth and for the sake of heaven. Those are good arguments. And even though they had fierce disputes, and if you enter any Talmudic study hall that happens today, the arguing can be fierce. But it didn't get personal. And the Talmud says that the students of Hillel and Shamai loved each other, married each other. They never broke their relationships. Now Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of England, sees in the nature of our sages' disputations with each other a model for healthy conflict resolution. And this includes, he says, number one, respecting the other point of view, even when disagreeing. Even when we disagree, do it in a respectful way. Number two, listening actively to the other point of view and trying deeply to understand their position. Try to understand the person we're disagreeing with. Number three, never use force. Meaning not even psychological force or intimidation, only logic and persuasion. Number four, be open to the outcome, because you may be proven wrong. My friend who was a student of Rabbi Solovecic, one of the great Talmudic sages in the past century, said that there were more than one time where he would give a lecture that went on for hours. And a student would ask a question and sometimes Rabbi Solovecic would come back the next day and say, take yesterday's class and throw it out. A class, a lecture that he worked on for hours and hours and hours, he was not going to fudge. He was not going to do anything it took to buttress a weak point. Number five, see disagreement, not just as conflict, but as a collaborative activity in the pursuit of truth. Too often our disputes today are fights, that's all they are. They're fights and we have to win. Rabbi Sack says, no, we have to see our disagreements with others as a collaborative activity in pursuit of the truth, wherever it leads. Next Rabbi Sack says we should accept this process as a holy part of life, as a beautiful part of life. And finally keep talking to each other, even though your opponents, even though you disagree, you can and should love each other. What an incredibly refreshing perspective this is, especially after what has become of contemporary political discourse and social media nastiness. The ranker that takes place in our world today is the most unhealthy kind of disputing and arguing. Not what we would call disputing for the sake of heaven. Now the preferred way to settle disputes and arguments and disagreements in life is to seek peace by negotiating and compromising. When each side insists on being right and refuses to budge, compromise is impossible. The Torah however teaches that sometimes truth needs to be compromised in order to achieve peace. Sometimes we have conflicting values in life. Truth is an ultimate value. But peace is considered to be an even more ultimate value. And so even though we do everything to achieve truth in life, sometimes the Torah teaches you have to fudge the truth in order to achieve peace. Compromise is fudging the truth because the truth is one of these people is probably right and the other one is probably wrong. But the Torah wants to have a win-win situation. And a win-win situation, a compromise, might be a distortion to a degree of the truth. The Torah even teaches that God himself distorted the truth in order to have peace. When he told Abraham and Sarah they were going to have children, Sarah laughed and said, How are we going to have children? I'm all washed up. My husband's an old man. And God comes back to Abraham and just says, Well, Sarah didn't think that you're going to be able to have children because she's so old. God didn't report to Abraham that Sarah said you're also an old geezer. In order to maintain peace between Abraham and Sarah, God did not have full disclosure. Hillel and Shammai debated what is the appropriate way of dancing before a bride at a wedding. So Hillel said, You dance and you clap and you sing, Kala naa kala khasuda, what a beautiful bride, what a pious bride. And Shammai said, What are you talking about? Not every bride is gorgeous. How can you say every bride is beautiful? Maybe she's very plain looking or worse. So Shammai said, No, when you dance in front of the bride, you just basically say, Whatever, she's got a great personality. You have to tell the absolute truth. And Hillel says, No, you don't have to be absolutely truthful when it comes to peace. But when people's pride or their greed gets in the way and they insist that it's the principle of the matter, I'm fighting for the principle. I'm not going to compromise. There's never going to be any peace. The Torah prefers mediation and compromise. Refaim of Elijah pointed out that in our prayers, the daily meditation, the 19 blessings, I mentioned the very last blessing is a blessing for peace. And at the very, very end, we take three steps back when we finish the entire prayer. And we say, O seh shalom bim ramav, God makes peace in the upper realms. Huya seh shalom aleinu, he should make peace among us and among all of Israel. And as we say that, we take three steps backwards. And Refaim of Elijah says that you know what, sometimes you've got to retreat from your position in order to have peace. If you want peace, you sometimes have to take steps backward. You can't always hold your ground and insist that you're right. Then the next idea I'm going to share may rub some people the wrong way. But it may well be worth a second look. It's called Vatranus or being Mevater. Which in English means being foregoing, giving in or just letting go. Just let it go. You want to have peace in life? You've got to know that many times just let go. It doesn't mean that you're being weak. It doesn't mean that you're being a doormat. It just means that you value your relationships more than your ego. Or at least it means knowing when to pick your fights. There were people who will make an issue over everything. They've got to correct everything that other people do. Everything has to be perfect. Exactly the way they expect it to be. Sometimes it's just not worth making a stink. Sometimes just let it go. When I come to Shule and I see someone sitting in my seat. Do I have to kick them out of my seat? Or do I let it go? And realize that I'll probably be able to make it through the day sitting next to them. If I'm approaching a parking spot at the same time someone else is approaching the same parking spot. I can just let it go. That's alright. You can have the spot. Sometimes it's very hard to do that. Very hard. Especially if you're in a rush. It can be very hard in life to let go. But Roshach once said that no one ever lost out in life by letting go. If we realize that our friends and family don't have to be perfect. If we sometimes overlook their imperfections. The things that they do. The things that they don't do. That's healthy. The Apt-er-Rav, the famous Apt-er-Rav, Yahushua Heschel of Apt. Wrote a famous book called The Ohev Yisrael. The one who loves Israel. And he was famous for claiming that every chapter in the Bible teaches about how to love other people. And get along with other people. And as students once said that rabbi, we don't see it in this week's Torah portion. We don't see where it happens to be the Torah portion of Balak. The Midianite king that wanted to hire the prophets, Billum, to curse the Jewish people. They said, we don't see, where do you see a lesson? A lesson for Shalom, for peace in that chapter. And he said to them, what are you talking about? It's in the name of the chapter. Right there in the name Balak. And they looked at him, what are you talking about, Balak? That's teaching us about peace? And getting along with others? He said, of course. Look at the word Balak. It stands for And they started to smile and they said, what are you talking about? And Kamochah is not where the kuf, it's where the chaff. And he said, exactly. He said, that's my point. If everything in life has to be 100% perfect, you're never going to have peace in your life. Of course, I should point out, the Torah does urge us to rebuke and reprove people if they're doing the wrong thing. But there's a very delicate art to doing this. And you have to know when to make an issue. Otherwise you may win the battle, but you're going to lose the war. Vatranut, being foregoing, letting go, is the antidote to the Torah prohibition of holding a grudge. The Torah says in Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18, Do not take revenge, do not hold a grudge. What is the difference between taking revenge and holding a grudge? Rashi explains, you go to your neighbor and you say, Can I borrow your snow shovel? And he says, absolutely not. The next week he comes to you and says, can I borrow your ladder? So if you say no, you're guilty of taking revenge. If you say, sure, even though you didn't lend me your snow shovel, here's my ladder, that's holding a grudge. You remind the person, I'm not like you. You didn't lend me your snow shovel, but you certainly can have my ladder. That's holding a grudge. And the Torah says that's prohibited. Now think about that. What the Torah is saying is that when someone disappoints you, when someone upsets you, when someone ticks you off, you're not allowed to hold a grudge. And so the antidote to this is called being Mevatir, letting it go. With being Mevatir, you disregard the past and you look forward to the future. Of course, there can be a huge incentive for doing this, because the Talmud says in tractate, Rosh Hashanah 17a, that if we are forgiving of others, then the heavenly tribunal will be forgiving of us. That's because, as we say in the book of Psalms, chapter 121 verse 5, Hashem tzilcha, God is your shadow. And the Baal Shem Tov explained, what does it mean God is your shadow? That your shadow moves just the way you do. And God is your shadow. So in the same way that you move around in this world, that's how God's going to move in a relationship to you. And if you are forgiving of others, God will be forgiving of you. Now we saw that in the dispute between Moses and Korach, Moses made numerous attempts to meet with Korach and to reconcile with him, even though Moses was the leader of the people, even though Moses was totally right. He was the one that ignored his honor, ignored his being right, and went numerous times to try and reconcile with Korach. The Midrash in Vayikra Rabbah 9-9 says the following, Great is Shalom peace, because about all the other commandments in the Torah, it is written, if you happen upon, if it should occur, if you see, which implies that if the opportunity to do a commandment comes upon you, then you must do it. And if not, you're not bound to do it. But in the case of peace, it is written, seek peace and pursue it. That's from Psalm 34 verse 15. Seek it in the place where you are and pursue it after in another place. Aaron, the brother of Moses, was exemplary as someone who was Rodev Shalom, who pursued peace. It says in Ethics of the Fathers, Perkayavot chapter 1, mission 12, he was someone who was Ohave Shalom, he loved peace, the Rodev Shalom, he pursued peace. He was proactive when it came to pursuing peace and would have no problem bending the truth if it led to peace. Avostar of Nussam, an expansion of the teachings in Perkayavot says that if Aaron knew of a couple who was fighting, a married couple that was arguing, or two friends that were fighting, Aaron would go to each one of them separately. And Aaron would say to each one, do you know the other person, they can't stand what's been happening between you. They feel so terrible about what happened. He told us to each one of them. And when they finally met up with each other, they were able to easily reconcile. There's a wonderful story I read about the Begorayur Rav of Mordechai, about walking one day slowly and thoughtfully along the sidewalks of Tel Aviv. He inspired Orh in all the people that passed by his shining face. Suddenly and uncharacteristically, he turned to his Gaba, his assistant, and told him that he wanted to enter the jewelry store they had just passed by. As the astonished Gaba watched, the Rebbe asked the proprietor of the store to help him select a beautiful watch, a gift for his wife. The owner displayed several samples, but the Rebbe wasn't impressed. Are these watches ones that you consider nice? If they are, you don't really understand fine watches. Finally, the Rebbe asked the proprietor if there were anyone else in the store who could help. The owner called his wife from the back of the store. And she brought over a different-styled watch. And the Rebbe smiled broadly, this is exquisite. It's refined. It's tasteful. It's sophisticated. So he turned to his Gaba and commented, this saleswoman appreciates quality and craftsmanship. He asked how much the watch cost, and the owner named an astronomical figure far more than the Rebbe could afford. But the Rebbe paid for the watch. It took the Gaba, his assistant, several months, but he finally summoned up the courage to ask the Rebbe for an explanation of this bizarre incident. The Rebbe was surprised. Didn't you hear? As we walked past the shop, the owner was shouting at his wife in a loud voice telling her that she knew nothing about watches and had better remain in the back of the store when she wouldn't do any harm. Is any price too high to restore the respect of a Jewish woman? I want to conclude by sharing a wonderful passage from the Talmud in Tractate Brachot 56b. It's a section of the Talmud which deals with dreams. And the Talmud says that if in your dream you see a river, a kettle, or a bird, you can look forward to seeing peace in your life. If you dream about a river, a pot, or a bird, you will see an expect to find peace in your life. The commentaries explain that there are three main things that drive wedges between people and destroy harmony in relationships. These are jealousy, lust, and arrogance. And that's why these kinds of dreams portend peace. A river is beautiful and useful if it stays within its bounds and its banks. It's destructive otherwise. Peace requires that each person be happy with what they have and with their station in life. This is the antidote to jealousy. If you see a kettle or a pot, what does a kettle or a pot do? It unites fire and water to work together harmoniously to cook. What does the pot get out of it? Absolutely nothing, except that it might get burnt and blackened in the process. So the pot negates the lustful attitude of what's in it for me. And finally, the bird combats and is an antidote to arrogance because the bird is flexible and light and will fly away for others and make room for others. And Talmud says that Korach and his group accused him behind his back of the most horrible things. And what did Moses do according to the Talmud? He took up his tent and pitched it outside the camp. He left the scene of the dispute. His reaction to the dispute was to fly away like a bird, to be quiet, not to say anything, to walk away. This tactic is guaranteed to nip any dispute in the bud. I read once about a very successful congregational rabbi and he said that he had one rule that he never violated in all his years in the rabbinate. That was that whenever a congregant accused him of something or said anything inflammatory or disrespectful, situations in which he had every right to put the congregant in his place, his rule was not to say anything. His rule was keep your mouth shut. And he said that invariably five or ten Yom Kippur is down the road. The person will come to him and apologize for talking the way they did. Now it takes tremendous strength of character to keep this kind of silence, especially when the charges and the offenses are so outrageous. But this is the Torah's lesson when it speaks about Moses falling on his face. That the best way to deal with machlokas, with arguments, with strife, is to avoid it, is with silence, is not to engage, is to be like the bird and to take off. I want to give each of us a blessing that we should have more peace in our lives, with our friends, with our relatives, and there should be more peace in the world.