peace

Distinctions

The column opens on the Latin pax, which it notes is the progenitor of the English "peace" and may also be an ancestor of the Mishnaic Hebrew piyus, "appeasement"; Rome had its pax Romana, and the Jewish People their own under Shlomo HaMelech, whose very name is a cognate of shalom.

shalom (שלום)

Root ש-ל-ם; Pappenheim takes it back to ש-ל, removed or taken away (שַׁל נעליך, Shemos 3:5; sheol, shalal): shalem is that from which nothing removed is still missing, complete, and shalom is having every good needed for prosperity with nothing lacking. Elsewhere he defines it as the absence of friction among multiple parties; Hashem is Adon HaShalom (Maariv of Shabbos) and Melech SheHaShalom Shelo (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 3:14) because He has no conflicting parts and is at peace with Himself. Bedersi (Divrei HaYamim I 22:9): the opposite of war, the cessation of hostilities. Wertheimer: shalom (with shalvah) is total peace and harmony. Malbim: coming to terms with something outside oneself, though it can borrow the sense of inner peace.

shalvah (שלוה)

Root ש-ל-ה, from Pappenheim's ש-ל: the state in which every disturbance has been removed; hence moshel and memshalah, the rulers whose task is to keep it. Bedersi ranks it with shalom; Wertheimer groups the two as total peace. Why both of them pair the words the column asks outright, and answers with a hedge: the answer may lie in their shared etymological root, the biliteral ש-ל. Pappenheim, after entertaining synonymy, concludes that shalom is the all-encompassing state across every relationship, while shalvah is one peaceful relationship within a wider discord. Malbim: shalvah is inner peace, shalom external. The verb shalu means both to be at ease (Rashi and Ibn Ezra to Eichah 1:5) and to sin unwittingly (Melachim II 4:28, Shmuel II 6:7, Divrei HaYamim II 29:11; the Targumim typically render shogeg as shaluta, and see Daniel 6:5, Rashi to Rus 2:16 and Ramban to Bereishis 38:5). How the two meanings converge in one word the column asks and answers twice over: Bedersi, the complacency of shalvah easily breeds indolence, which leaves a man not careful enough to avoid sin; Rav Hirsch (Bereishis 8:1, Vayikra 5:4) similarly reads the double meaning as an allusion to the possible negative side of tranquility, since a man can become content with his present spiritual stature, stop striving for greater perfection, smugly keep to his tried and tested ways, and so start down the slope toward sin.

sheket (שקט)

Root ש-ק-ט. Bedersi: the opposite of movement, the end of all harried toil, and therefore more than shalom: "stillness" beside "peace." Wertheimer, without citing Bedersi, disagrees with that ranking: sheket is only the absence of outward conflict, with disagreement possibly still in the background, a ceasefire while true shalom stays elusive. Pappenheim: not "quiet" so much as patience and forbearance, a person no outside stimulus can work into a frenzy; he remains calm and serene. Ibn Janach and Radak seem to define it as abeyance, a calming down after turbulence.

shaanan (שאנן) and shalanan (שלאנן)

Malbim: related to shaon, boisterous din, and its exact opposite, quiet because the din is gone (Yirmiyahu 30:10, 48:11; Mishlei 1:33). Pappenheim: from ש-א, or possibly even the monoliteral ש, something uniform or level in which no differences among its parts are apparent, a root that runs to both extremes, yielding shoah and shayis for total destruction and shaanan for total tranquility. Bedersi posits that shaanan implies a still more complete rest than sheket does, and Pappenheim seems to echo him: unlike shalom and shalvah, which are peace, shaanan is calmness and serenity, since one may be in a state of complete shalom yet still be harried tending the products of his prosperity, while shaanan precludes that busyness and means one need not interact with others at all. Shalanan (Iyov 21:23, a hapax legomenon): Ibn Janach, the same thing as shaanan despite the extra lamed; Radak and Pappenheim, a composite word made of shalvah and shaanan.

Shabbos (שבת)

The column closes by adding one more peace-word beginning with shin: Shabbos itself, the epitome of rest and quiet in This World and a microcosm of the final peace awaiting us in the World to Come. Hence the Shabbos afternoon prayer, which calls the day's rest a rest of shalom, shalvah, hashket (sheket) and betach, though many versions of the siddur omit shalvah from it. Bereishis Rabbah 10:9 teaches that by resting on Shabbos, Hashem created shaanan, nachas (a cognate of menuchah, rest), shalvah and hashket, and Rashi in Sefer HaPardes finds the allusion in Yeshayahu 32:18, which uses forms of all of them.

Rendering guidance

• Shabbos Minchah, מנוחת שלום ושלוה והשקט ובטח: "a rest of peace, tranquility, quiet, and security"; four words, four renderings. Bereishis Rabbah 10:9 lists שאנן, נחת, שלוה, השקט as what Shabbos rest created, and Rashi (Sefer HaPardes) finds them in Yeshayahu 32:18; a translator who collapses them loses the Midrash.
• שלום ושקט (Divrei HaYamim I 22:9, of Shlomo's reign): "peace and quiet"; the English idiom happens to be exact, and it keeps the two words apart.
• Standalone שלוה in mussar: "tranquility" or "ease." When the passage itself warns against it (the shalu double sense), "complacent ease" is fair; otherwise do not smuggle the warning in.
• שאנן: "serene," "untroubled"; as a noun, "serenity."
• Trap: English "peace" absorbs shalom and shalvah; "quiet" absorbs sheket and shaanan; "calm" absorbs sheket, shalvah, and shaanan. Where two meet, hold shalom to "peace" (parties), shalvah to "tranquility" (the self), sheket to "quiet" (the scene), shaanan to "serenity" (the fullest).
• Trap: sheket is not automatically the deeper word. Bedersi and Wertheimer rank it in opposite directions; in a passage that contrasts it with shalom, follow the author's own argument rather than a fixed scale.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Peace and Quiet," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 18 Av 5780 (2020-08-08): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8816-peace-and-quiet.md. The column's opening etymology (Latin pax behind English "peace" and possibly behind Mishnaic piyus) is reported here as the column gives it. Primary loci the article cites: Bedersi to Divrei HaYamim I 22:9; Wertheimer on sheket against shalom/shalvah; Pappenheim on the roots ש-ל and ש-א; Shemos 3:5; Maariv of Shabbos; Shir HaShirim Rabbah 3:14; Malbim on shalvah/shalom and shaanan/shaon; Rashi and Ibn Ezra to Eichah 1:5; Melachim II 4:28, Shmuel II 6:7, Divrei HaYamim II 29:11, Daniel 6:5 (shalu); Rashi to Rus 2:16 and Ramban to Bereishis 38:5 (shaluta); Rav Hirsch to Bereishis 8:1 and Vayikra 5:4; Yirmiyahu 30:10, 48:11; Mishlei 1:33; Iyov 21:23; Bereishis Rabbah 10:9; Yeshayahu 32:18; the Shabbos Minchah Amidah.