Every day in Tfilah: Prayer, Music, and Movement, we include a prayer for Shalom—peace and wholeness. We usually preface it with something like this: There are LOTS of ways to be Jewish, but when Jewish communities all over the world get together for Tfilah—prayer, there is one thing they always pray for… SHALOM! Because we all know the world could use it!
Yesterday, we stopped to ask a different question about shalom:
If the world had more __________, we would have more shalom.
I wanted to share a few of our students’ insightful responses.
If we had more SPORTS, we would have more shalom. If the players could play together, they would respect each other and each other’s hard work. We could even get to be friends. We wouldn’t need war if we had healthy ways to get to know each other.
If we had more BALLET, we would have more shalom. It’s not like sports where someone wins and someone loses. Everyone gets to dance, and everyone adds something important. So I think ballet would give us more shalom.
If we had more HIP HOP (dance), we would have more shalom. My hip hop teacher plays a song about shalom that I really love, so I think hip hop has a lot to teach us about Shalom.