A Jewish Civic Ethic of Peace (mipnei darkei shalom)

by Alon Shalev

In Jewish law, it is rare for specific statutes to be accompanied by explicit rationales. In that sense, the group of laws the Talmud marks as mipnei darkei shalom – “for the sake of the ways of peace” – is especially instructive. The concept itself is puzzling, as the Talmud states that "The entire Torah was given also for the sake of the ways of peace, as it is written: 'Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace'” (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin, 59b); as if to say that some specific laws are given for the sake of peace, and all other laws are given for two reasons: one particular (inexplicit) reason, and another general underlying reason – that of peace. If the whole Torah was given for the sake of peace, why emphasize that these particular laws serve that goal?

The laws identified as for the sake of peace fall broadly into two categories. First, there are laws that extend norms of moral coexistence beyond the ingroup – beyond the Jewish community itself – to those who might otherwise be excluded. The Talmud teaches, for example, that the community – not only as individuals, but through its organized institutions – must provide for the poor of the gentiles alongside the poor of Israel. Thus, Jews are instructed to extend charity and kindness not only to those they feel a natural affinity towards, but rather to all. Similarly, halakha requires maintaining ongoing civility in daily interactions with non-Jews, reminding us that peace depends on extending dignity and fairness even beyond one’s own circle.

Second, there are laws that instruct individuals to forgo certain rights in order to prevent strife and preserve communal harmony. In synagogue life, for instance, the priests (kohanim) are accorded ceremonial honors – not because they are necessarily more deserving, but because granting them precedence reduces status competition and potential conflict. Another example is the prohibition against seizing an item that is legally ownerless (hefker) once another person has already shown clear intent and effort to claim it. Though technically one might still have the right to take it, Jewish law insists on restraint, prioritizing social peace over rigid entitlement.

Coexistence and harmony: these are the values captured by the Torah’s ethic of peace. They reflect the basic moral imperative to care for others, to treat them fairly, and to sustain respectful relationships. But if the entire Torah embodies this ethic, why single out only certain laws?

The answer lies in the dual structure of Torah ethics. The Torah is indeed also an ethic of peace – but before that, it is an ethic of love. Ve’ahavta – you must love – is the instructive verb of first-order Torah ethics: love you fellow (re’acha), love your G-d, love the sojourner (ger) who lives amongst you. This is the motivating force of Jewish ethics.

Love needs no justification. It is intuitive, self-motivating, and pre-reflective. Bernard Williams famously illustrated this in his critique of over-rationalized ethics: if a man sees his wife drowning and pauses to deliberate whether he is morally obligated to save her because she is his wife, he has already had, in Williams’ words, “one thought too many.” The morally appropriate act arises not from reasoning, but from a love-shaped impulse.

Of course, the drowning woman does, also, deserve to be saved just by virtue of being a human being. In the language of Jewish law, the man ought to save the drowning woman – wife or not – for the sake of peace. But this second-level reasoning complements rather than replaces the ethic of love. The Torah’s ethical vision thus contains both imperatives: spontaneous care for one’s own, and principled regard for others – love and peace.

Torah ethics begins with duties of love – an orientation not grounded in argument, but in attachment. Yet love can become ethically dangerous. As the Sages taught, ahava mekalkelet et hashurah – love distorts judgment.

The Orchot Tzaddikim (ch. 5), a major pietistic work of the late Middle Ages, warns of the excesses of love ethics:

The fourth love is the love of a man for his relatives – his father and his mother, his brothers and his sisters and the rest of his kind, friends and companions, and because of his love for them he helps them in their quarrels, and does not feel, nor does he ascertain whether or not his relatives did wrong against the other party...Even if they are wicked, he does not sense it, for love blinds his eyes and makes deaf his ears, and there is, in this nepotism, great damage.

The ethics of love are at risk of devolving into corrupt favoritism, blinding us to justice, and into the deficiency of isolationism and indifference to others. The laws given for the sake of peace serve as a corrective: they do not displace love, but constrain its excesses. Where love is partial, peace is impartial. Where love is impulsive, peace is structured. These laws represent a second movement in Torah ethics: they operationalize peace when love alone is not enough. If ve’ahavta speaks to the idyllic moral aspirations of Torah, mipnei darkei shalom addresses its civic realism – the promotion and preservation of coexistence and harmony in a society as a whole.

The principle of mipnei darkei shalom reminds us that peace is not merely the absence of conflict, but the active construction of social conditions that make peaceful coexistence possible. In rabbinic law, this meant extending ethical concern beyond natural bonds – beyond family, community, and tribe – to include those who might otherwise be excluded, as well as larger society.

For American Jews, this ethic has practical implications. It means engaging in civic life not just as a matter of strategy or security, but as a religious-ethical obligation. It means upholding shared institutions and resisting social forces that erode trust, fray community, or isolate groups into suspicion and self-protection.

Mipnei darkei shalom is a foundational ethic for pluralistic democracy. It summons us from insular preservation to mutual responsibility, from tactical alliance to moral partnership. If love binds us to our own, peace binds us to others. It is the Jewish grammar of civic virtue – and through it, Torah ethics speaks not only to Jews, but to the shared American project of building a society rooted in justice, cooperation, and the common good.