“Therefore say, “Behold! I give him My covenant of peace!” (Bamidbar 25:12)

Admittedly, I don’t understand how Gematria (the numerical value of words) works. For example, here is a puzzling pair. The Gematria of SHALOM is 376 but so is the name Eisav. How could that possibly be!? Perhaps if we understood the true meaning of SHALOM then we might be able to make some sense of it. SHALOM is not passivity and it is not merely the absence of war. It is the harmonious resolution of conflicting elements. How can there be a greater conflict and clash of agendas than the “Odd Couple” that resides within and compromises each and every one of us; the physical body and the G-dly Soul! How can they possibly “get along” together harmoniously?! Here are four classic and universal approaches to this ubiquitous challenge built into the human condition.

1-What we’ll call the far eastern way is an ideal that the soulful portion dominates the physical body. The successful practitioner finds him-self atop a mountain-aloof. His physical needs have been thoroughly quieted. He feels almost no pain. He can sleep on a bed of nails and fast all day. He is divorced from his body. Having trained himself to not to hear the whimpers of his own physical being or the temporal world around him, he meditates in that state and transcends the mundane but fails to engage life.

2-The second we can refer to as the far western approach. Here the immediate needs of the body drown out the voice of the soul until it is a frail and thin voice, an afterthought called conscience. With plenty of continued practice that voice can be almost entirely annihilated.
It is recorded how the Nazis were sick to their stomachs the first time they carried out the brutal murder of Jews but after a while they could go home and eat dinner as if nothing had happened. The callousness that develops with deeds that violate the sensibilities of the human soul grows thicker and darker with each repeated action. Eventually the body is divorced from its soul- Kores- cut off.

3- A third possibility encourages both spiritual and material indulgence but alternately. This “solution” is not a solution. In fact, it complicates the human experience. The Talmud says pithily, “Oy li M’yotzri, Oy li’ M’yitzri”- “Woe to me from my Creator (or) Woe to me from my desire!” (Brochos 61A) Either the conscience will ache when violated or the body will rebel when deprived.

A professor Meier from Michigan University was able to induce neurosis in rats. How? One door offered a food prize and the other a shock. Once the rat figured out which was which, the psychologist switched them. Now the rat crept cautiously from door to door uncertain whether it would receive a delight or an electric shock. At some point the rat parks himself equidistant from both doors and chooses to starve to death rather than risk getting a shock. OY! It’s not easy being a laboratory rat or a person that plunges dramatically and often from heights of the spiritual spectrum into the abysmal abyss and back again, like a yoyo.

4-The 4th- the middle-east emphasizes the spiritual but without negation of the physical. A fellow asked his friend, “Why are you busy caring for your horse all day?” He answered, “He’s a dumb horse and I’m a smart person. He needs me!” His friend then replied, “If he’s so dumb and you’re so smart, why don’t you get him to do things for you!?”

If the soul can learn, somehow, to discipline the body in a sensitive and caring way, then a peace plan can be brokered between these two giant competing forces. A person can happily navigate between the temporal and the eternal in a joyous way. King Solomon had said about the Torah, “Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace.” (Mishlei 3:17)

Without the guidance of Torah, Eisav was never able to successfully negotiate peace between his animalistic nature and his G-dly soul, but SHALOM, peace was always possible and within reach. This may help explain the numerical equivalency between Eisav and Shalom.