The Peace That Will Be Born From the Spirit

By Melila Hellner-Eshed

“Seek peace and pursue it” (Psalms 34:15) Rabbi Shimon ben Eleazar says: If a person sits in his place and remains silent, how can he pursue peace?! Rather, he must leave his place, travel the world, and pursue peace, as it is said, “Seek peace and pursue it.” (Midrash Avot de-Rabbi Natan 12:1)

There has been no peace in the land for so many years that sometimes the word peace itself feels hollow—a distant idea, or a memory buried deep in the mind. In times of war, the word can hardly be spoken at all. But we must speak peace, dream peace, act for peace—so that we may be worthy to be called children of the Holy One, to whom Peace belongs.

In my world, the work of peace making —and dreaming of peace—is nourished by images, stories, and teachings from the world of Jewish literature, especially from the Zohar and Jewish mysticism, which I love, study, and teach.

“I will say: Peace be within you”

In the Zohar, in the portion of Acharei Mot, a long and wondrous story is told about Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi) and his circle of students. It begins during a time of drought, when the world is in desperate need of rain. As in many Talmudic tales, when drought strikes, people turn to the sages, and to people possessing  a deep and intimate relationship with the Divine.

Rashbi’s students come to him for help, but it quickly becomes clear that for this great sage, bringing rain is not the true challenge. For him, the drought reveals something deeper: a cosmic and spiritual crisis—the disconnection between the Divine masculine and feminine, the Holy One and the Shekhinah, as well as the   the absence of the Shekhinah from the circle of students.

Through midrash, mythic imagery, and words of both rebuke and compassion, Rashbi teaches his disciples how to understand this spiritual dryness in realms beyond what the eye can see—and how to bring abundance back into their midst. He tells them that to become a fellowship where the Shekhinah may dwell—fulfilling the verse “Look how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together” (Psalms 133:1)—they must embody true brotherhood. They must learn to stand face to face, with affection and love, like the two cherubim on the cover of the Ark in the Holy of Holies.

Rashbi, the Zohar’s great teacher, alludes to the Talmudic saying (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 30b), teaching his disciples that only through genuine face-to-face encounter can they transform—from men of war ready to attack and kill (even in scholarly debate)—into lovers who dwell together in harmony. Only in this state of mutual love and respect will the Shekhinah join them and rest among them. And it is from this state that the world will once again feel the refreshing drops of spiritual rain.

This scene, which opens the story in the Zohar, concludes with Rashbi’s words to his disciples, the Havrayya:

“And you, Companions who are here—just as you have been until now, do not part from one another. Remain together until the Blessed Holy One delights in you and proclaims peace upon you. And for your sake, peace will prevail in the world, as it is written: ‘For the sake of my brothers and companions, I will say: Peace be within you.’” (Zohar 3:59b, translated by Daniel Matt)

The task is demanding. We, as human beings, must recognize the deep disrepair in the state of standing against one another like combatants in battle, ready to kill. We must learn both the revealed and hidden roots of this condition. We must succeed in standing with one another, face to face. We should seek love in the face of the other, make room among us for the Shekhinah, and take part in the sacred task of spreading peace throughout the world.

According to the Zohar, peace—and the work of bringing it about—is inseparable from spiritual effort: invoking the Shekhinah to dwell among us, amplifying the presence of the feminine face of Divinity in the world, cultivating the ability to truly encounter the face of the other, and fostering balance and connection between the masculine and feminine.

Of course, the original Zoharic story was addressed to Jewish men with this demand. The Kabbalists, the select few are the original recipients of these Zoharic teachings on love, brotherhood, faces, and peace. Yet today, in my world, the Zohar is also mine, and this story is too good to be secreted away between the pages of the Zohar, known and beloved only by the initiated. This story has accompanied me throughout my life, addressing me with these questions within the reality in which I live. How do we invoke the Shekhinah in our world? How do we create a state of face-to-face in our human reality? How do we bring peace to the world?

An Island of Peace Ever since I came into my own understanding, the Israeli occupation and its evils have been a painful and tormenting issue for me. I participated in various circles of the radical left since my youth. It was an interesting initiation, but I never felt a deep connection to the Marxist ideological languages or the abstract human rights language that stood at the center of the discourse in these circles. My opposition stemmed from a place of faith and spirituality. The occupation appeared to me as a desecration of God’s name, a desecration of the Torah, a desecration of human dignity, a desecration of everything that seemed holy and beloved in Judaism as taught to me by my father and mother. The arrogance, violence, dispossession, denial, and humiliation that I witnessed in the behavior of Israelis toward Palestinians etched an indelible scar on my soul. The occupation, to me, was connected to the sins committed by Judah, sins for which there is no atonement. "a time when a human, dominates a human, to his harm (Ecclesiastes 8:9" (Ecclesiastes 8:9). This harm, as I read it, referring both to the one who rules and to the one ruled over. In 2000, during the height of the second Intifada, my friend Gabi Mayer invited me to the Galilee for a unique event. "Right now," he said, "when everything is chaotic and violent, we need to meet, Jews and Arabs." Gabi, a man with a prophetic and poetic vision, gathered a collection of Jewish and Arab religious leaders, outstanding musicians, and the colorful spirit of the rainbow tribe. And so, in the heart of violence, we created an island of peace where Jews and Arabs met, prayed, learned, cried, and danced together. And I knew—this is where I belong. This is how "Sulha" began its work. Since then, for the past twenty-five years, the "Sulha Peace movement" has been facilitating face to face in-person meetings between Israelis and Palestinians, mostly residents of the occupied territories.

Learning to Feel The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complex, bloody, and charged with fear and hatred. The great danger in such a situation is the dehumanization of those on one side of the divide by those on the other—Jews dehumanizing Palestinians, and Palestinians dehumanizing Jews. Fear, hostility, and extremist discourse gradually erode and erase the personal faces and the unique humanity of individuals. When the one standing before us is seen not as a person with a distinct human face, but simply as “the enemy,” it becomes easier to harm them—and in the worst cases, to kill. Yet this act of stripping another of their humanity also wounds the soul of the one who erases.

“Sulha” has taken upon itself the task of restoring faces to us all. This restoration happens through real and living encounters between people from both sides—through listening to the personal and collective stories that have shaped us, Israelis and Palestinians alike; through remembering our shared humanity as beings created in the image of God.

We, the members of Sulha, both Israelis and Palestinians, recognize that any political solution to the conflict must be preceded by a process of heart-opening—a deep cultivation of the heart. Any future resolution must carry within it the living human content of trust, friendship, and peace. Ultimately, it is we—the people on both sides of the divide—who must find a way to come together.

In its early years, Sulha focused on organizing large multi-day festivals, devoted to listening circles, learning, dialogue, and shared ritual. At night, the space would open to music, Sufi Zikr ceremonies, and dancing. After a decade, Sulha shifted direction. As a grassroots organization with very little funding, operating mostly under the media’s radar, we chose a more modest path—organizing intimate gatherings every few weeks.

These Sulha meetings take place in both Israel and the occupied territories. At their heart is always a listening circle. Amid violence, anger, and frustration, we found that debating political positions does not serve our purpose; within minutes, such discussions often turn into a battleground. The listening circles—rooted in indigenous American traditions—create a protected and sacred space. Each circle is co-led by two facilitators, one Hebrew-speaking and one Arabic-speaking, who pose a guiding question. A speaking object is passed from person to person, granting each participant the right to speak in turn.

Participants are invited to speak not from ideology or political opinion, but from the heart—from their own lived experience in the moment of the encounter. The role of the others is to listen deeply, with ears of flesh and hearts open. No one interrupts or responds to another’s words. Slowly, each person speaks, with patience and care, as every story is translated between Hebrew and Arabic.

We are learning to speak from the heart. We are learning to listen. We are learning to feel.

Ancient and New Stories

Many organizations working within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict operate in political and legal arenas; others focus on dialogue, agreements, and competing narratives. All of these efforts are, of course, deeply valuable and urgently needed. Sulha follows a different path—that of spiritual activism. At its heart lies the human encounter itself: flesh, blood, and spirit; the courage, will, and effort to stand before one another as human beings—face to face, heart to heart. The power that makes this kind of encounter possible is the human spirit, a divine gift given to us all.

There is no doubt that, in today’s world, religion often functions as a divisive force, sowing hostility and separation. And yet, over the years, we have come to recognize the deep significance of faith in God for many who join the listening circles—the strength of sacred stories from different traditions, and the longing to pray, to bless, and to be blessed. People of all faiths who live on this land carry within them the ancient stories of their traditions. In our gatherings, these stories become fertile ground for something new: a shared story, a prayer, a blessing. This ancient-new process is essential to nurturing hope.

Alongside these sacred stories, the personal memories participants carry are just as vital. Often, the memories that surface in the circles are painful and heavy—reflections of lives shaped by a long, bloody conflict. But sometimes, they are stories of beauty, resilience, and quiet grace. In one gathering, for example, participants were invited to share a story about a relative—near or distant—whose life gives them strength today. In another, they were asked to recall a surprising encounter with someone from “the other side” of the divide. These memories have the power to nourish a living sprout from the seeds of light sown within each of us.

Again and again, we have discovered that within both the sacred texts of our religious traditions and our personal life stories, there are seeds of healing. These stories serve as a wellspring for the work of peace, sustaining us amid the crashing waves of violence and hatred.

A Beautiful Bleeding Bird  

At Sulha, we made a decision: to continue meeting at all costs—even when powerful forces try to separate us. We meet in times of peace and in times of violence and upheaval. We do not wait for days of light and sunshine; we are ready to enter even into the fog, for as Rabbi Nachman taught, this is where “God is.” Years of shared work have deepened our personal connections and strengthened our conviction that the work of peace must go on—even when everything around us feels fragile, when reality breaks the heart and causes pain.

The horrific events of October 7th, the Israeli hostages in Gaza, the devastating military response, the severe humanitarian crisis that followed, and the rise of extreme nationalist voices on both sides—all of these threatened to paralyze dialogue and peace work. Many organizations experienced a paralysis or collapse during these months. At Sulha, we discovered the gift of the long-term trust and relationships we had have cultivated over years. Our group did not fall apart. We kept meeting.

In the aftermath of October 7th, we felt an urgent need to mourn. We chose to come together and weep. Just two weeks after the war began, we held our first Israeli-Palestinian grief circle. This choice arose from the recognition of the power of ritual to create emotional and spiritual space—places for lament and weeping, for honoring the shared grief of people in pain. During the early months of the war, Sulha held mourning circles weekly. They were attended by Israelis and Palestinians from East Jerusalem (residents of the occupied territories were barred from physical gatherings, except via Zoom, which helped sustain our connection).

Each meeting began with the lighting of candles, an intention, and a prayer. We searched for words to express what we had lost in those weeks—our sense of home, safety, stability, orientation, faith in humanity, and hope. The meetings were filled with tears. People cried for family members lost in Israel and Gaza, for children serving in the army, for the nightmares of Palestinians, for the anxieties of Israelis, for the rivers of blood spilled upon the land we all share.

I felt these gatherings kept my heart from drowning in sorrow. They preserved the presence of the Shekhinah in my life. I felt her weeping over the violent actions of her children—refusing to be comforted The Shekhinah and the humanity entrusted to her seemed to me like a great, beautiful bird—wounded and bleeding. A bird we must protect, heal, and save—together, for the sake of us all.

After several months, we found a way to gather in person again. For many friends from the occupied territories, these were their only moments of leaving villages and refugee camps, due to the harsh siege conditions. Participants expressed, again and again, the sense that outside our space, waves of hostility, racism, and hatred were rising—and that we refused to let them enter the circle.

Throughout the past year, one guiding question kept returning: “What frightens you most in these months of war?” We came to understand how differently Jewish Israelis and Palestinians experience fear during this time—and how, when confined within our separate communities, we struggle even to imagine the depth of the other’s fear.

Sharing stories, testimonies, and memories allowed for emotional release—for tears shed in a space of compassionate listening. Sometimes, the number of Palestinians exceeded that of Israelis. Sometimes, it seemed that the Palestinian men came to cry—because here, they were allowed to. That Palestinian and Israeli women came to be together. Many Israelis came as an act of resistance—against the overwhelming power of war rhetoric and nationalist slogans.

Face to Face For years, I have heard the skeptical and cynical murmurs of activists and peace workers questioning whether our efforts are improving the daily reality for Palestinians—whose conditions grow more unbearable by the day. I sense the indifference of those around me toward this work, often accompanied by a sarcastic or indulgent smile. But I have come to understand that the work of hope and peace is not measured by immediate results. It is a practical commandment—a daily discipline—meant to build human resilience, empathy, compassion, and partnership.This kind of peace work is a constant insistence on maintaining the Divine image in all of us.

The Jerusalem Talmud teaches: “One who greets their fellow is as though they greet the presence of Shekhinah” (Jerusalem Talmud, Eruvin 5:1). The Zohar deepens this idea, teaching that the encounter between our face and the face of another is akin to a revelation of the Shekhinah—the Divine Presence—in the world. The Zohar says the faces of the righteous (and I would add: the faces of all human beings) are called the faces of the Shekhinah: "Why are they called the faces of the Shekhinah? Because the Shekhinah is hidden within them. She is concealed, and they are revealed. Those who are close to the Shekhinah are called her faces." (Zohar, Vol. 2, 163b)

The Shekhinah is hidden—and our human faces are the way in which She is revealed in the world.Just imagine, that the face of every human being  is part of the face of the Shekhinah.

With this in mind, we can better understand the request of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai to his disciples in the story from the Zohar with which we began: they must meet one another face to face so that the Shekhinah may dwell among them. For me, this has been the spiritual inspiration for many years of circle gatherings, where people sit and encounter one another, face to face.

The path to peace remains long and distant. But I hope that through our simple act of sitting together—heart to heart, face to face—we may invite moments of the Shekhinah’s presence. Moments where brothers and sisters meet, here, on this land.

May we be worthy that peace will be called upon us—and that, through our work, even a small measure of peace may take root in this land.

—Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.