It is not surprising, in light of Jewish history, that the Amidah concludes with a prayer for peace. What is surprising is how “textured” the wish for peace is. We ask not just for peace, but for “peace, goodness, blessing, grace, kindness and mercy.” We note that G-d has given us “a Torah of life, a love of grace, righteousness, blessing, mercy, life, and peace.”
Consider the contrast with Roman historian Tacitus’ description of Calgacus, the Scottish chieftain who fought the Romans (ironically enough at virtually the same time as our struggle in the Great Revolt 66-73 CE), According to Tacitus, Calgacus condemned the Roman empire as rapacious plunderers and oppressive slavemasters. He concluded with the dramatic description of Roman hegemony, “To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire. They make a desert and call it peace.”
Put in more modern terms, peace, as envisioned by Jews, is not the mere absence of war. Peace is a fullness, a blessing of “grace, kindness, and mercy.” Over the past decades, we have seen the contrast between these visions of peace. Think, for example, of our expectations when the Soviet Union, of not blessed memory, collapsed. The Berlin Wall came down, the Iron Curtain opened to the light of freedom after years of oppression. People (Francis Fukuyama in particular) wrote of the “end of history,” since we all would now live happily ever after.
Instead, we saw an explosion of bloody ethnic conflicts: think Yugoslavia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, a whole bunch of other unpronounceable places, and Georgia (the European one). It turns out that Tacitus was right. The human rights desert created by the oppressive Soviet empire did indeed keep the peace—if you could call it that. And once that power was challenged, all hell broke loose.
That’s why we pray for a different kind of peace, not based on a brutally enforced absence of conflict but a spiritual absence of the need for conflict. “Bless us, our Father, all of us as one, in the light of Your face.” Note the emphasis on unity—“us, all of us as one.” When you have this, you don’t need guys with machine guns watching over prisoners and demanding their silence. The light of G-d’s Presence will be enough.