Shalom - שָׁלוֹם

Shalom gives us the core biblical meaning of peace.
It means being intact or whole and evokes the entirety of a person or thing.
Considered as a quality of the personal, shalom implies the wholeness, integrity and well-being of a person.
Considered socially, shalom implies social well-being and relational health, as in a whole community and the wholeness of humanity.
The wholeness of shalom can also be considered as the process of being alive and healthy individually and together.

In its biblical senses, shalom includes meanings of welfare, shared prosperity, salvation, reconciliation, satisfaction, contentment and a state of being safe and unharmed.
Shalom therefore implies the absence of war but is not defined as this or limited to it.

A 'whole' person or community is one that flourishes, as opposed to an oppressed or fragmented one.
A state of shalom is with us now insofar as we flourish as persons, communities, humanity and the ecosphere; it is absent insofar as we do not so flourish and are oppressed.
Shalom's peace is positive and dynamic, suggesting a state of flourishing in relation to one another.

As well as thinking of shalom as a state of relational health, we can also think of it as a process, by which we come to flourish and become 'whole'. As a process, peace implies personal and social growth and, where there has been suffering, the particular type of growth that is healing, often facilitated by forgiveness.