by Rabbi Yisrael Rutman

There is a Jewish way of saying hello.

The Jewish custom is to greet a person saying, Shalom aleichem (“Peace unto you”). In returning the greeting, however, the order is reversed, Aleichem Shalom.

This is not merely the Jewish version of “Hello,” and “Hello yourself.” As in all Jewish customs, there is a reason, and often the reason is a deep matter…

To explain the custom we first have to make reference to a Talmudic statement regarding the laws of vows. When a person would vow to devote an offering to the Temple mentioning God’s name, he should take care not to mention the Holy name first, as in “Unto God is this offering.” Rather, he should say “This offering is unto God.”

The reason for this formulation is based on two factors: man’s mortality and the prohibition against uttering God’s name in vain (one of the Ten Commandments). Since one never knows when one’s “time is up,” in this world, and it is possible that the person’s time might come in the middle of his declaration, if he were to begin with the Divine name, he might not live to complete the vow, and thus he will have taken the Name in vain. To avoid such an outcome, in which the person would have sinned with his last breath, the Sages put the Name at the end. So that if the person would die in the middle of his vow, there would be no sin in it.

It may seem like a far-fetched worry. What are the chances that somebody might die in the middle of a vow? What are those rabbis so worried about?

But the Sages’ sensitivity to sin, their desire to ensure as far as possible that their fellow Jews should also not sin—as well as their awareness of man’s mortality—prompted their teaching about vows. And, since there is no cost or extra effort involved, they decided to step in.

We can observe this same sense of spiritual responsibility at work in an institution of the Sages that is much better-known. They decreed that certain mitzvot are not to be performed on the Sabbath. When Rosh HaShana falls out on the Sabbath, the shofar is not blown; lulav is not waved on the Sabbath; Megillas Esther is not read on the Sabbath. Why? Because they were afraid that someone might carry his shofar or lulav or megillah from his house into the street to take it to an expert for instruction in the mitzvah, and thereby transgress the prohibition of carrying things on the Sabbath.

Again, what are the chances of this happening? (And we are speaking here of an observant Jew who has momentarily, in his pre-occupation with the mitzvah of the festival, forgotten that it is Shabbat.) Probably quite remote. Yet, the Sages, because they were so imbued with an awareness of the holiness of the Sabbath, they decided that it’s better that no one perform the mitzvah than to risk even one Jew ever violating Shabbat because of it!

Now, let’s come back to Shalom aleichem. If the person would respond in kind, he might never get to the aleichem before his time expired. So what’s so bad if the person’s last word is Shalom? What’s wrong is that shalom does not just mean hello or peace. It so happens that Shalom is also one of the names of God (Rashi to Shir HaShirim, 1:1). If he would die without finishing the greeting, he would have uttered the Divine name alone out of context, and would have sinned with his last breath.

The reason that the greeter is not expected to take the same precaution is due to another Talmudic statement, that one who initiates a greeting is granted an extra measure of life and peace. He has a special protection not afforded to the one returning the greeting.

Shabbat Shalom!

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