In Judaism, we are known as a treasured people, a holy people, even a stiff-necked people, but we’re also called rodef shalom, a people that pursues peace. Contrary to popular opinion in the news, Jews pursue peace. Examples of it abound. Countless times Israel extended an olive branch to its Arab neighbors only to be rebuffed and attacked—1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, the Oslo Accords, Intifada I & II, and in 2005 when Israel physically withdrew every shred of Jewish life and memory from the Gaza Strip. Peace came for a little while and then it went. It can still come again.

We know justice well, too. In Deuteronomy 16, we read the familiar words, “Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof,” justice, justice, shall you pursue. The pursuit of justice is emphasized for its importance and the verb, tirdof, is written in the imperfect form. When we read it in the imperfect form, we learn that we’re obligated to continue seeking it.

Today, the proximity of peace and justice poses a dilemma. If we can’t achieve them at the same time, which one should we aim to achieve first? The question and the texts help us organize our thoughts about the war in Israel and Gaza.

Some of us call for peace now! Some of us call for justice now! If we take our cue from Torah, then we should call for peace now, just as hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv to seek peace and bring home the hostages now. And if we listen closely to hundreds of Israeli rabbis, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, then we would join them in calling for peace now, too.

But what about justice? Justice, justice shall you pursue. Justice will come tomorrow and the next day and every day for years to come. Peace enables us to take first steps on our moral pathway through the ravages of war and the rebuilding that’s required in Israel and Gaza. Justice is built into every step and every effort towards those plans.

How will cement and building materials come into Gaza? Justice. Not into the hands of Hamas terrorists. Better into the hands of Palestinians who are supported by a coalition of Arab nations to build a future out of new opportunity.

How will boundaries be maintained between Israel and Gaza? Justice. New laws and plans will guard Israel’s southern cities so that kibbutzim can thrive again and all of Israel’s cities can open up without fear.

How will Israelis pick up again and thrive in the future? Justice. Israel’s enemies have been weakened or destroyed, and Israel’s allies have learned that Israel is stronger than they knew. Israel is here to stay on its terms as a sovereign Jewish nation and an indigenous people in its ancestral home.

And how will terrorists who escaped justice be tried and held accountable? How will Arab prisoners who were freed only to pick up arms again against Israel and Jews be tried and held accountable? Justice. God’s judgment awaits them and surely not as they’ve been previously promised in heaven.

It begins with peace. We are rodef shalom, a people that pursues peace. And when the bombs stop, then the people will return home and repair and rebuild again. Then justice will follow until the end of days, as we’ve learned, “Let justice well up like water, righteousness like an unfailing stream” (Amos 5:24). Let’s have faith that first peace and then justice will come as long as we pursue them.

L’Shalom,