Shalom having several meanings

Submitted by Ronan (United States), Jun 13, 2007 at 22:50

I'm also pretty sure that Islam means submission, but that's not why I'm commenting. I am a fluent Hebrew speaker and I have to tell you that Shalom has only one meaning and that is peace.

The fact that it is used as a greeting and a farewell is only because it was used in phrases like Shalom Aleichem (peace be unto you) and instead of continuing to say the full phrase, people shortened it to a simple Shalom. This is much in the same way as in English people say Bye instead of Good Bye or Farewell instead of Fare Thee Well.

By the by the fact that you got this so wrong and would use it as part of your argument does not bode well for you being correct in the rest of your screed.

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