For the source text click/tap here: Kiddushin 66
To download, click/tap here: PDF
In our sugya we encounter a particularly strange dispute. The Gemara cites a difference of opinion about how to write the vav in the word shalom in the pasuk, “Behold I give him My covenant of peace” (Bamidbar 25:12).
Some maintain that this vav should be a vav katia, meaning that it is it is not written exactly like other vav’s in the Torah. However, others are of the opinion that it is written just like any other vav.
We explore the nature of this curious deviation from the usual scribal practice and the implications for a fractured barbaric world where shalom has been forever fractured.