How a Greeting of Peace Comes Before the Praise of God

"And Moses went out to meet his father-in-law" (Exodus 18:7). They said: Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went out. And some say even the Ark went out with them. "And he bowed down and kissed him, and they asked one another after their welfare." We do not know who bowed to whom and who kissed whom. Whom have we heard called "a man"? Was it not Moses, as in the matter that is said, "Now the man Moses was very humble" (Numbers 12:3)? Therefore it was none other than Moses who bowed and kissed Jethro. From here they said: A person should always show honor to his father-in-law. And so David said to Saul, "See, my father, see" (see 1 Samuel 24:11), which teaches that he treated him with the honor due to a father. "And they asked one another after their welfare [shalom]." Great is peace, for it precedes even the praise of the Holy One, blessed be He. For so we find that Moses opened with Jethro not with the going out of Egypt, nor with the Ten Words, nor with the splitting of the Sea, nor with the manna, nor with the quail, but with peace first, as it is said, "And they asked one another after their welfare," and only afterward, "And Moses recounted to his father-in-law" everything, because peace settles the mind to hear all these things. "And they came into the tent" (Exodus 18:7). This is the house of study.