Peace and love? Left first to cut through pretence (6)
I believe the answer is:
shalom
'peace' is the definition.
(Greeting from the Hebrew for 'peace')
'love? left first to cut through pretence' is the wordplay.
'love?' becomes 'o' (In tennis, 'love' means 'zero').
'left' becomes 'l' (common abbreviation).
'first' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'to cut' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'through pretence' becomes 'sham' (I've seen this before. I am not sure about the 'through' bit.**).
'o' put after 'l' is 'lo'.
'lo' inserted inside 'sham' is 'SHALOM'.
'and' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for shalom that I've seen before include "Jewish word of greeting or leave-taking" , "Traditional Jewish greeting meaning peace" , "Peace (in the Middle East!)" , "Jewish salutation, meaning "peace"" , "Jewish expression of greeting or farewell" .)