- In popular culture,
there are those keywords that when people say them,
other people think, "Oh!
"That's Judaism!"
Hanukkah.
That's Judaism.
A Chassidic boy walking down the street,
fringes flying "I don't know what that is,
"but it's Judaism."
Shtisel, Kabbalah, the Western Wall,
and Tzom Gedallia.
Not Tzom Gedallia, that's a minor fast.
Among those keywords there's an old phrase
that's getting a lot of new
"yeah, that's Judaism" buzz.
And that phrase is Tikkun Olam.
It literally means "Fixing the world,"
but its go-to translation today has become
"Jewish Social Justice."
But what's Jewish about it?
I mean, who doesn't want to fix the world?
Is Tikkun Olam distinctly Jewish or is it, you know,
just a really good secular idea?
The phrase "Tikkun Olam" does not show up
in the Five Books of Moses
or anywhere in the Hebrew bible.
It makes its first appearance in early rabinnic literature.
Rabbis were fine tuning laws
in order to repair the world,
or, as they put it, for the purpose of Tikkun Olam.
But it was not yet considered some great Jewish principle,
or a central tenet of Judaism.
As keywords go, it was just arriving on the scene.
Around the year 300, it appears for the first time
in the Jewish New Year's service.
Within a prayer called "the Aleinu"
lies the phrase, "To fix the world,
"LeTaken Olam, under God's authority."
When the world is under God's kingship,
it will be the Messianic Era.
The world will be healed.
700 years later, the great Rabbi and commentator,
Maimonides, picks up the phrase and says,
"When you gain wisdom by studying Torah,
"develop character by doing acts of kindness,
"and when you observe the mitzvot," (the commandments)
"you bring Tikkun Olam,"
you bring God closer
to the Jewish people.
If you're keeping track, so far Tikkun Olam
is about Jewish theology and the Jewish community.
The rest of the world,
it should take care of its own problems.
The Kabbalists, Jewish mystics,
then came along and mixed these ideas of Messianism
and Jewish observance together, and added a twist.
For the Kabbalists, the world is broken
and contains evil, because in the moment of creation
divine sparks broke
out of God's transcendent-side-of-existence,
fell into the crude material world,
and unbalanced the universe.
By doing good deeds and observing the commandments,
Jews send those sparks back to heaven,
restore balance to the universe,
and bring the Messianic Era.
And what is more Tikkun Olam than that?
Flash forward 500 years.
When the Civil Rights Movement
takes center stage in the US in the 1960s,
it is the Reform movement of Judaism
that takes the phrase "Tikkun Olam"
and turns it into "Jewish Social Action."
Reform Judaism focused on the key Jewish ideas
of charitable works, acts of loving kindness,
and Justice.
But here, that was it.
Torah study and ritual commandments
are given secondary roles
whose purpose is to protect Tikkun Olam.
"They keep us from drifting into moral turpitude,"
as the kids say, but in and of themselves,
not so much Tikkun Olam.
Tikkun Olam now becomes a point of concern
within the greater Jewish community.
There are those today who worry
that the progressive approach
to Tikkun Olam is assimilationist.
Doing good deeds is fantastic, they say,
but if it replaces Jewish observance and Torah study,
then it is devoid of Judaism.
Progressives counter that for those Jews
who don't vibe to the ritual aspects of Judaism,
Tikkun Olam gives them a way to engage,
and take pride in their heritage.
And more to the point, Tikkun Olam
is a central tenet of Judaism.
It's almost the point of everything we do.
Today, Tikkun Olam is catching on like wildfire.
In Israel, there are over 42,000 registered
not-for-profit charitable organizations.
42,000.
Many of them doing Tikkun Olam in their own way.
And in the US, that number is many times higher.
Tikun Olam today is, in fact,
a multi-billion dollar charitable industry.
In the US, there are the big guns of Tikkun Olam.
They take care of Jewish communities in danger,
promote human rights.
They fight on behalf of immigrants.
Others mobilize Jewish communities to take action,
and champion the disenfranchised.
Others, still, work to assuage hunger.
This one food bank provided two million meals last year.
ln Israel, charitable organizations
feed and clothe the poor.
There is the Israeli national food bank,
mental health associations, ambulance services.
There are organizations that help Jews
and Palestinians meet.
To Israeli environmental advocacy, there is no end.
And the Israeli government itself sends medical teams
to places hit by hurricanes, and exports trucks
filled with water to places devastated by drought.
One non-profit, simply calling itself "Tikkun Olam,"
relieves people of suffering
by sending them new strains of cannabis.
The list of Jewish charitable organizations seems endless.
In the end, Tikkun Olam tracks with many
of Judaism's theological arguments.
Whether the motivation is to bring the Messianic Era,
or to heal the world by working closely
with other communities,
whether it needs the ritual acts of Judaism
and Torah study for it to be Jewish,
or it's Jewish simply by living the ethical values
of helping God fix a broken world,
either way, when the Jewish community engages
in this project, we call it simply Tikkun Olam.
Jewish charitable works.
Jews, and the greater Jewish community,
in all its forms and interpretations,
working hard to fix a very broken world.
It is for this reason that Tikkun Olam is,
for many today, a fundamental, essential,
and perhaps the most important element of Judaism.
Thanks for watching.
This is one part of a series on topics
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