There Shall Be No Needy, part 1: What Tikkun Olam means in depth

I came to read Rabbi Jill Jacobs' book There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law & Tradition because Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg referred to it in her book on teshuvah and because I respect Jacobs' work at Truah. 

I expected an inspiring but somewhat dated book I somehow hadn't read when it came out, so I could fill a gap in my education with just a little attention. It is so much more than that! 

Jacobs' book is written for the general public, but it is definitely a work of scholarship. Despite my Jewish social justice background over decades, I am learning so much by reading it--slowly--that I thought I would share some lessons with you, and help my memory by taking notes at the same time! 

Four meanings of Tikkun Olam

Ever since I was in college, when I get to the passage at the end of the Aleinu prayer, I say the part l'taken olam b'malchut shaddai, "to perfect the world under the kingship of the Almighty," out loud. (I do this in memory of my teacher Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf.) Tikkun olam has become a byword of Jewish progressives. In some circles, as Jacobs laments, it has become divorced from anything specifically Jewish. But what does it mean?

Establishing the Divine Kingdom

In the prayer I just mentioned, tikkun olam is about everyone recognizing the sovereignty of God and putting away idol worship. That might sound like it means everyone becomes Jewish, but nothing could be farther from the truth! Modern-day idol worship, as so many of us recognize, is the idolatry of money, power, and social superiority, As Jacobs interprets it, tikkun olam in this sense could mean "an end to all the 'impurities' such as poverty and discrimination that hamper the manifestation of the divine presence." (27)

 

The Preservation of the World

In some of the midrashic literature (for instance, B'reishit Rabbah 4:7), tikkun olam means the physical fixing and stabilization of the planet, and perhaps the larger universe, "such as global warming, deforestation, or the extinction of animal species," as Jacobs interprets it. (40)

The Preservation of the Halakhic System and the Social Order

In the Mishnah, the base text of the Talmud, tikkun ha'olam often refers to problems in divorce law. Specifically, it applies in cases where a man divorces his wife and attempts to change his mind, or where the get (divorce decree) might be technically invalid. If these cases were left unchecked, soon no one would know who was legally married and who was not, and the whole community would be disrupted. So, rabbis in the Talmud stated they could close the loopholes even where they didn't have explicit authority to do so. Why? For tikkun ha'olam, the greater good of having a legal system that worked for the community, and especially for the most vulnerable members of the community.

 

Restoring Divine Perfection

In the Lurianic Kabbalah, there is a notion that the process of creating the world went dramatically wrong, and that everything we see around us as reality is merely the shattered vessels that were supposed to make up one whole, unified Creation. In this conception, it is up to human beings, especially Jews, to lift up the shards and reunite them--and in some sense, reunite God, who is in exile with us in this imperfect world--through prayer and observing the commandments (including the ones to help the poor and to do justice, but also the ritual commandments about Shabbat, holidays, etc.)

A Synthesis

I suggest a reimagining of tikkun olam that combines the four understandings of the term we have seen in tradtional text:

1. the Aleinu's concept of tikkun as the destruction of any impurities that impede the full manifestation of the divine presence; 2. the literalist midrashic understanding of tikkun as the establishment of a sustainable social order; 3.  the rabbinic willingness to invoke tikkun ha'olam as a justification for changing laws likely to create chaos, and 4. the Lurianic belief that individual actions can affect the fate of the world as a whole. (38)