The term “tikkun olam” is a deeply important and commonly misunderstood Jewish concept. Tikun olam is not the fulfillment of a mitzvah, but rather refers to the Jewish drive and commitment to perfect the world according to God’s will, through our own behavior, attitude, and action. Many scholars point out that the term has been done an injustice when it simply refers to man’s involvement in charitable activities.

The first reference to tikun olam occurs in the Mishnah and broadly means “promoting the general welfare” (see Mishnah, Gittin 4:2). Another early rabbinic reference appears in the Aleinu prayer, which originated in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy but became a daily prayer around 1300 CE. In the second paragraph it says, “Therefore we trust in You, that we may see Your glorious power, to banish from the world the detestable things “l’takein olam b’malchut shaddai” and to perfect the world under Your sovereignty.” Here it is still spoken of as repairing the world being a divine rather than a human action.

Isaac Luria, the 16th century Kabbalist, emphasized the concept of tikun olam in his theology. Luria taught that God emanates into the world through the sefirot, which have personality traits, such as compassion. He said that by meditating on each of these sefirot and their unification, one can help heal what is a shattered spiritual world.

In 1964, Israel’s Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook expanded on Luria’s concept when he wrote that tikun olam must “fly not only over the spiritual ether,” but must equally concern itself with both the spiritual and the physical. (Orot Ha-Kodesh, sect. 3, p. 180).

In the early 1950s Shlomo Bardin, the director of the Brandeis Institute in California, taught that tikun olam refers to the obligation of Jews to work for a more perfect world. This interpretation had an enormous impact on Jewish youth movements and by 1970 it had been adopted by the youth movement of Conservative Judaism as the motto for its social action activities. In the following decades, tikun olam became the motto for social action in Judaism in general.

Judaism teaches us that the reason for human existence is tikun olam, the «repair of the world.» God left the world incomplete and imperfect so that human beings could participate in the act of creation, completing and perfecting it. And God is referring to this world, in this life. Focusing on a hypothetical (or real) «afterlife» is likely to weaken our commitment to improving this one. It is not forbidden to believe in or hope for paradise, but let us not worry so much about it that we forget about the world in which we live. It is this world that we need to repair.

Prepared by Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Articles on Tikkun Olam by Rabbi Paul Steinberg, Rabbi Dan Danson and others.