Tikkun olam: What is it, exactly?
By Michele Alperin
Feb. 15, 2008

The words "tikkun olam" are widely used by Jews of all stripes, and even non-Jews, in the 21st century. But what they mean is not so easy to pin down.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Rabbi-in-Residence of the Jewish Funds for Justice, got frustrated with the term being overused to mean anything a particular speaker needed it to mean. When she Googled "tikkun olam," she even came up with opposing political positions. She remembered thinking, "If it means both this and this, and these things are entirely opposed to this, then doesn't mean anything anymore." So she decided to do a little research into its origins.

One beneficiary of her work was a study session for an audience of 25 at the Jewish Center on Feb. 4. The session opened with Jacobs quizzing attendees about what the term meant to them. She drew out a web of related understandings that probably reflects what most modern liberal Jews mean when they say "tikkun olam." Among their suggestions were: "helping the world," "an obligatory repairing of the world," "a personal commitment to act in the world," "partnering with God," "healing the world," and "social justice."

Jacobs' goal in the session was to develop a more nuanced understanding of "tikkun olam." In doing so she shared the accretions of meaning the term has taken on in Jewish liturgy and text over the last two millennia.

One of the oldest references to the term is in the Aleinu prayer, where it appears in the context of destroying false gods and causing all humanity to invoke God's name. What we get from the Aleynu text, Jacobs said in summary, is that tikkun olam is about belief and rulership of God, and that when the world recognizes God's oneness, the Messianic Age will begin.

Jacobs then turned to an early Rabbinic text, B'reishit Rabbah, which discusses the division between water and sky on the second day of God's creation of the world, a day that God omitted to call "good." Rabbi Tavyomi explains why God was perhaps was not totally happy with the day. Division, he suggests, has a negative connotation. The term in question appears when he explains that division also has a purpose: "l'taken olam and to stabilize it."

So what does our term, here rendered as a verb rather than a noun, mean now? Study session member Alison Politziner saw this tikkun olam as making whole something that had been divided. Jacobs agreed, emphasizing that the wholeness referred to in this commentary was physical wholeness, making the world whole in a physical way.

The next texts Jacobs introduced were from the Mishnah. One of the texts talks about a situation where a fickle husband is able to assemble a court wherever he is to annul a divorce document he has already sent to his wife. Such fickle husbands were not, notes Jacob, that unusual: among geniza documents, multiple marriage contracts and gittin from the same couple have been found.

Allowing a husband to assemble a court to annul a get however, could create serious complications. The wife might think she was divorced when she actually was not. If she then got married, any children she had would be in the category of mamzer, prohibited from marrying anyone except another mamzer. Or the wife might not know the court has been set up and a get issued and, thinking she is still married, never gets remarried.

So, said Jacobs, "They need to get rid of the loophole that the husband can assemble a court to annul a get."

The text uses the term "tikkun olam" when supplying a reason for the judgment that closed the loophole: "Rabban Gamaliel the Elder established that this should not be done, for the sake of tikkun olam." In this text, the term is starting to take on some of the connotations that link it to the current understanding of repairing the world.

Another Mishnah text talks about captives not being redeemed for more than their value, for fear of providing an incentive to kidnappers. And again the term appears: "Captives should not be redeemed for more than their value, for the sake of tikkun olam."

Tikkun olam is also connected with the concept of the prozbul, which Hillel instituted to enable people to lend money as the shmitta year approached, when all debts are forgiven. The problem is that poor people may depend on loans, but wealthy ones would not want to lend as the shmitta approaches, for fear they wouldn't be paid back. The prozbul creates a loophole, through an intermediary, that allows the repayment of debts during the shmitta year.

With these texts, particularly in the context of the prozbul, the connotations of tikkun olam are starting to be the more familiar ones.

"What's going on for the Mishnah is that something is out of whack in the world; a little legal loophole is causing a major problem. They are not saying the loophole was wrong, but it is causing a problem, so they put in other law to solve that problem," said Jacobs.

Jacobs summarized the accretions to the term tikkun olam so far. In the Aleinu, where it means restoring divine sovereignty and purity, it is not at all about human beings. Similarly in the rabbinic text about the second day of creation, where it means restoring the physical stability of the world, it is still not focused on humans. Finally, in these Rabbinic texts, tikkun olam refers to restoring stability in the social order and making sure the legal system can work at all. These texts offer protection for vulnerable people: women, servants, captives, and people who need to ask for a loan.

The next texts reflect the Lurianic mystics of 16th-century Safed. Before creating the world, God is Ein Sof: Without end and everywhere. To create the world, God had to withdraw part of himself to make a space where the world could be created. Then God creates a relationship with humanity.

"God decides to emanate himself to humanity through 10 vessels," explained Jacobs stating the lower-level vessels, those closer to humanity, hold up in the face of the intense divine light, but the higher-level ones shatter. Evil, said the Kabbalists, enters the world through the shards of these broken vessels, the klipot to which divine light still clings.

Jacobs added that Luria introduced the idea of kavanot that precede prayers or mitzvoth, suggesting their intent.

"When I say Kiddush, I'm trying to reunite the world or particular parts of world," said Jacobs stating the Luria's view of tikkun is reminiscent of the first definition of tikkun olam from the Aleynu, the restoration of divine sovereignty.

Jacobs then fast forwarded into the 20th century stating "In the 1950s the term tikkun olam comes back into vogue in a way we haven't seen it before. The term has entered the American vernacular."

And it has been quite alive and well in the secular and Jewish worlds in the 21st century.

Jacobs said that for her what works is the Talmudic sense of restoring a social order.

"In the United States, it's not about giving food to hungry people without asking about the social order that made them that way, asking why they are hungry," she said.

And what does it mean practically for Jacobs?

"Moving beyond the specific examples of the Rabbis and creating a world that is sustainable, whose social and legal system works, and doesn't end up with people in incredibly vulnerable situations," she said.