The Tikkun Olam Generation

In 1998, I attended the installation of the senior rabbi of the largest Reform Congregation in Cleveland. In a room packed with congregants and members of the community, the new rabbi gave an impassioned inaugural address. As a Conservative rabbi, I was dismayed (but not surprised) that the following words or phrases were never mentioned even once in this address: mitzvah, observance of rituals and customs; Jewish education, life-long learning; support of Jewish communal institutions and support for Israel. There was only one theme for this thirty-minute installation address: tikkun olam. The goal of this new rabbi was to transform his congregation into one invested in the active and ongoing repair of the world through social action and social justice programs and projects.

In 2000, I participated in the United Jewish Communities Rabbinic Cabinet "Torah from Jerusalem" High Holy Day sermon seminar transmitted by satellite from Jerusalem. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin was one of the presenters. In his d'var torah he asked, "What is the most important theme of the Yamim HaNoraim?" His question was cearly rhetorical, since our microphones would only be turned on following the seminar to ask questions to the presenters. In the next few seconds I ran through the usual themes in my mind (teshuvah, malkhuyot, zikhronot, the meaning of the Shofar, judgment, atonement), he answered his question. His answer was surprising (at least to me): "the most important theme of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is tikkun olam." Had my colleague in Cleveland or Rabbi David Saperstein (director of the Reform Religious Action Center) made such a declaration, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash. But when one of modern Orthodox Judaism's most effective, respected, and path-breaking rabbis made this statement, it had a profound effect on me. At that time, his response helped to transform my own thinking on the importance of tikkun olam.

A final anecdote. On June 6, 2007, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, thirty members of the United Jewish Communities Rabbinic Cabinet had the opportunity to meet with two Jewish senators, Frank Lautenberg and Ron Wyden, along with Congressman Elliot Engel of New York. Congressman Engel, in concluding his remarks to us (with Senator Lautenberg waiting to speak next), proclaimed: "I am in the Congress to do tikkun olam." It was at that moment, sitting on Capitol Hill, that I realized that ours is now "the tikkun olam generation."

While it can be argued that the idea of tikkun olam has been with us since the earliest days of Judaism and is fundamental to our teachings, never has this core value been so visible on the American Jewish community agenda. And if these anecdotes are not convincing enough, the appearance of four volumes in the past two years devoted to both the theoretical and practical applications of tikkun olam will give this argument further credence.

Rabbis Elliot Dorff and Sid Schwarz, in two very different books, illuminate our understanding of tikkun olam. Rabbi Dorff, through Jewish Lights Publishing's "The Way Into . . ." series, provides the significant theological underpinnings of the Jewish understanding of tikkun olam. (His book, incidentally, was nominated for the National Jewish Book Award). Rabbi Dorff's comprehensive introduction to and in-depth analysis of tikkun olam is a primer that should be required reading for every student, lay leader, and all clergy.

No one would be surprised by Professor Dorff's first two sections of his book: "Tikkun Olam in Theory" and "Tikkun Olam for Individuals and Society." The seven chapters in Parts One and Two explore the meaning and significance of tikkun olam and the traditional ways that tikkun olam...