Community, Gemilut Hesed and Tikun Olam, and: There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition (review)

The recent, and welcome, proliferation of books on the theme of Judaism and social action featuring the work of members of the Rabbinical Assembly (see, for example, my review of Righteous Indignation in Conservative Judaism 60:4 [Summer, 2009] and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies’ study guide, Walking with Justice) continues with two new works reflecting the diverse perspectives found in our membership. Rabbi David Teutsch’s slender but compelling volume is part of the Reconstructionist movement’s emerging Guide to Jewish Practice and appropriately emphasizes diverse voices and the perspective of sociology. Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ There Shall Be No Needy links the study of history and halakhah to identify some essential principles that can guide a renewal of Jewish policy discourse in the American public sphere.

Teutsch’s guide to Community, Gemilut Hesed and Tikun Olam offers a core text and commentary from twenty-five rabbis, organizational leaders, and academics who apply the text to real-life situations. In many ways the vitality of the volume is in those extended comments, which illustrate how the ideas that Teutsch presents in theory might be applied in practice. The volume begins with a set of observations about the struggle to build community in our time and the conflict between the high value North Americans place on individual autonomy, on the one hand, and our desire and ability to build the strong communal institutions that can foster an ethic of mutual caring, on the other. American society is also marked by overlapping institutions and we also need to decide which responsibilities, once taken by a cohesive vibrant Jewish community, should today be located with government, secular non-profits, or Jewish community organizations.

For many affiliating Jews, the synagogue has become the primary locale for experiencing community; this puts the rabbi and synagogue in the position of needing to deal with issues of social policy and social justice, as well as attending to the needs of both members and non-members. This demand puts a strain on limited resources and raises questions that are hard to resolve about limits on the scope of mission of the synagogue. Citing Amitai Etzioni, one note comments on the strong sense of individual entitlement in our communities, which is not balanced with an equal sense of obligation. This section concludes with the concept of “covenantal reciprocity” as a guiding principle that should inform local decision-making processes as each community decides what standards are appropriate for their own needs and capacities in areas such as the imperative of saving a life, visiting the sick, caring for the elderly, welcoming guests, and kindness to animals (all narrow issues with broad implications).

The book’s second half is a practical and theoretical discussion of the meaning of tikkun olam and g’milut ḥasadim, two terms we often use interchangeably and which have both been used loosely in modern parlance to mean “saving the world” and “doing good deeds.” Teutsch makes the point that tikkun olam involves a commitment to serve people outside of our normal communal bonds of reciprocity, but the author of one of the comments opines that g’milut ḥesed involves preservation of the social order while tikkun olam involves struggle to change institutions and attack the root causes of social ills. Similar distinctions are offered for defining both “social justice” (aimed at government reform) and “social action” (aimed at non-governmental entities). The core text makes few specific policy suggestions and this is purposeful. Judaism, in Teutsch’s understanding, teaches the value of engagement in tikkun olam work—but does not specify what type of work a given community should choose. Making that decision is the ever-shifting work of community-based decision-making (exemplified, for example, in the process called CBCO, “congregational-based community organizing,” and in a...