Concept

Tikkun olam

Overview

Tikkun olam (, or more classically tikkun ha'olam; Hebrew: תִּיקּוּן עוֹלָם, romanized: tiqqūn ʻōlām, lit. 'repairing the world'), is a religious concept in Judaism, which refers to various forms of action intended to repair and improve the world.

In classical rabbinic literature, the phrase referred to legal enactments intended to preserve the social order. In the Aleinu, it refers to the eradication of idolatry. In midrash, it often refers to divine action to balance and sustain the world, especially in relationship to Nature. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the "repair" is mystical: to return the sparks of Divine light to their source, employing ritual performance. However, it is only much later in Kabbalah that this concept is applied to tikkun olam, rather than to the repair of a particular world or sefirah among the infinitely many worlds beyond the physical world. In the modern period, the Lurianic understanding of cosmic repair provided a mythos to inspire deep religious feelings about tikkun olam.

In the modern era, particularly among the post-Haskalah movements, tikkun ha'olam has come to refer to the pursuit of social justice, or "the establishment of Godly qualities throughout the world", based on the idea that "Jews bear responsibility not only for their own moral, spiritual, and material welfare, but also for the welfare of society at large". This understanding of tikkun olam has deep roots in midrash, musar, and Jewish thought that connect tikkun ha'olam to building society, loving one's neighbors, and to religious humanism in general.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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xix. 23), or of a vineyard in which other seeds have been growing (Deut. xxii. 9). Those commandments, whose object is generally evident, are called “judgments” (mishpatim); those whose object is not generally clear are called “ordinances” (ḥuḳḳim).
Moses Maimonides, The guide for the perplexed
States what Tikkun olam is.
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These are so subordinated that, in cases of collision of duty, God, the universe of relations, comes before the profit of humanity, and this before the state. At another time Leibniz defines justice as social virtue, and says that there are as many kinds of "right" as there are kinds of natural communities in which happiness is an end of action. A natural community is defined as one which rests upon desire and the…
John Dewey, Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
States what Tikkun olam is.
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But in two directions this conception of morality needs to be supplementing. There is, on one hand, what is called duty to God. The phrase is not altogether appropriate: for it follows too closely the analogy of social requirement, and treats Deity as an additional and social authority,—a lord paramount over merely human sovereigns. But though there may be some use in the analogy, to press the conception is…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
States what Tikkun olam is.
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Philosophers who discussed Tikkun olam

Reform Judaism

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Meaning of life.

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