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Jewish World Review
Jan. 16, 2006
/ 16 Teves, 5766
Healing an injured phrase
By
Rabbi Avi Shafran
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
"One of the 613 Mitzvot is 'tikkun olam,' to heal or repair the world," declares the Social Action Committee of a Massachusetts temple. The assertion is characteristic of the widespread ignorance these days about Jewish basics, not to mention the misrepresentation of the term tikkun olam.
There are indeed 613 mitzvahs, or religious duties, in the Torah, but none of them is tikkun olam — a phrase that, of late, is as frequently invoked (Google reports 226,000 references) as it is erroneously defined.
The term has its roots in the Mishna, the earliest Talmudic source-material, where it is employed as the philosophical principle behind a number of rabbinic enactments intended to avoid social problems. For example, the institution of a legal mechanism that can circumvent the sabbatical year's automatic cancellation of debts is justified by the concept of tikkun olam. As is the requirement that divorce documents include the signatures of the witnesses. Similarly, whenever tikkun olam is invoked by the Talmud, it refers to actions taken by rabbinic authorities to address communal concerns.
The phrase also has an eschatological meaning, as in "lisakein olam bi'mal'chus Sha-dai" ("to repair the world through the kingdom of G-d") clause in the Aleinu declaration recited at the end of every Jewish prayer service. There it refers to the end-point of human history, when idolatries will disappear from earth and "every knee will bend to You" and all nations "will give honor to the glory of Your name."
And then there is tikkun olam's meaning in Jewish mystical literature, where it is used to refer to the cosmically redemptive power of personal actions, in particular the performance of mitzvahs, both ethical and ritual.
In recent years, though, the term has been widely employed by a number of Jewish groups and individuals in a novel way, made to mean the embrace of any of a variety of social, political or environmental causes — including, as one, tikkunolam.com, asserts, arms control, reproductive rights and campaign reform. Gay and lesbian rights are another item on that group's list, although the only quote from Leviticus cited is "Love thy neighbor as yourself." (Other pertinent verses in that book seem to have been overlooked.)
Redefinition of time-honored Jewish words and concepts, unfortunately, is nothing new. "Torah" and "mitzvah" and "Halacha" (Jewish religious law) and "observance" have all fallen victim to Jewish Newspeak. But there is a particular irony to the trendy twisting of tikkun olam to refer to the issue du jour of the politically progressive.
It stems from yet another legitimate employment of the term, as cited by Maimonides in his magnum opus the Mishneh Torah (or Yad Hachazaka).
Near the end of that 14-volume compendium of Halacha, the revered 12th century Jewish luminary included several chapters of laws concerning Jewish kings. In the final law of the third chapter of that section, he writes:
"[In] any case where someone takes human lives without clear proof [of a capital offense] or the issuance of a warning, or even on the strength of a single witness [as two are required in a Jewish court], or where a person hates someone and kills him [seemingly] by accident, a king is permitted to execute [the unjustified taker of life] in order to repair the world ["li'saken ha'olam"] according to the needs of the time… to strike fear and shatter the strength [literally, "break the hand"] of the world's perpetrators of evil."
And so, Maimonides informs us, there is yet another meaning to tikkun olam, the authorization of a nation's leader to do whatever is necessary, "according to the needs of the time" — even suspend the ordinary rules of evidence in capital cases — to preserve the security of his society from those who seek to disrupt it.
No Jewish king exists today but, still — in the spirit of liberal-mindedness — we might engage in a little "expansion of definition" ourselves and consider how the Maimonidean concept of tikkun olam might pertain to our own society, leaders and times.
Reasonably, it would seem to advocate the right, in fact the responsibility, of the chief executive of a country threatened by murderous elements to take strong and unusual action to undermine those enemies of civilized society — even if some personal rights may be compromised in the process.
So, interestingly, the concept of tikkun olam would seem to argue most eloquently today for things like, say, the imprisonment of enemy combatants, secret wiretaps and surveillance of citizens.
It might not please those who enjoy waving tikkun olam like a flag, but the concept, accurately applied, would seem to more heartily support the Patriot Act than a ban on Alaskan oil drilling.
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JWR contributor Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America. Comment by clicking here.
© 2006, AM ECHAD RESOURCES
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