Dear all,
One of the more whimsical things in my office is a Lego globe of the earth — a reminder that each of us lives connected to something infinitely larger than ourselves.
A few months ago, a flying saucer (otherwise known as a child’s toy launched with remarkable precision) crashed directly into it. Pieces scattered everywhere. Continents broke apart. The world, quite literally, came undone.
And for months, it stayed that way.
Not because I didn’t care, but because the task of rebuilding it felt overwhelming. So many tiny pieces. So much work for something that seemed impossible to fully restore.
But today, I snapped one small piece back into place.
Just one.
And somehow, that tiny act felt larger than the globe itself.
Tikkun Olam — our sacred calling to repair the world — is rarely accomplished through grand gestures. More often, it happens exactly like this: Piece by piece. Person by person.
We are partners with God not because we can fix everything at once, but because we refuse to believe brokenness is the final state of the world.
The work is unfinished. It always will be.
But every small act of goodness is another piece returned to its place in any given moment in time.
With love and Shalom,
Rabbi Zachary R. Shapiro
