Compared to feeding the hungry or saving the planet, how important can it be to light Shabbat candles?
That question and similar ones have been on my mind lately, as I’ve thought about tikkun olam, the movement to “repair the world.” For many years now, tikkun olam has become a driving spiritual force and an elevated Jewish value throughout much of the liberal wing of American Jewry. How could it not be? What can be more meaningful to one’s life than to repair a broken world?
One question, however, that few people have asked is: Did tikkun olam become more attractive and meaningful than Judaism itself?
Tikkun olam proponents respond by not distinguishing between the two: Fighting for social justice is Judaism. Everything socially worthy, in fact– helping the marginalized, protecting migrants, assisting the homeless, dealing with climate change, defending democracy, etc.—can be lumped under “Jewish values.” Tikkun olam offered an irresistible proposition: take whatever good you’re doing for the world and call it Jewish.
This may help explain why repairing the world came to play such a central role among liberal Jewry: for many, it’s a more natural and enticing activity than traditional Judaism. Indeed, if your goal is to cast as wide a net as possible to attract Jews, fixing a broken world sounds a lot cooler than, say, studying Talmud.
The classic rebuttal, of course, is that “it’s not either/or.” Repairing the world doesn’t mean we no longer have to follow Jewish tradition. We could and must do both. The two should be inseparable.
Yes, but there’s theory and then there’s practice. Did the theory work? Did tikkun olam result in Jews doing both?
Color me skeptic.
Let’s face it: Compared to the headiness of repairing the world, Jewish tradition can look ordinary. Who needs to observe the restrictions of Shabbat when you could do something that’s more up your alley– like volunteering at a soup kitchen?
When the drama of fixing a broken world becomes more captivating than the routine of traditional Judaism, people do tend to make it either/or. In that sense, maybe tikkun olam has become too powerful for its own good. Instead of an item on a long Jewish menu, for many it has become the main course.
The problem is that a main course without the uniquely Jewish rituals of our tradition becomes a diluted Judaism. And a diluted Judaism based on universalism doesn’t build a Jewish identity– it builds a universal one.
We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that in the latest Pew survey, about a quarter of adults who were raised Jewish no longer identify as Jewish.
Given that tikkun olam is so broad, it’s also not clear what it stands for.
“It’s certainly a term that has taken on a huge number of meanings,” author Jonathan Krasner says in a 2023 interview on the Brandeis University website. “For some, it’s a kind of secular messianism, a grand utopian vision. But for others, it can mean something as small as taking out the recycling or putting solar panels on your roof. If you’re equating it with something so mundane, you have to ask, ‘Wait, what is tikkun olam exactly?’”
Its meaning may have become too broad and blurry, but it hasn’t lost its attraction. So, if it’s true that too many Jews have chosen this diluted Judaism, can tikkun olam benefit from a course correction?
I think it can. For those spiritual leaders who agree, I offer a brief message you might share with your flock:
“Judaism, my friends, is a lot more than a universal idea, even one as powerful as repairing the world.
“What is uniquely Jewish? The Jewish story, the Jewish tradition, the Jewish rituals that have sustained us for thousands of years and that create a lasting Jewish identity.
“By all means, we must never stop fighting for justice and for the causes we believe in. But if we want to nurture a strong Jewish future, let’s find meaning in what is uniquely ours– our people, our story, our rituals.
“There’s no better place to start than by lighting Shabbat candles this Friday night and sharing a Shabbat meal with your loved ones.
“We owe it to our ancestors, to our children, and even to the world.”
