Repairing a Broken World: The Jewish Concept of Tikkun Olam
The last four months have been difficult for our staff and for so many of our friends in the Jewish community. What happened in Israel on October 7th has affected us deeply. It has changed the world.
Have you ever asked yourself, “What is wrong with the world?” This is a question I’ve been asking more frequently in recent months. It seems like everywhere I turn, things are looking bleak. The media blasts negative stories on a loop. Wars and the threat of wars are increasing globally. Terrorism. Violence. Sickness. The world’s governments are deeply corrupt. Poverty and hunger threaten the most vulnerable.
Society is becoming increasingly divided and polarized, and most people can no longer hear one another from inside their own echo chambers. I am reminded of the solemn words of Jesus about the last days. He said, “There will be wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed... Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.” (Matt 24:6, 12).
Things are not as they should be. How far we have come from Eden. What can be done? How can we begin to help a world so desperately broken? Judaism has a beautiful concept that offers one answer to this question.
A Jewish Answer: Tikkun Olam
Tikkun Olam (tee-KOON oh-LAHM) is a significant theme in Jewish tradition. It literally translates to “repairing or fixing the world.” Tikkun comes from the Hebrew root meaning “to straighten,” “to equalize,” or “to set in order.” The word olam is less straightforward, and is a truly fascinating study. Olam can mean “the world” or “the universe.” It can also mean “eternity” or “perpetuity,” or a time that is “hidden” or “undefined.” Olam refers to a great expanse, whether in time or in space.
The term Tikkun Olam comes from the Mishna, a body of rabbinic law and teaching codified around 200 AD. In the Mishna, Tikkun Olam had to do with legislation that offered legal provisions protecting those who were most vulnerable
in society. The concept has developed over time. Later in the Middle Ages, Tikkun Olam took on a more spiritual meaning as it was employed in the teachings of famous Kabbalistic Rabbis (teachers of Jewish mysticism). It was first used in the 1950s to refer to social activism and justice work. It is a common phrase used in the Jewish community to refer to our human responsibility to fix what is wrong with the world.
If you ask a Jewish person what they think will happen after we die, often the response is something to the effect of, “We don’t worry so much about that – we worry about making the world a better place to live in here and now.” While this perspective feels foreign to the Evangelical Christian world, I think we can learn from the Jewish community on this point.
The obligation to give back to society and to help those in need is a core value taught in most Jewish homes around the world. My Jewish friends are some of the kindest and most giving people I know. They are enthusiastic to donate their time, energy, and resources to a good cause. In fact, over half of the most generous philanthropists in the United States last year were Jewish people.
Though bringing healing to the world is a beautiful thing, there is a critical point we cannot overlook: We ourselves are also broken and in need of repair.
Can Broken People Fix the World?
When God created the world, he said it was “very good.” He left expanding Eden and “subduing” the world to humanity, his representatives. Scripture tells us that we were placed in the Garden “to work it and to protect it” (Gen 2:15). We were given the honor of partnership with God in caring for his creation. He called us to bring beauty and flourishing into the world that he made. He created us to display his glory in loving, life-giving relationships and fruitful work, using our creativity just like God – the one whose image we bear.
The first human beings were made without sin, living in unbroken fellowship with God, in harmony with each other and with the created world. But...We all know the story. Sin entered the picture, and that beauty and perfection was tainted. Adam and Eve were tempted and fell by choosing lies and disobedience to God over truth and trust in him. Death entered the world and the image of God was distorted. That brokenness has haunted us ever since. We are born bent in the wrong direction.
We need tikkun. We need fixing, setting straight. How can we repair the world with all of its ills, when we can’t even repair our broken relationships? Our bodies? We’re barely holding it together. Good news: we are being held by the One who holds all things together. Our story does not end there.
Messiah’s Answer: The Ultimate Repair
When the first human parents fell in the garden, in his mercy, God announced that he was not leaving us in our brokenness. He, the great Repairer of the World, would come and put things right. He promised that One who would come, “the seed of the woman” (Gen 3:15), who would crush the head of the serpent, that ancient enemy of the human race.
All throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the picture of this promised One became clearer and clearer. He would be of the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:10), of the line of David (2 Sam 7:12–16), born of a virgin (Is 7:14), a prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15–19), rejected by his people and vindicated by God (Is 53:3, 10-12; Ps 118:22–24).
He would be born in Bethlehem, but actually divine, pre-existing the world. The prophet Micah foretold,“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” [yamei olam, lit. “days of eternity”] (Mic 5:2).
He would suffer and die for the sins of the world, broken so that our brokenness could be repaired. “By his wounds we are healed.” (Is 53:5) John writes of the Messiah’s mission, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”(Jn 3:16). The word here for “world” is the Greek word kosmos, the equivalent of the Hebrew word olam. Kosmos is translated “world,” but it also means “the universe,” or “the heavens.” It contains the same idea of expansiveness as olam - beyond what we can fathom. “God was reconciling the world [kosmos] to himself in Christ” (2 Cor 5:19). What a great redemption. As Paul said, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Rom 11:33).
Jewish people are waiting for the Messiah to come and set all things right. We who know Jesus know that Messiah has already come to begin this great work of redemption. That redemption will be brought to a glorious completion at his return. This will be the ultimate Tikkun Olam: the restoration of all things. Not just fixing what is broken, but making it new.
The last chapter of the New Testament gives us a glimpse of what will happen when Messiah returns and establishes his kingdom on the earth. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Rev 21:4-5). As the 14th century nun Julian of Norwich famously said, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
This fleeting life is not the end of the story. In The Last Battle, the final installation of The Chronicles of Narnia, the children finally walk with Aslan into eternity as their lives come to an end... and a beginning! C.S. Lewis writes,“All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
This reality brings tikkun - a straightening out - to our souls. It imparts strength that we might partner with the Lord as he brings healing to the world here and now. In his strength, we can put this beautiful concept of Tikkun Olam into practice as we love our neighbor, share the hope that we have in Messiah, and wait for the ultimate repair of the world.
by Anna Beth Havenar
Director of Communications and Community Outreach