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I just got a campaign piece from a [secular] Jewish Person running for office, who said she was motivated to run by the “Jewish concept of Tikun Olam”, the only place where those words are found is in Aleinu and לְתַקֵּן עוֹלָם בְּמַלְכוּת שַׁדַּי, to get rid of Idol worshippers, her platform had nothing to do with idol worship, if anything her platform of extreme environmentalism seems to be part of idol worship.
Just wondering how these words can be so misconstruedBeing left-wing is their religion.
“the only place where those words are found is in Aleinu”?
The entire fifth perek of Gittin and a large part of the 4th perek are devoted to enactments that Chazal made “mipnei tikun ha’olam”, which basically means to make the world a better place. You can argue about what constitutes Tikun Olam, but don’t deny that the concept exists!You’re late to the game. Reform and conservative Judaism have been misusing this term for decades.
Btw it doesn’t only appear in aleinu. Have you learned nefesh hachaim?
Reformniks love that phrase because it makes them feel like they are actually doing something meaningful instead of studying the torah. They believe lox and bagels will some how make everything better while still promoting toieva narishkeit.
A prizbul was instituted for tikun olam in order that people should not avoid lending because of
shamita.This is a general issue with secular Jews. Not just Tikkun Olam
As the well known writer Herman Wouk put it.
“In most non-Orthodox synagogues, a Rabbi’s sermon really boils down to a digest of whatever ideas are currently being pushed by the liberal publications with some vague and distorted references to Torah thrown in”
Tikun olam is shtussim contacted by the non frum to help make them feel good about their lack of Torah umitzvos.
Herman Wouk’s non-fiction books on Judaism are some of the best by anyone. And he wasn’t even a rabbi.
Many of his novels also should be a must read for any educated Jew.
As others have posted, Tikun HaOlam comes from Chazal. If the Reform folks were to learn gemara they might realize that it is a far more radical thing than they make it out to be — making halachic changes for the good of the world. But they don’t believe in halachah so I guess there isn’t much point in them learning gemara. 🙁
Don’t call it “tikun olam”…call it whatever is consistent with your hashkafah. It is entirely consistent with daas torah to protect the environment and protect the health of our communities. Its a total red herring to search for the term “tikun olam” in tanach and say its nowhere to be found. There are literally dozens of places where we are admonished to protect the creation the Ebeshter has given us.
Most reform “jews” claim to be liberal, tolerant and loving of others but there is no belief system that is more the opposite of these ideals than reform’s idea that judaism is “tikkun olam.” as if the jews are the only ones who want to make the world a better place and as if you cannot be a good human unless you are a tikkun-olam-jew. There are many, many more good-hearted people trying to improve the world who are christian and muslim than there are such people who are jews. the jews do not have a copyright on being good-doers.
I once heard r’lamm ztl explain it this way: God made a covenant with noach, avraham avinu and moshe rabbenu. With noach, applicable to all mankind: be a good person and make the world a better place; with avraham: love for the land of israel and with moshe, the torah. to be a yid, you need all three, but the first one is not exclusively jewish.
Interesting variant on the nusach in aleinu is “לתכן עולם” which would give it a very different meaning from the way the phrase is used to promote social causes.
I had never heard of Porat until just now. I found their web site and incredibly I know seven people who are on their masthead.
Nefesh Ha-Chaim isn’t an ancient book while the gemara is literally ancient teachings. The gemara is not clamming to literally support Anarcho-Communist extremism. In fact, democracy is not necessarily a Jewish value.
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