Tikkun olam has become a catchphrase for social justice in contemporary Jewish life—and for good reason. Our emphasis on repairing the world speaks to something centrally Jewish: our belief in human responsibility. Jewish worship isn’t just about contemplation or petition, it’s about action. We don’t just sit around believing in God, or asking God for things and having faith that it will all work out for the best. We are empowered and expected to act.
8 NIGHTS, 8 JEWISH VALUES: REFLECTIONS FOR CHANUKAH ON THE JEWISH OBLIGATION TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD –Sarah Hurwitz
For our first walk in the fragrance of Lace on Faith, we marvel at the flickering candle of the First Night of the Festival of Lights.
Each night, we will together consider portions of the essay by Sarah Hurwitz, and reflect upon how each of these values align with the values of racial justice. It is fitting indeed that this first night guides our minds to the concept of Tikkun Olam. We are here to repair the torn; to mend the rending.
It is indeed a responsibility. One that, if we are truly serious about our thirst for a changed world, cannot be shirked. If we are truly serious, it means we cannot just hope, or rather, cannot only hope. We cannot anticipate and hunger for a better world we have no intention of helping to birth.
To accept this responsibility is sobering, even in the lightness; even in the dance of the flickering candle.
It is not enough to watch others stitch. Not enough to hold our breath and hope the seams made by millions of others in the flickering light of this First Night will hold.
No. For us to fully enter into the concept of Tikkun, we must each wield our needles. We must learn the skillful ways of the seamstress; how to mend without pucker, or warping, or, crucially, of further tearing of the world’s cloth.
As we strive to mend, we must take care to never, ever, create further harm.
We must see and acknowledge our place in the tapestry and enter deeply in, so deeply that we may not see the whole of the design, but still determine with whole heart to do our part, our portion of the whole, and trust that the pattern, buttressed by our own tiny, seemingly insignificant stitches will align with and enhance the whole.
The unique threads we have each been given is ours alone; we alone are responsible for them, and while we are free to hold on to our singular threads, and the tapestry will still hold beauty and truth without us, still we are not absolved from this hoarding should we decide not to contribute our portion. The tapestry may not be ultimately diminished, but we, tightly clutching onto our individual threads, certainly will be. We must never drop a stitch at the expense of those we stand with and on whose behalf we walk.
Sometimes it will not be pretty from our close up, yet so limited view. Our needles will sometimes prick; leaving our very blood as part of the tapestry, visceral reminders of the work we do. We do not hide it; it adds depth and heft.
So we walk, and we stitch, and we sustain with our own orange trees.
And another First Night ends.
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