A Rose By Any Other

I suppose I should have introduced myself first, but I suppose I'll get around to that after a bit. Right now I want to explain the name of the blog. Tikkun olam is a hebrew phrase that at its simplest means 'repairing the world.' (The word "tikkun" first appears in the book of Ecclesiastes where it means something very much like setting things in order. "Olam" means world. As a Jew, I am commanded to improve the world. I don't have to perfect it, but I am obligated to try to make it better.

There are many ways of thinking about this concept. I can feed a hungry person a sandwich and fulfill the commandment. Or engage in a broader range of social action, including the political. But those things, while essential to my well being, aren't enough to feed my hunger to set things in order.

Joseph Naft at Inner Frontier explains things this way: "Isaac Luria, the renowned sixteenth century Kabbalist, used the phrase “tikkun olam,” usually translated as repairing the world, to encapsulate the true role of humanity in the ongoing evolution and spiritualization of the cosmos. Luria taught thatt (sic.) God created the world by forming vessels of light to hold the Divine Light. But as God poured the Light into the vessels, they catastrophically shattered, tumbling down toward the realm of matter. Thus, our world consists of countless shards of the original vessels entrapping sparks of the Divine Light. Humanity’s great task involves helping God by freeing and reuniting the scattered Light, raising the sparks back to Divinity and restoring the broken world."

I have been struggling to grasp a few of those shards and find a way to reunite them all of my life. This blog is a tiny part of that struggle.