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The Real Meaning of Tikkun Olam

A get from the 19th-century (Credit: Israel Museum)

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tetze, sets the record for most mitzvot in one parasha with a whopping 74 of them. One of these mitzvot is that of divorce: “When a man takes a woman and becomes her husband, and finds her displeasing because he finds something obnoxious about her, he shall write her a bill of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house.” (Deuteronomy 24:1) The bill of divorce, called here a sefer kritut, would come to be more simply known as a get. In fact, there is an entire Talmudic tractate, Gittin, that explores all aspects of divorce and bills of divorce.

One of the questions discussed in this tractate is what does the Torah mean when it says the husband discovers something “obnoxious” about his wife? It is actually one of the more famous arguments between the ancient Jewish schools of Hillel and Shammai two thousand years ago. The more stringent Shammai believed that divorce was only permitted if the woman committed adultery or did something promiscuous (Gittin 9:10). Hillel believed divorce was allowed under any circumstances, for whatever reason the relationship was not working out. (Rabbi Akiva went even further and said a man could divorce even if he simply found another woman who is more attractive!)

More intriguingly, it is here in the tractate about divorce where we first come across the now-ubiquitous term tikkun olam, literally “repairing the world”. Today, many believe tikkun olam is a Hebrew term for social justice, but this is not accurate. What does “tikkun olam” actually mean? And why does it come from a tractate about, of all things, divorce?

Maintaining Order

In the fourth chapter of Gittin, the Mishnah and Talmud give many examples of things the Sages instituted mipnei tikkun ha’olam, “for the betterment of the world”. One of the first such things is that originally divorce documents needed to include essentially any name that the husband and wife went by. Rabban Gamliel, one of the last presidents of Israel before the Temple was destroyed in the 1st century CE, instituted that a get should list all names by which the husband and wife are commonly known. This was done mipnei tikkun ha’olam, and would ensure that the divorce is properly recognized in all places and by all people, even where the husband and wife might be known by other names.

Another example of tikkun olam is the prozbul, instituted by Rabban Gamliel’s grandfather, Hillel himself (Gittin 4:3). Recall that the Torah commands that all loans be paid back during Shemittah, the Sabbatical year, or otherwise be forgiven. A problem arose in that people were hesitant to lend money as the seventh year approached, since it was more likely that the borrowers would be unable to pay back the debt, putting the lender at an unfair loss. The reduction in available credit harmed the Judean economy. So, Hillel creatively came up with a prozbul that would sidestep the issue and allow the repayment of loans passed the Sabbatical year. The Talmud (Gittin 36b-37a) explains that “prozbul” came from a Greek term, meaning this decree was pro for both the bulei and the butei, the rich and the poor, benefitting all members of society.

We can now begin to understand the original meaning of the term “tikkun olam”. It was about adjusting Jewish law where necessary, within the framework of halakhah, for the betterment of society and to maintain peace and order. With time, tikkun olam took on a more mystical, cosmic meaning, too.

Rectifying the World

Ancient Jewish mystical texts described our world as one that is broken and in need of repair. God initially created a perfect world, but that world collapsed right at the beginning, in a process called shevirat hakelim, the “Shattering of the Vessels”. Adam and Eve had a chance to repair it, but only made the situation worse when they consumed the Forbidden Fruit. Since then, our mystical purpose is to reverse the damage and restore the wholesome primordial world, putting the pieces of those spiritual vessels back in place.

This process of repair and rectification, tikkun, is accomplished through the observance and fulfilment of mitzvot. This is the deeper purpose behind the Torah’s many laws—God gave them to us as tools to rectify the cosmos. Of all the mitzvot, the recitation of prayers and blessings in particular serve to elevate the world around us. All the small sparks of holiness, the nitzotzot, that came from the shattered vessels are trapped within the impure “husks”, kelipot, of the material world. The divine words of the prayers and blessings (in the original lashon hakodesh, the holy Hebrew tongue of Creation) are like spiritual formulas for freeing the sparks and restoring them to the Heavens. For instance, when one recites the boreh pri ha’etz blessing before consuming an apple, they unlock whatever sparks of holiness might be present inside. In this way, little by little, the entire cosmos is rectified.

The greatest proponent and expounder of this process was undoubtedly the Arizal (Rabbi Itzhak Luria, 1534-1572). It was he who put together the earlier Kabbalistic works into one complete mystical system, revealed only in the last two years of his short life in Tzfat, the “capital” of Jewish mysticism. The Arizal explained that this is the real reason why Jews were exiled to the farthest corners of the planet. On the surface level, it was a punishment and an exile, but God does not truly punish or exile. God is all-good, after all. The deeper reason for Jewish exile was so that Jews could reach every part of the planet and elevate all those lost sparks of holiness. Only when that process is complete will the Final Redemption be ushered in and the Messianic Age will officially begin.

Long before the Arizal, the Zohar already outlined the four aspects of tikkun. Recall that the Zohar is the central “textbook” of Kabbalah, first revealed to the public in the 13th century but originally dating back to the teachings of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his 2nd-century CE mystical circle. The Zohar (II, 215b) states that the first level of tikkun is rectification of the self. This is the process of personal development and self-refinement, the life-long journey of becoming a better, more Godly person. Each of us has many internal rectifications to achieve (both spiritual and physical).

Next is the tikkun of this lower physical world, primarily referring to that process of freeing the sparks trapped in the kelipot of the material around us. This is followed by the tikkun of the higher spiritual realms. For instance, reciting Kaddish for the departed serves to elevate their souls in the afterlife. Many of the mitzvot and rituals we perform similarly serve to affect great changes in the upper worlds. Finally, there is the tikkun of “God’s Name” which means a number of things, including bringing more Godliness down to Earth. Drawing more souls to recognize God, spreading Torah wisdom, and inspiring observance of mitzvot is a part of this process, too. The ultimate goal is, as the prophet Zechariah said, to bring about the day “When God will reign over the whole world; on that day God will be one and His name one.” (Zechariah 14:9)

These are the four aspects of genuine tikkun ha’olam: improving one’s self, fixing the spiritual fabric of the cosmos above and below, and infusing more Godliness into the world. So, how did some come to believe that tikkun olam is simply synonymous with “social justice”?

Tikkun as Social Justice

Real tikkun olam is clearly rooted in observance of Torah law and halakhah. With the rise of Reform Judaism in the 1800s, and their subsequent move away from halakhah, ancient ideas had to be rebranded. Tikkun olam was one of those ideas. Since Reform made halakhah essentially optional (at best), there was no way to root tikkun olam in the Law. Thus, rectifying the world was no longer a spiritual process requiring punctilious observance of mitzvot, prayers, and blessings, but rather a generic physical task of “making the world a better place”.

Now, there is certainly an element of “social justice” and making the world a better place within the larger umbrella of tikkun olam. It is true that God gave the Jewish people a mandate to improve the world, make it a more ethical and moral place, root out idolatry, spread monotheism, make life better for all, and be a “light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6). This is what the Jewish people were “chosen” for. Indeed, Jews have lived up to the challenge, and have been hugely instrumental (in disproportionate fashion) in advancing science and technology, medicine, civil law, democratic government, economics, arts, and yes, social justice, too. Some of the original “social justice warriors” of the past were Jews, including giants like Samuel Gompers and Louis Brandeis.

That said, tikkun olam must be rooted in the Torah. Commenting on the famous adage of Shimon haTzadik (in Pirkei Avot 1:2) that the world is established on “Torah, service, and acts of kindness”, the great codifier Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1138-1204) writes that true tikkun olam requires all three: Torah study, service of God, and kindness to others. Therefore, if some idea or movement is obviously contradictory to what the Torah stands for, it cannot in any way be “tikkun olam”. Today, some misuse the “tikkun olam” label and think it includes embracing all kinds of philosophies that are completely at odds with God and His Torah, which openly and proudly transgress Torah law.

For instance, while we should certainly care about the living conditions of all human beings around the world, there is no tikkun in marching alongside people who support terrorists that murder innocent Israelis. While we should certainly reach out to all Jews—regardless of their background, identification, or orientation—to inspire them to come closer to God and be more Torah observant, there is no tikkun in waving a rainbow flag nor in supporting “drag” shows. Nor is there any tikkun olam in going against the Torah’s gender roles, or in dismantling the traditional family unit, or in denying basic biological facts. Tikkun olam should not be confused with “spreading love” to anyone and everyone, or to embrace all peoples and philosophies and lifestyles. Tikkun olam cannot come before Torah law—it is supposed to enhance Torah law, not transgress it. Which brings us right back to our first question:

Why is tikkun olam introduced, of all places, in a tractate devoted to exploring divorce? I believe the subtle message is that we shouldn’t ever lose sight of what tikkun olam is truly about and that, sometimes, tikkun olam is not about embrace, but about divorce. There are things that must be opposed, and there are things that must be fought, and there is a line that cannot be crossed. We should never forget the true meaning of tikkun olam, that it is a spiritual process first and foremost, about bringing more Godliness and morality into the world (not Godlessness and immorality), about understanding the deeper cosmic purpose of Jewish laws and rituals, and about actually fulfilling those laws in order to bring about the Final Redemption, when true social justice (and not a distorted social justice) will reign.

May we merit to see that day very soon.

Secrets of Pi

This week’s conjoined Torah portions of Vayak’hel and Pekudei conclude the description of the Mishkan’s construction. The Haftarah for Pekudei is a passage from the seventh chapter of I Kings (the exact verses vary by community) describing King Solomon’s construction of the Jerusalem Temple. One of the most breathtaking structures standing in front of the Temple was the “Molten Sea”, a large bathtub for the kohanim to immerse in (as per Rashi and II Chronicles 4:6). The Tanakh describes that the bath was circular, sitting upon a base of twelve oxen statues, and had a total depth of five cubits, roughly ten feet. It held a volume of alpayim bat, “two thousand baths” of water (I Kings 7:26). In fact, the Hebrew bat (בת) is likely the etymology for the English word “bath”!

Illustration of the First Jerusalem Temple, or Solomon’s Temple, with the Molten Sea on the right.

What’s most perplexing in the description is that we are told the diameter of the circular tub was 10 cubits, yet its circumference was 30 cubits. Throughout history, many have pointed out that this seems to be an error! We all know that the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is π or Pi, which is 3.1415926 (and so on). So, the Tanakh should have said that the diameter was 10 cubits and the circumference was 31 or 31 and a half cubits. How do we solve this puzzle, and what deeper significance does Pi hold in the Torah?

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Mashiach’s Ancestry

In this week’s parasha, Vayechi, we read how Jacob gives a final blessing to his children before his passing. In concluding Dan’s blessing, Jacob says that he is eagerly awaiting God’s salvation, liyeshuatkha kiviti Hashem (Genesis 49:18). What is this referring to? We would think that the salvation will come through Judah, progenitor of David and Mashiach, not through Dan! Indeed, when Jacob blesses Judah (49:10), he says that the royal scepter will remain in his hands all the way until the coming of Shiloh, traditionally interpreted as a name for Mashiach.

On Dan’s blessing, Rashi comments that Jacob foresaw the rise of Samson—from the tribe of Dan—and was praying that Samson would be successful. In fact, as we’ve discussed before, Samson was the potential Mashiach of his generation. (This is first brought down in the Midrash, Beresheet Rabbah 98:14.) Upon closer examination, there is actually a profound connection between the tribes of Judah and Dan.

Our Sages taught that Judah was the most illustrious of the tribes, while Dan was the lowliest. In the Wilderness, the tribe of Judah led the way, while Dan was at the back of the camp. Dan was tasked with being the “lost and found”, and picking up all the things left behind by the other tribes ahead of them. This brought them tremendous merit. On a mystical level, Dan’s role is really symbolic of our mission in “finding” and restoring the lost sparks of Creation to rectify the cosmos. Although people saw Judah as the greatest and Dan as the lowliest, God saw them both as equal, and declared that He will bring representatives from the two together to build His house (Shemot Rabbah 40:4).

As such, God chose Betzalel from the tribe of Judah, and Oholiav from the tribe of Dan to build the Mishkan. The same happened with the Temple in Jerusalem, built by King Solomon from the tribe of Judah, by using resources and labour from King Hiram, whose mother was from the tribe of Dan! (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 13) And finally, in the same vein, Mashiach will come from the tribe of Judah paternally, but from the tribe of Dan through his maternal line. (Interestingly, it is possible that King David himself had this lineage, since some hold that his mother, Nitzevet bat Ada’el, was from the tribe of Dan, too.) The root of Yehudah is lehodot, to “thank” and be “grateful”, which is partly an aspect of Chessed, the right pole of “kindness”. The root of Dan is din, “judgement”, representing Gevurah, the left side of “severity”. It is fitting that we need both aspects, right and left, in balance to bring about rectification in the universe. Mashiach is an embodiment of that balance.

Jerusalem’s Coat of Arms

Another Midrash ties this to the reason why both Judah and Dan are described in the Torah as gur aryeh, a “lion cub”, the lion being the symbol of David and of Jerusalem. In Jacob’s finally blessing in this week’s parasha, it is Judah who is called gur aryeh, but in Moses’ final blessing (Deuteronomy 33), it is Dan who is the gur aryeh. The Midrash concludes that Mashiach will come from these two tribes, “his father from Judah and his mother from Dan” (Yalkut Shimoni I, 160). There is also an allusion to it in last week’s parasha, where we read the names of the 70 members of Jacob’s family that came down to Egypt. The only progeny of Dan is Chushim (חשים), an exact anagram of “Mashiach” (משיח)! According to a well-known tradition, it was Chushim who finally put an end to Esau, and so too will Mashiach put an end to the oppression of Edom.

While Dan is called a “lion” by Moses, in this week’s parasha he is called a “snake” by Jacob. This is because the lion was the symbol of the Davidic dynasty, but more specifically, the symbol of Mashiach himself is a snake (as explored in depth here). The famous gematria of “snake” (נחש) is equal to “Mashiach” (משיח), both being 358. This really goes all the way back to Eden, where the Serpent caused man’s downfall, and so it will be the “serpentine” Mashiach who reverses that event. In Kabbalistic sources, this is the meaning of Isaiah’s description of the great final battle between the nachash bariach and the nachash ‘akalaton, the “straight serpent” and the “twisted serpent” (Isaiah 27:1). The former is Mashiach, and the latter is the embodiment of evil that will be destroyed at the End of Days.

Mashiach’s Complex Lineage

When it comes to the specific lineage of Mashiach, we know that he is a direct descendant of King David, but do we have more exact information about his lineage? The pre-Davidic lineage is somewhat clear. It begins with Abraham, from whom there are 14 generations up to David (alluded to by the value of “David”, דוד, being 14!) The key figures in between are Judah, Peretz, and Boaz. Meanwhile, Abraham’s nephew Lot plays a big role, too. Following the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot ended up being seduced by his own daughters—who assumed the whole world was destroyed and they had to repopulate the planet—giving birth to Moab and Ben-Ammi, the progenitors of the Moabite and Ammonite nations. From Moab came forth the princess Ruth, wife of Boaz and great-grandmother of King David. From Ammon came Na’amah, wife of King Solomon and mother of Rehoboam, who continued the Davidic dynasty in its third generation.

While we would assume that Mashiach is a direct descendant of David through his son Solomon, there is actually another opinion. The Zohar (III, 173b), for instance, notes that Mashiach might actually come not from Solomon, but from David and Batsheva’s third son, Nathan. (It appears that the Christians wanted to satisfy both rabbinic opinions when providing two different, contradictory genealogies for Jesus in the New Testament: one going through Solomon and one going through Nathan! The irony, of course, is that Christians think Jesus is the literal son of God, so what use is a human lineage anyway?) The dilemma gets more puzzling:

The Zohar says Nathan’s wife was called Heftzibah, and their son was Menachem ben Amiel, an epithet for Mashiach. The problem is that we also know King Hezekiah’s wife was named Heftzibah. Hezekiah was the most righteous king since his forefather David, and is certainly a progenitor in the line of Mashiach. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 98b) states that Hezekiah himself should have been Mashiach, and despite being totally righteous, had one missing quality (for more, see ‘Who is Mashiach?’). The son of Hezekiah and Heftzibah was Menashe, Judah’s longest-serving monarch. Menashe had the potential to be Mashiach, too (and did merit the longest royal reign) but fell to idolatry and wickedness. King Menashe was yet another failed messiah. Some have argued that Menachem ben Amiel and Menashe must be referring to the same person (at least spiritually). Yet Menashe comes from Solomon, and Menachem is supposed to come from Nathan. How do we solve this dilemma?

Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer comes in and, at first glance, complicates the problem further. It states (in Ch. 19) that Menachem ben Amiel is a descendant of Joseph, so he is more likely Mashiach ben Yosef, not Mashiach ben David. We might therefore conclude two things: That both Mashiach ben David and Mashiach ben Yosef are actually descendants of King David, the former through Solomon and the latter through Nathan. And, perhaps, just as the former is maternally descended from the tribe of Dan, the latter is maternally descended from the tribe of Joseph. (Maybe Heftzibah the wife of Nathan was a descendant of Joseph?)

The reality is that a person can be a direct descendant of multiple figures, especially after so many generations and so many marriages in between. Today, all Jews are Yehudim, and by default “Judeans”—even Kohanim and Levi’im are Yehudim! So, there is no reason why Mashiach ben Yosef cannot be a descendant both of Joseph and of David. He would undoubtedly be a Yehudi after all! Intriguingly, even David is called an Efrati, apparently with Ephraimite lineage in his past (see I Samuel 17:12, which begins וְדָוִד בֶּן־אִישׁ אֶפְרָתִי).

As it stands today, all the tribes have long thoroughly intermixed, and the exact lineage is no longer of significance (nor is it even traceable). What’s important are the key qualities that Mashiach must possess, and the ability for inspiring leadership and for dignified kingship, as well as, most significantly, to accomplish the tasks set out in the Tanakh (and as codified by the Rambam in Hilkhot Melakhim).

When Mashiach does come, he will merit to wield the serpentine Staff of Moses—that special tool fashioned by God at the twilight of the Sixth Day of Creation (Avot 5:6). And who will provide him with that staff? None other than the returning Heftzibah, the Mevaseret Tzion, and a fierce warrior in her own right who has the power to “slay kings”, as described in the little-known ancient Sefer Zerubavel:

“…the staff of Aaron and Moses and David king of Israel, the staff which flowered in the Tent of Meeting, and brought forth blossoms and produced almonds. And Eliyahu son of Elazar hid it in Raqat [in the territory of Naftali], which is Tiberias, and there was hidden Mashiach ben Ephraim.”

And Zerubavel ben She’altiel said to Michael [the angel]: “If it please my Lord, when will come the light of Israel? And what will be after all this?” And he said to me: “Mashiach ben Yosef will come five years after Heftzibah, and will gather all Israel as one man, and then the king of Persia will come up against Israel and there will be great distress in Israel. And Heftzibah the wife of the prophet Nathan will go out with the staff which the Lord will give her, and the Lord will make a spirit of confusion enter them, and they will slay one another, and there the wicked will die…”

Liyeshuatkha kiviti Hashem!