While in Amsterdam last year I visited a Jewish museum set in an old synagogue. There was a placard noting the role of Judaism is Tikkun Olam: “repairing the world.” Being relatively new to Jewish thought, I had never heard Judaism described this way and it moved and called to me. There is so much healing our world needs. Returning home, I made an appointment with a rabbi to ask about it. She agreed that this was indeed why Judaism exists. Indeed, it’s why all of humanity exists. It led me to believe humanity is the culmination of an imperfect process and we are called upon to work in healing and perfecting it. We are in school and the curriculum is: How do we each live so that all the world may thrive with us?
I am not Jewish either by family or persuasion and although I once identified as Christian, I no longer do so. This means I do not follow the religion about Jesus. I do however have a deep respect for Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish rabbi with deep compassion for the needy. When spiritual, psychological, or physical need arose, he did what was in him to meet that need. He taught people to look deeply into their spiritual traditions. He worked to provide comfort and healing, he fed those who were hungry, he wept with those who grieved. He dined and possibly partied with friends (more wine!) He broke the law of the sabbath to feed his disciples because he understood that sabbath law was intended to serve as a restful blessing, not a constraint on compassion. “The sabbath,” Jesus said, “was made for people, not people for the sabbath.” He understood and forgave the human condition, like the adulterous woman who was hauled to him by the authorities for judgment as a theological trap. He simultaneously forgave her and called her to become her better self. As he did so, he subtly confronted her accusers who cared nothing for the woman or even her sin, he turned their focus toward their own flaws. His anger always seemed reserved for those who abused others. The moneychangers who cheated people of their hard-won income he lashed from the Temple. He confronted religious leaders who used their authority or knowledge to burden rather than help. He invited all of us into what a friend of mine calls “the beloved community,” a delightful concept; a gathering for mutual support, where the needs of the many—whatever they may be—are met by the resources of the many. It’s a group holding compassion for others in their time of need, appreciation for the gifts each brings to all, a deep gratitude for when we are the ones called upon to share from our plenty, and a place for those with the humility to recognize that sometimes the need for aid is our own. This is what the rebbe Jesus taught and practiced. This is, to me, Tikkun Olam. So, while I don’t practice the religion about Jesus Christ, I embrace and imperfectly stumble toward the teachings of the rabbi Jesus.
It’s also why I’m perplexed and appalled at Jews or Christians who endorse and support Donald Trump, a man who is the antithesis of everything Tikkun Olam means. He punches down only at the weaker with shaming and sneers. He gives nothing with his right hand he doesn’t take back double in his left. He courts and kowtows to violent, authoritarian men like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, while appearing incapable of sympathy, let alone empathy, for the injured, the decimated, the ill, or even the grieving. Time and again he has left in his wake financial ruin of his own businesses and those of others. Everything he touches dies–businesses, relationships, systems, and now America. Our economy lies in shambles and as of today nearly 80,000 additional U.S. citizens are dead while he blames everything except his own leadership. Heedless of more deaths, he wants to “restart the economy” because it serves his re-election interests. This paragraph may seem a shocking pivot from the one before, and that is the point. It is shocking. And I am unable to explain why so many people find him so attractive while also saying they intend to be a mensch or a devout follower of Jesus. I stand baffled and I plan to explore in future articles how it seems to me we came here.
Shalom. -AB