Friday, March 27, 2020

repairing the world


Tikkun olam, or “repairing the world” is very simple. Any activity that leads to a more harmonious state is valid and valuable. The Chabad organization website, which illuminates Jewish mysticism, explains, “All human activities are opportunities to fulfill this mission, and every human being can be involved in tikkun olam, child or adult, student or entrepreneur, industrialist or artist, caregiver or salesperson, political activist or environmentalist, or just another one of us struggling to keep afloat.”

Each act of repair fine-tunes the instrument that is the universe, and you don’t have to be religious or artistic or political to participate. You just have to be a human. As Chabad puts it, “With each [fix], we are creating meaning out of confusion, harmony from noise, revealing the unique part each creation plays in a universal symphony.”



photo: Hawaiian forest in the rain, Bruce Behnke, 2020