TIKKUN OLAM

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religous Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday October 9, 2005


READING: "Return" by Rachel Barenblat, weblogger of The Velveteen Rabbi


I've been thinking a lot this past week about last Sunday's drumming service. Whenever I meet a young person like Matt Meyer, who grew up in our movement, and who has found the courage to pursue his passion and become truly accomplished at something he truly loves, I feel proud. And like many of you, I suspect, I was also quite taken by the sensitivity and sophistication of his statement about racial privilege and cultural appropriation -- clearly this was a topic he had thought about a great deal, and I thought that his remarks both reflected that thoughtfulness, and also a genuine sense of gratitude and humility regarding the privileges he has enjoyed, and the opportunities he now has to share his gifts with others.

And the reason I feel proud is that our Unitarian Universalist faith turns out a lot of kids like Matt. In my opinion, it's one of the things that we do best, although we don't always see and appreciate it as much as perhaps we should. It's not easy either, although let's face it -- most of the credit has to go to the kids themselves. We can provide safe space (which may be physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual); we can provide encouragement and support; we may even be able to provide a certain amount of wisdom and guidance, and a plethora of good examples (and, who knows, maybe even a few cautionary bad ones) -- but ultimately it is our young people themselves who seize the liberty our liberal faith provides, and follow their vision and their values wherever they may lead. And sometimes I know it may seem like they meander quite a bit before they find their way, but the confidence we show in them gives them confidence in themselves to go to new places where we've never been. So we have a lot to learn from our young people as well, who like young people everywhere, enjoy the privilege of seeing (and exploring and discovering) the whole world as if it were being seen (and explored and discovered) for the very first time, through fresh eyes different from yours or mine.

Matt also got me thinking about the difference between talking about the "Judeo-Christian Tradition" as opposed to the "Jewish and Christian traditions." The first phrase emphasizes the commonalities between these two great historical religions, but it also seems to imply a continuity -- implicitly suggesting that Christianity not only developed out of Judaism, but that it has also in some way superseded it. The second phrase not only acknowledges the distinctiveness of both faiths, but also potentially encompasses the particularities that exist among the various branches of the each. These distinctions may just seem like meaningless semantics, but they are potentially significant for Unitarian Universalists as we explore our own relationship to our historical forebearers. Is Unitarian Universalism a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition? Are we a Christian denomination? Christian heretics? A post-Christian faith? A return to a radical, Jewish (or for that matter, Moslem)-style monotheism? Or perhaps something entirely different altogether?

I'm not going to try to answer these questions today, mostly because I'm not really sure that there IS a right answer, much less that I know what it is. But the questions themselves do point toward a couple of interesting insights about the nature of religious faith itself. The first of these is that religious traditions are dynamic: they change and evolve over time. You may or may not think that this is a good thing, but it's still a fact: the Christianity and the Judaism of today are in many ways very different than they were 500 or 1000 years ago, never mind the even more distant days of Jesus or Moses. Obviously much has been preserved -- most of which is undoubtedly important, yet some of which is also doubtlessly trivial. But personally, I'm most intrigued by what is innovative, and represents progress. The relationship between the traditional and the progressive, between conservatives who wish to preserve the wisdom of the past, and liberals who embrace the freedom to explore the future, is likewise a dynamic one. The Protestant Reformation, for example, was about both protest and reform. Our current so-called "Culture War" is much more complicated than merely a conflict between Revolutionary Radicals who want to turn everything upside-down simply for the sake of change, and Reactionary Radicals who want to take us all back to a time that never was. Figuring out what to preserve and what to change is what makes meaningful progress possible: both in religion, and in ever other aspect of life.

The second insight hits even closer to home than the first. But for better or worse, we now live in a time when individuals are basically free to pick and choose from a variety of different religious traditions all at once. Spirituality has become a commodity; nowadays people go "shopping" for churches in much the same way they would shop for any personal service, like a gym or a school for their children. Some folks are still relatively loyal to the brand they grew up with, while others are more interested in convenience, or a certain style or the particular range of services offered; and still others are attracted by a sense of associative prestige, or perhaps the exoticism of something novel and foreign. (I suspect there are even some folks who make their decision based solely on price, although when it comes to the care and nurture of one's immortal soul, quality still seems to be the determinative factor). And of course there are many people who have decided that they can do without any sort of formal religious affiliation whatsoever. These "spiritual, but not religious" do-it-yourselfers browse among a wide variety of choices and options, selecting whatever seems to suit them at the moment, and then moving on to something new when whatever they've chosen doesn't suit them any longer. The technical name for this phenomenon is "syncretistic eclecticism" -- the belief that all religious traditions are basically the same underneath, and that individuals have the freedom to select whatever combination of values and practices seem to make most sense to them at the time.

Once again, I don't know whether this is good or bad, but it's a very real part of the world we live in. And there is a compelling logic to it. If something is "True" with a capital "T" it's going to be equally true for everyone, whether we believe in it or not. And yet, because each individual is in some way different and unique, that "Truth" is also going to impact each of our lives uniquely and in different ways. Furthermore, no single individual is possibly capable of seeing and understanding the entire Truth from every different possible perspective -- or if they are, they sure are an awfully lot smarter than I am. But more likely, they just THINK that they know it all, which makes those of us who "know that we know nothing" actually a lot smarter than them. How could any God worthy of the name possibly care what religion we are, or even whether we believe that the whole idea of "God" itself is simply something we've made up in the attempt to talk sensibly about an aspect of our experience which is ultimately beyond our ability to know and fully understand? Our beliefs about God are not really God, and yet from time immemorial human beings have experienced something that they have called by many names: "the Sacred," "the Holy," "the Divine." And that experience has the power to changes people's lives. And then through our changed lives, to change the world as well.

It's in this connection that I want to talk about the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, a Hebrew phrase which means Repairing or Restoring or Perfecting the World. In the Mishnah, Tikkun Olam was often used as a justification for rules or practices which are not really part of the Torah, but which are followed because they help to avoid bad social consequences. But the concept really took on a much wider significance in the 16th century, thanks to the Kabbalistic Rabbi Isaac Luria, who taught his followers that God created the world as a sort of vessel or mirror in order to reflect His Glory...but that the emanations of this Divine Light were so brilliant and powerful that the world was catastrophically shattered into countless shards, each of which contains or reflects a small portion of the divine spark, but which together (like the pieces of a shattered mirror) reflect back only a distorted image of God's original light. And so the purpose of human life is Tikkun Olam -- to Repair the World by bringing together and mending the broken pieces which are our individual souls, so that Creation might once more accurately reflect the glorious brilliance of its Creator.

And how is this done? In all the usual ways, of course: through study, meditation, and prayer, through the doing of Mitzvoth, or goods deeds, and more specifically through the faithful practice of Peace, Justice, and Compassion, not just on an individual, but on a societal level. We repair the world by repairing our relationships with one another and with God. We allow our lives to reflect the divine spark which illuminates all creation, then join together with other enlightened individuals in order to mend the breaks, bridge the gaps, and heal the wounds that divide and estrange us.

This week Jews all over the world are observing their High Holy Days, which began with Rosh Hoshana -- the Jewish New Year -- and will conclude next Thursday with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement -- an all day fast, combined with several lengthy prayer services, which actually begins an hour before sunset on Wednesday, and will end 25 hours later with a single, long lingering note on the Shofar. Yom Kipper is a day of introspection and repentance, as well as a day of reconciliation and forgiveness -- a time to make peace not only with God, but also with your neighbors, whom you have likely also sinned against over the course of the year, and from whom you should also therefore seek forgiveness. And yet as difficult (and even painful) as this may sound, the Talmud actually considers Yom Kippur a happy day, because if people have properly observed the holiday, by the time the fast ends they will feel both a great catharsis, and also a deep sense of serenity from having been restored to right relationship with both the Creator, and with everyone they know.

The task of Atonement, and the challenge of Repairing the World, are intimately connected. We begin with the optimistic enthusiasm of youth, which believes that all things are possible for those who are faithful to their vision and their values, and in the end we turn that vision on ourselves as we explore the enduring value of a single human life. There's a story told about the Hasidic master Rebbe Chaim of Tzanz, who in his old age remarked that over the course of many decades, he had first given up his youthful ambitions to change the whole world, and then later, his bold plans to transform his community and family. He was, in the end, hoping merely to better his own self somewhat before his time to leave this earth arrived. We repair the world one person at a time, beginning with our own personal efforts to heal, to be reconciled, to forgive and be forgiven. And the only real question is:

How to make it new:
each year the same missing
of the same marks,
the same petitions
and apologies.

We were impatient, unkind.
We let ego rule the day
and forgot to be thankful.
We allowed our fears
to distance us.

But every year
the ascent through Elul
does its magic,
shakes old bitterness
from our hands and hearts.

We sit awake, itemizing
ways we want to change.
We try not to mind
that this year's list
looks just like last.

The conversation gets
easier as we limber up.
Soon we can stretch farther
than we ever imagined.
We breathe deeper.

By the time we reach the top
we've forgotten
how nervous we were
that repeating the climb
wasn't worth the work.

Creation gleams before us.
The view from here matters
not because it's different
from last year
but because we are

and the way to reach God
is one breath at a time,
one step, one word,
every second a chance
to reorient, repeat, return.