are two kinds of tikkun corresponding to the two kinds of brokenness we humans imagine. The first is called tikkun hanefesh, repairing the soul. The second is called tikkun haolam, repairing the world. Both must occur if we are to set things right, and neither takes precedence over the other. Indeed they are two ends of the same rope.
We make tikkun hanefesh when we end the delusion of separateness that keeps us feeling alienated from God and creation. The truth is that God is creation. There are not two realities, the divine and the natural. If this were so, God would not be infinite. God’s infinity includes and transcends the finite world. There is only one reality that manifests in different ways. It is all God. Tikkun hanefesh is awakening to the fact that you and I and all things are one in, with, and as God.
We make tikkun haolam when we engage the world with justice and compassion, what I call godliness. Tikkun haolam is repairing the damage we do to life when we engage it unjustly and cruelly. Tikkun haolam is ending the violence that comes with seeking to control others, repairing the rifts between people, and between people and nature, and treating each other and all life with the utmost respect and care.
Tikkun hanefesh and tikkun haolam are two sides of the same coin. You cannot do one without doing the other: to end the divisions and violence around you, you must also end the divisions and violence within you. This is what Hillel meant when he said “If I am not for myself who will be for me?” This is tikkun hanefesh. “But if I am only for myself, what am I?” This is tikkun haolam. “And if not now, when?” (Pirke Avot) Tikkun of either type can be done only in the present. The past and future are beyond our reach. If you repair your world and your soul you must do so by entering fully into the present moment.
How do you do this? Through the practice of teshuvah. So many people now use the word to refer to a return to Halachah (Jewish law) and traditional ways of Jewish living but I use it differently.
Teshuvah means returning to God and godliness. When your mind is caught up in the delusion of separateness it is distracted from the present. The deluded mind dwells on the past or imagines the future, but is never at home in the present. Why? Because the delusion of separateness cannot be maintained in the present. Since separation is a delusion of the mind, it is imagined in the mind, and the mind cannot imagine in the present. Imagination is of the past or the future, never the present. We cannot imagine the here and now, we can only engage it. Teshuvah is returning the mind to the present, to God, for God is the eternal present; tikkun returns us to godliness, engaging each moment with the utmost respect and care. If you are interested we can discuss just how this is done, but in any case this is what I think Judaism is: tikkun and teshuvah.
I can almost hear your objections! What about God, What about Torah, What about Israel, What about Shabbat and Yontif (the Sabbath and Holy Days)? I am not ignoring these, and, if you ask, I will be happy to explore them with you. But we are talking about a one foot Judaism. Hillel, too, did not mention Shabbat. He said all the rest is commentary; now go and study it. I will say no less: Judaism is returning to God and godliness. All the rest is commentary. Come, let us study it.
B’Shalom
WHO IS A JEW?
My dearest Aaron Hershel,
Have I ever thought about sailing to Palestine? Yes, I have dreamed about living in the Holy Land. I would visit the burial places of our ancient mothers and fathers. I would pray at the graves of our teachers. I would let the past infuse me with its spirit. But my work is here with my students.
I share your letters with them and also my responses. They are more interested in your adventures than in my teaching. This we can get anytime, they tell me, but America is something else entirely. They imagine themselves selling horses as you now do. And they asked me to suggest to you that you pack books for sale on the backs of these horses so that you can sell wisdom along with the beasts. So, I pass it on.
I myself have never ridden a horse, though as a child I would imagine that I owned the horses of the Baal Shem Tov, those that could travel great distances in moments. Now that I am old I still believe in the horses of the Besht (an acronym for Baal Shem Tov), but I no longer desire to be anywhere but here.
Your last letter troubled me a little. It follows naturally from our discussion on what is Judaism, but you spoke of discord among Jews over, of all things, who is a Jew. What is the confusion? And what prompts the question? Are Gentiles sneaking into tallitot and tefillin (prayer shawls and phylacteries) and trying to pass themselves off as Jews?
I am sorry. I do not mean to make light of your question. Let me answer it honestly. To my mind a Jew is a person who identifies as a Jew, who makes Jewish culture his or her primary vehicle for celebration and meaning, who upholds the values of Torah, and who practices tikkun and teshuvah.
I will take up each of these in turn, but first let me reply to what you must be thinking as you read this paragraph: What about being born to a Jewish mother?
For centuries this has been the determining factor of who is a Jew. I do not mean to ignore it. I only question its value. Between you and me, and I think I will not share this with the others, what matters to me is not who your mother was, but what you yourself do. So what if your mother is a Jew? So what if your mother is a devout and pious Jew? If you yourself ignore the Sabbath and the Torah, if you deny God and make no effort to be godly, in what meaningful way are you a Jew?
It would be as if Fivel Lipshitz, the tailor’s son who sells firewood from his wagon, were to suddenly call himself a tailor and start sewing suits. The boy cannot count to ten, let alone measure a caftan sleeve. I could imagine saying to him, “Fivel, can you cut cloth well?” No, he would tell me. “Well, can you sew a straight stitch?” No, again, he would say. “Tell me, can you hem a cuff or let out a pair of pants?” No, for a third time. “Then how is it you presume to call yourself a tailor?” My mother is a tailor so I am tailor. Can you imagine such nonsense? And yet that is exactly what we are saying about being Jewish!
Listen to me, Aaron Hershel. Bend near to this page as if I were about to whisper in your ear. It doesn’t matter what your mother is or what your father is. It matters who you are. And just so we are clear, I would rather you marry a Gentile who would live as a Jew, than a Jew who lived as a Gentile.
There, I said it. So? Flog me. But what good is it if you marry a Jew and together you abandon Judaism? Will your children—they should be many, strong, healthy, and wise—will your children be good Jews if they are raised without Judaism? Yes, they will be Jews because their mother’s blood is Jewish. But so what? They will be non-Jewish Jews, Gentiles who have Jewish ancestors.
But if you marry a good woman who admires our faith and our ways, and who is willing to learn and adapt, and who will help you raise children strong in Torah and their faith in God, then you have married well. And if she wished, I would swim to America and make her a Jew myself. And if she didn’t wish? I would embrace your children as my own: Jews from a Jewish father, raised in a Jewish home with Jewish hearts and Jewish heads.
Yes, I think I will keep this just between the two of us. Too strong, maybe.
Back to my definition. A Jew is four things.
First, a Jew is a person who willingly identifies as a Jew. What kind of Jew is a person who says he is a Catholic? Should I count him in a minyan (prayer quorum)? No. If you don’t want to be known as a Jew, fine. (I am speaking in general and not, of course, to you personally, my dear Hershele) Then, to my mind, you are not a Jew. Will the Cossacks care one whit about what you call yourself when they come charging in thirsty for Jewish blood? No. But I am not a Cossack and I will not let them define for me who is a Jew. So they will
