Can We Fix It?

By Shana Ogren

Tikkun olam (תיקון עולם ‎) is a Hebrew phrase.  The word tikkun means "repair," and olam means "world."   When we say tikkun olam, it translates as "repairing or fixing the world." The action of "world repair" is believed to be either the spiritual or social responsibility that directs the purpose of life.

The belief is that the world is broken, and it is our responsibility to fix it.  To help those in need, and through doing so, to mend the broken world.

How do you hold your life if you see your role as a repairman or woman for the world?  Quite a responsibility.  A hard job.  The questions strike: Does the world need fixing, repairing, change?  If it does, who are you to repair it?  How did you win the power and weight of such a role?  Nelson Mandela writes, "Your playing small doesn't serve the world." But what is the result of playing big in your efforts to serve the world?  Will you succeed?  Will you even make a dent?

Does it matter?  I've never thought of myself as an optimist.  But I'm not a pessimist.  I am Jewish in a traditional sense; we fight, even if we may very likely lose.  The goal is not necessarily to win, as much as to TRY to win, because in the end, we Jews are realists.
 
Are you fighting a losing battle?  You fight because you hope to win, but you know you probably won't.  Not the way you want to.  Not the way we need to, to repair our world.  But that doesn't stop you from trying.

God may have made an unfair world.  And perhaps a world where, as Rainer Maria Rilke states,

"What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us."

I don't know why.  And even though I love God, and trust his/her/its power over creation and its intended purposes, that doesn't mean I won't fight to repair what I see missing from it.  It's a strange life purpose—to fight for an often losing battle.  But victory is not what moves me.  In the poem The Man Watching, Rilke writes:

"Whoever was beaten . . .
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows; by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings."

And if I can win a little, or even be fully defeated, then I will grow from that.  And for me, that is enough.

Ball Python Image on Banner by Richard Chambers