(the July 16 Spirituality U. Weekly Insight from Interfaith Paths to Peace)
The 16th Century Jewish mystic Isaac Luria gave us a wonderful way to understand how God created our world, how it became broken and what we can do to repair it.
According to Luria’s version of the creation story, in the beginning God was everywhere. In order for there to be room for creation, God had to withdraw, leaving a dark, empty space. God created the world by casting Divine Light into this void. After creation was completed, there remained an excess of this light of Divine Creative Power. The excess was stored in crystalline spheres. But the spheres were unable to contain the power of God’s Light and they shattered, sending sparks of holiness and shards of darkness throughout our world.
According to a document shared by Rabbi Joe Rooks Rapport, “Tikkun Olam, (pronounced tee kuhn’ oh lahm), or “repairing the world,” is Luria’s system for repairing the brokenness of the Universe and the brokenness within God which has existed since the first moments of creation. With each mitzvah [or good deed] we do, we gather a spark of the Divine trapped here on earth. [This spark] builds a flame of God within us and within the communities of which we are a part. If we could ever gather all of these sparks we could bring about the messianic age.” It is important to remember that no single individual, nor any single generation can complete the task of Tikkun Olam, but all of us must do our part by performing acts of kindness, justice, and peacemaking.
Rabbi Rooks Rapport goes on to say, “Luria infused the simple acts of doing good deeds with cosmic value—healing ourselves, healing our world, and healing even God with every act of goodness and righteousness done with the intention of Tikkun Olam.
For more information about the concept of Tikkun Olam, visit
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