To the Editor:
As a Conservative/Masorti Jew who tries to integrate tradition with change, idealism with reality, and the prophetic tradition with the rabbinic one, I largely agree with Hillel Halkin’s warnings about the unfettered idealism that is often articulated in the name of the Jewish value of “tikkun olam” or repairing the world [“How Not to Repair the World,” July-August]. Jews cannot ignore the needs of fellow Jews—if only because, as another Hillel said long ago, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” At the same time, the Jewish imperative to safeguard the public interest has always been balanced by the imperative to help create a better world.

There is, to be sure, an element of self interest even in the latter. As the Talmud says, “We support the poor among non-Jews along with the Jewish poor for the sake of peace.” Now, as then, Jews are not viewed positively in much of the world; a March 2007 BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries ranked Israel as the country with the most negative influence in the world (followed by Iran and the U.S.). Beyond this, however, the prophetic tradition insists on altruism for its own sake.

As I point out in my book, The Way Into Tikkun Olam (2005), the term “tikkun olam” has had a variety of meanings throughout Jewish history. They include but are not limited to the three that Mr. Halkin mentions—the Mishnah’s pragmatism, the liturgy’s vision of God’s majesty, and Lurianic Kabbalah’s spiritualism. Contrary to what he suggests, however, the modern usage of the term to denote social action was not Michael Lerner’s creation in the 1980’s; as far as I can tell, it was Leonard Fein who first suggested it in the 50’s, and the Reform movement used it widely in its civil-rights campaigns of the 60’s. Moreover, this usage did not invent a new mandate; the Bible and the rabbis just used other words for it—“tzedek” (justice) and “gemilut hasadim” (acts of loyalty or loving-kindness).

I would demur from three of Mr. Halkin’s specific claims, two substantive and one methodological. He writes: “It is possible to let homosexuals marry and raise children like heterosexuals—but only by making heterosexuals wonder what is the point of marrying and raising children.” This is just silly. For one thing, married couples in the United States enjoy over 500 federal and state rights that unmarried couples do not have. This is part of the reason that gays and lesbians have pushed so hard for legal recognition of their own unions. In any case, heterosexual couples know full well why they want to get married and have children, and an increasing number of them support the efforts of homosexuals to enjoy the same kind of personal fulfillment and social confirmation.

Next, Mr. Halkin says that “[i]t is possible not to go to war—but only by condemning the people of Iraq to life under a barbaric and aggressive dictatorship.” Well, no one disputes that Saddam Hussein was an evil man, but the United States should intervene in another country only when its own security is threatened. There were no weapons of mass destruction and no al-Qaeda cells in Iraq under Saddam. Bush’s adventure there has diverted critical resources from the fight against America’s real enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the detriment of the U.S., Israel, and the civilized world.

Finally, although Mr. Halkin is right that it is methodologically unsound to make large claims about the Jewish tradition on the basis of a single concept or a few lines of text, the reverse—being excessively cautious and literal—can also be a distortion. The rabbis knew that to remain relevant and vital, the tradition would need to be extended and applied in every generation. In that sense, seeing social activism as a means toward repairing the world is not as untraditional as all that. 

Rabbi Elliot Dorff
University of Judaism
Los Angeles, California

_____________

To the Editor:
Hillel Halkin presents a brilliant explication of the mischief wrought by contemporary Jews who invoke tikkun olam for their utopian projects. But he is off the mark in naming as one of the culprits the Jewish “religious Right” in its belief that “God will come to [Israel’s] rescue, no matter how much it disregards the international community or deepens its entanglement with a Palestinian people from whom it needs to extricate itself.”

Any difference on the Palestinian issue between Mr. Halkin and his “religious Right” need not revolve around the question of whether some utopian agenda should trump the “Jewish public interest.” Rather, there is a difference of opinion over what serves that interest. Is it the agenda, backed by the “international community,” to push Israel back to the 1967 armistice lines alongside an unstable and hostile state of Palestine that would pose an existential danger to Israel’s survival? Or does Israel’s best interest lie in the continuing—and legitimate—struggle to assure the country’s future by remaining in its strategically vital biblical heartland? Unfortunately, in either scenario Israel will have to find a way to deal with the daunting challenge of a large and growing Arab presence.

Mr. Halkin concludes his essay with a fitting reference to the rabbinic sage Hillel. It was he who famously said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

Jack E. Friedman
Jerusalem, Israel

_____________

To the Editor:
A note on Hillel Halkin’s fine article. The ancient term “tikkun olam” became a buzz phrase during the 1990’s, when the Reform movement elevated it to bumper-sticker significance. My sense is that the phrase was enlisted to supplant the by-then overused term “prophetic tradition,” which had long served as the watchword for the movement’s progressive social and political platform.

I suspect that many devotees of progressive tikkun olam see the concept as Judaism’s last chance in a world of (allegedly) disappearing nations and borders. Highly acculturated, uncomfortable with ritual and devotion, and troubled by the (allegedly) militaristic nationalism of the state of Israel, they seek to validate their Jewish identity through the promotion of social justice. One wonders why, unlike post-emancipation Jews like Rosa Luxemburg or Isaac Deutscher, they have not gone all the way and fully dissociated themselves from the Jewish community. It is after all a vain effort to conceive of a Judaism that has been purged of particularity.

Ardie Geldman
Efrat, Israel

_____________

To the Editor:
In his critique of a recent essay invoking tikkun olam as a precedent for progressive activism, Hillel Halkin notes the contortions that this thesis requires: interpreting a pragmatic imperative in the Talmud as a utopian one and ignoring the nature of a utopian vision in the Aleynu prayer (which anticipates a “new spiritual consciousness” for all mankind). I would add that the liturgy’s tikkun olam is something that Jews pray for God, not man, to undertake.

Fred Dziadek
Silver Spring, Maryland

_____________

Hillel Halkin writes:
Although I will take Elliot Dorff’s word for it that there were attempts to popularize the concept of tikkun olam in the American Jewish community before Michael Lerner and the 1980’s, they did not succeed enough to make me aware of them. I lived in America until 1970 and even had a certain involvement in the civil-rights movement, but I do not remember tikkun olam being invoked by anyone.

The Talmud is certainly wise to say that Jews must, at least sometimes, look out for others for their own good. Would Israel, however, be looked upon more kindly if, as Rabbi Dorff suggests, it listened more to the Talmud? I rather doubt it. Israeli volunteer rescue teams have repeatedly been among the first on the scene in humanitarian disasters around the globe, yet this does not seem to have made much of a difference. Anti-Israel bias goes much deeper than such actions have the power to alleviate.

When it comes to homosexual rights, I do not think it is silly to contend that the real issue is not homosexuality but heterosexuality. Should society, in one way or another, favor heterosexuality as the most desirable form of sexual behavior? Or do we want to live in a world that declares that sexual relations between men and women are in no way preferable to those between men and men, women and women, or solitary individuals and themselves? Rabbi Dorff, it would seem, does. I do not.

In any case, while Rabbi Dorff has the right to his opinion, we have the right to expect it to be consistent. Is he for “federal and state rights” for bigamists, too—and if not, why not? And how about incestuous marriages between consenting adults—why, in his opinion, should they be discriminated against? And why should a sexual relationship be a requirement at all for couples applying for tax breaks or other forms of government recognition? Why shouldn’t a grandmother and her grandson who want to live together also be eligible for marriage, or two brothers or two sisters, or college roommates? It would be interesting to hear Rabbi Dorff’s answers to such questions.

I would also expect Rabbi Dorff to be consistent on the issue of American intervention abroad. Inasmuch as the security of the United States was obviously not threatened by events in Bosnia and Kosovo, does he condemn America’s bombing of Serb forces in those countries? Does he think the American government’s decision not to bomb the Nazi death camps in World War II was the morally correct one, since the gas chambers in Auschwitz and Treblinka also did not impinge on America’s security?

Jack E. Friedman’s contention that Israel’s religious Right is just another side to the public-policy debate over Israel’s best interests does not strike me as accurate. For the most part, the religious Right in Israel has made no serious effort to explain how, demographically or politically, Israel can indefinitely retain all of the occupied territories given the realities of today’s world, and it has repeatedly fallen back on appeals to divine promises and Jewish destiny. Without wishing to make light of God or destiny, this is not political thinking. It can no more form the basis for rational debate than can the sentiments of the Aleynu prayer referred to by Fred Dziadek.

I agree with Ardie Geldman wholeheartedly.