Tikkun Olam

I spent most of the day yesterday in Rosh Hashanah services.

I hadn’t really planned to attend; it just kind of happened.  Sixth and I Synagogue, one of our Penn Quarter neighbors, has a growing congregation of young professionals in the neighborhood.  While their sanctuary is quite lovely, it’s not large enough to accommodate the crowd of 750 they had planned for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services.  Skip to: Sixth and I temporarily became 7^th and H…they moved all the prayer books over to Calvary’s sanctuary, which can seat 750 with no problem.

A few days ago I wandered into our sanctuary to observe the frantic preparations the staff from Sixth and I were undertaking to become familiar with our space, to set up signage, to distribute prayer books in the pews, etc.  I knew the Rabbi the minute I saw her: she looked tired/excited/a little crazed—just like every clergyperson looks the day before one of the biggest holy days of a congregation’s year (be sure to check in with me this April on Holy Saturday, Easter Eve, to see what I mean).  When I introduced myself and said I was there to check to make sure everything was okay, she kindly invited me to stop in at services the next day to bring greetings from the Calvary congregation.

So I did.  While many of my dearest friends are Jewish, I had never attended a Rosh Hashanah service before.  I joined the service for the last hour, to hear the blowing of the shofar, and I’ve since determined I need to attend every year.

For one thing, the service had the gravity and excitement of any High Holy Day religious service—only this time I was not in charge.  I loved sitting quietly in the pew, not responsible for one single thing, letting the words of the Rabbi and the sung prayers of the people just wash over me.

Also, I loved the opportunity to join the community of worshippers in starting a new year, beginning afresh, celebrating the opportunity to turn a corner, begin something new, take stock of life as I’ve been living it.  The Rabbi said over and over again that we all have a choice—how is it that we want to spend the precious life we’ve been given?  These are words that perhaps I would speak myself from the pulpit, but I never get to hear them much.  I needed to hear them; it was good for my soul.

But the best part of the service was the constant reminder of tikkun olam.  “Tikkun olam” is a Hebrew phrase that means, basically, “repair of the world.”  To heal the world, to repair the world, is a Jewish idea that suffuses every part of Jewish life, especially on Rosh Hashanah.  It’s our obligation, Jews believe, to live our lives consistently contributing to the healing or mending of the world.  I loved hearing the constant reminders of tikkun olam, because as Christians we talk a lot about bringing about the Kingdom of God here on earth.  The underlying hope is the same: that things as they are are not things as they can be…and we can be part of God’s healing and hope for a broken world.

Though I know we Christians are not alone in this effort, it helped so much to see such a crowd of people of faith gathered together, hoping and praying for the same.  So many voices welcoming God’s healing for our world, for our lives…it gave me hope and new resolve.

In her comments about tikkun olam, the Rabbi quoted the following and it has been stuck in my head since I heard it:  “Scrawl it on the wall: Random kindness and senseless acts of beauty. Breaking into the school and painting a dirty room bright colors overnight. Fixing broken glass in people’s houses while they’re gone. Leaving full meals on tables in the struggling part of town. I fantasize slipping grocery money into the old lady’s purse, secretly painting daffodils every grey place there is.”

People of faith, whoever you are, perhaps we should all take a few minutes to celebrate the beginning of a new year, the opportunity for tikkun olam, the joining of our voices and our lives together to bring about God’s great hope and healing for our hurting world.