The Truth About Tikkun Olam - Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky

Hi, this is David Wolpe with that question and answer series. We're in a short period of time we try to answer reader questions. What is tikkun olam? Why are secular and reform Jews so enthused about the concept? And what does it mean for us? Well, you understand that if you are a secular reform Jew, you got a problem because most reform Jews, well certainly most reform rabbis, don't believe in a personal God. There might be a force in history. Yeah, most I mean it's a reform doctrine that the Torah was not given by God. It's written up by a bunch of men. And therefore it does not have any particular significance. There I've heard reform rabbis speak who maintain that that many things in the Torah are are immoral. Yeah, and racist. That's one of the proofs that God didn't write it because God would never say that, you know. So once you don't have religion, what's left? So, morality. Morality. What we call secular humanism, and I don't know what's wrong with secular humanism already, especially if you don't believe in God. What's the point of being Jewish? And this has been the reason for uh secular and reform Jews to slowly assimilate and disappear because if you want just to have morality, so be be a secular humanist. What's the point of being a Jew for if I don't believe in the Torah and I don't believe in God and I don't believe in it. So what's left? Gefilte fish? Yeah, bagels and lox? You know, it doesn't make any sense. What are you what are you sticking around for? The average person does not want to dance the hora and listen to klezmer and eat gefilte fish. So we pay people to come to Jewish events, you know? But you don't see Italians paying people to eat lasagna because people like lasagna. So you know, if people aren't interested, just let it die, you know? But, they want to try to keep it alive. So, what's the purpose of your religion? So, they come up with tikkun olam that the purpose is to fix the world. And that's for sure true. We're an am Our purpose in this world as a chosen people is to make the world more moral, but what does that mean? To infuse the world with a sense of God. And so, Avraham Avinu, who was the first monotheist and figured out that there was one God, is known as the person of chesed who goes around doing chesed. Why? To teach people that God created the world as a chesed, and he spent an enormous amount of time doing kiruv to the point that the Chasam Sofer says, if he didn't spend so much time with his kiruv projects, he would have been even greater in Torah. But, he sacrificed it because he cared about klal Yisrael. So, our way of fixing up the world is to teach the world about God. I'd like to teach the world to pray in perfect harmony, right? That's our job. Our job is not there to build hospitals and to build roads and uh work with the homeless. I mean, all those things are good, but that's not the purpose of the Jewish people. The purpose of tikkun olam is that we're going to be metalking the world v'haya Hashem l'melech al kol ha'aretz. Bayom hahu yihyeh Hashem echad u'shmo echad. And the day will come where God's name will be in the lips of all the people of the world, and then God will be one. As Rashi says, Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu, God, who is now our God, one day Hashem echad will be God of the entire world. That's our job is to bring God to the entire world. That's what we mean by tikkun olam. But because they don't believe in God, they don't believe in Torah, so they have to say, you know, let's make a soup kitchen, you know? I'm not taking away from a soup kitchen. We definitely need soup kitchens, but that's not the purpose of the Jewish people. Uh this is David Wolpe with our question and answer series.