Journal 3 in 2003
Perspektiven

weiter I Übersicht I zurück

Tania Reytan-Marincheshka
Tikkun Olam in a Neo-Liberal Reality -
the Connection between Spirituality and Politics is inescapable

As a scholar in politics studying the problems of globalization I am aware that there is an urgency in bridging the miscommunication between tradition and modernity, lest we be swept away by the universal flood of change. On a very personal level I am deeply interested in finding out how Jewish religious values have been and continue to be reshaped in the narrative of our lives. Each and every one of us has her/his own personal “Midrash,” but often we have lost the words; the words have run away from our scattered and fragmented lives. How to regain integrity? How to rediscover our biographies and invest into the future?

A common denominator of many of the Jewish communities around Europe is the phenomena of the “endangered biographies” of many members. The notion of endangered biographies is a rather comprehensive one, referring to a life situation of lost personal points of reference, social insecurity, unemployment, semi-employment and lack of stable employment perspectives, certain degree of de-socialization and social skepticism. Whereas before 1989 in the ex-socialist countries people were mainly socialized in the nest of labor and employment, today successful socialization is more and more becoming a prerogative and a function of self-organized social networks. For many, the Jewish community is in fact the social network, providing new patterns of socialization.

So, the question is how do Jewish women act and feel in this newly acquired “nest” of socialization. In this time of insecurity and risk shall we stick to the old and familiar forms of community organization, spiritual philosophy and social practice, or create new ones, in an effort not to be driven away by the sweeping floods of “universal change”? The creation of women-affirming Jewish communities is an important element in the quest for social justice, but it is just one piece of a larger struggle for justice that is being carried on in every corner of the earth.

Jewish feminists have described women’s liberation as an aspect of tikkun (J. Plaskow, Standing again at Sinai, 1999) an ingredient of the repair of the world that is part of its redemption.

The concept of tikkun olam or repairing the world through social action is one of the traditional categories of tzedakah (righteousness and justice). The word tikkun first appears in the book of Ecclesiastes (1:5; 7:13; 12:9), where it means "setting straight" or "setting in order." The most notable early rabbinic source for the phrase tikkun olam is the Aleynu prayer, where the phrase expresses the hope of repairing the world through the establishment of the kingdom of God.

The obligation to repair the world emerges from various Jewish sources. Some, including many of the ancient prophets, see the obligation as originating primarily from the commandment to emulate God's holiness, for, in their view, God is the model for human righteousness.1 Others see the obligation to engage in social action as arising chiefly from the Jews' historical position as an oppressed people.2 Still others believe that engaging in acts of tikkun olam is the primary means of satisfying the need to create a sense of Jewish community and identity. From this perspective the commitment to tikkun olam is a calling, a vocation, and it is unlikely that the Jews could survive, and it would be unseemly if they did, except as a community organized around values and committed to tikkun olam.3 Baruch Hashem, its wellsprings are conceived, and tikkun olam is central to Judaism, but what worries me is that it is not any more part of the current discourse of the Jewish community in Bulgaria. The spirit of tikkun olam was lost somewhere in the haste of our adaptation to the neo-liberal realities of our transition to democracy.

So, my current concern is whether the freedom that we enjoy (it’s a freedom of a relative poverty, of severe self restrictions, of risk taking, of depressive stress and fear) is not making us spiritually narrow minded and short sighted? Where the objective restriction ends and our inner, subjective restriction starts? Should we, however imperfect our freedom is, take the risk of acting in the spirit of tikkun olam, finding channels through which we could apply our Jewish response to the burning issues around us? The connection between spirituality and politics is inescapable. Our vision of the way the world can be articulated within and over against existing social structures, and everywhere we turn in seeking to realize these visions we come up against institutions that stand between us and our ability to live spiritually fulfilling lives (Ackelsberg 1986, 114).

Unless the quest for integration of our relationships to the Self, God, earth, and others emerges out of and leads to the creation of forms of community that nurture our whole being, this quest remains marginal to our daily lives, and thus ineffective and irrelevant. Shall we again pay credit to fear, or we shall we take an affirmative risk of meeting the challenge?

A Feminist Ethic of Risk
"Risk" is not just about specific actions fraught with danger. Sharon Welch's "ethic of risk" (Fortress Press, 180 p. 2000) is captured beautifully by the Adrienne Rich poem "Natural Resources" which appears in her book: ”it means seeing all that needs to be repaired, acting without the illusion of certainty or victory, joining in solidarity and community with others, working without waiting for (or necessarily wanting) conventional political power, always moving forward in bravery and commitment.” Welch wants us to ask ourselves "What improbable task, with which unpredictable results, shall we undertake today?" She urges us toward not a chain of singular unrelated actions, but rather toward ”an ethics of the long haul,” that inspires us to reject both despair and complacency.
What is broken and needs fixing, she argues, is not just deep-seated societal problems, but modern constructions of what constitutes ethical responsibility and what counts as goodness. She argues against the kind of cynicism which, in the face of complexity, too often leads to a paralysis of will, sanctions doing nothing, all but ignores our obligation to work on structural, long-term issues, and serves to preserve gross societal inequities and problems.

Welch offers her own definition of maturity: a recognition of the depth of evil in the world (and thus the need to act), and an acceptance that barriers to justice will not be removed by any one group or one generation (and thus the need to accept the world of limits). She calls for a "communicative ethics" of responsible action in which one is always engaged in collective reflection and action, including "mutually self-critical engagement" and accountability, in order to build the conditions for the pursuit of justice and peace, and sustain moral action and political activism.

Her own reliance on teachings drawn from female African-American novelists embodies this very approach. She draws on "womanist" writings (a term preferred over "feminist" among many African-American women) "[n]ot because [theirs] is the only 'true' voice, but because these voices disclose a knowledge of ethical responses and strategies [including "narratives of engaged goodness"] that is critical of my social location and [visions] of the possibilities for social change."

One Jewish critique of Welch's approach: a theology of a transcendent God with absolute power can make human beings always fall short and feel powerless in the face of the work to be done. It presents a model of the good (i.e. absolute power) that is often unattainable for those working for justice, while also reinforcing human pursuits of absolute power in the name of God.

Yet the passionate Jewish commitment to a covenantal partnership with God, to our obligation to act in imitation of God's own ways performing acts of caring, healing, and justice can offer a "both / and" approach to reconciling a transcendent God-notion with the ethics of risk, and with new definitions of responsible action in the world. (Rabbi Sue Fendrick)

Particular vs Universal
A Jewish community like ours is continually challenged to strike a balance between exclusively Jewish concerns and concerns of a more global nature. Should the balance of the Jewish institutional activity in Bulgaria reflect the balance manifest in the lives of its members, or, because it is a small particular community, dependent on donations for sustaining its Jewish life, it should be restrictively Jewish in nature?

This very tension plays itself out in the Jewish tradition too. Many rabbinic authorities of past generations viewed non-Jewish society with suspicion, if not with contempt. This yielded a fairly parochial view of the world, in which there was little obligation on the part of Jews to come to the aid of non-Jews. By contrast, other rabbis insisted that the religious obligations of compassion applied equally to Jews and non-Jews. This tension is reflected in the different interpretations given to the meaning of "neighbor” in the verse "You shall love thy neighbor as yourself." (Lev. 19:18)

Are Jews of today’s, post 1989 Bulgaria fully integrated into the Bulgarian society? Can we afford to be drawn not only to the more particular, but to the more universal teachings of the Jewish tradition requiring care and concern for any suffering people? At the same time, no Jewish institution need to be apologetic about giving priority to the needs of Jews, both at home and abroad. The community of my dream starts seeking to maintain a balance between its particular concerns to be active on behalf of the Jewish people and its universal commitments to help bring about world repair, starting with the country we live in.

Types of Involvement
The community of my dream promotes tikkun olam by encouraging and facilitating individual participation in a variety of activities. There is a Social Action Committee, primarily responsible for this process. This committee identifies areas of interest and develops programs to provide a framework for membership action. Frequently this involves interaction with other organizations that share our interests. Individual members are encouraged to present to the Social Action Committee any ideas they might have concerning new issues or projects they believe merit community or congregational involvement. The Social Action Committee schedules several programs throughout the year where such issues may be addressed. The local Jewish newspaper or other special publications are used as a way to give wider dissemination to social action projects or to the expression of opinion about particular issues.
Paradoxically, the inevitable key word of today - “globalization” - drops a hint not at the end of politics, but quite on the contrary – at the exit of the political from previous categorical frameworks, at a new role scheme of what is perceived as “political” and “non-political” action. Some theoreticians of globalization (U. Beck, A. Giddens) suggest: it might be that with the so called “value decay”, is coming the end of the collective orthodoxy of the political action, but not of the political action itself. Parallel to the fading away of previous social and moral life environments, a new life reality is being formed, where individual freedom and responsibility stands in the center. So the issue is what could be the new forms of “collectivity”?

Social issues and the preferred ways of implementing action may change with time, particularly as our community and congregation mature. Accordingly, I do believe and many of us believe that it is important to revisit periodically the questions, associated with tikkun olam on a community and congregation-wide basis. Each member should be individually encouraged to explore the ways in which a commitment to repairing the world expresses his/her identity as a Jew and as a member of the local, regional (European) and the world community.

Given, but not received?
We have not yet finished our Omer counting, but Shavuot is close and I would like to finish my presentation with a short piece of the D´Var Torah I had the honour to present at the HIRIJW Board meeting in New York one year ago.

Shavuot is called in tradition “zman matan Torateynu”, the season of ”giving” of our Torah. In addition to the dazzling narrative of the revelation of the Torah-reading (Exodus 19-20) on Shavuot morning, the Book of Ruth, one of the five scrolls found in the Bible, is assigned to this holiday.

Shavuot becomes the occasion for reading Ruth because of the connection between Torah and our identity. Amazingly via the book of Ruth, Shavuot affirms that the Torah and the Jewish people are not closed systems, but are rather potentially universal. However, being a wonderful asset, this universality is also a challenge. The challenge is in the ”receiving” of the Torah and of our fellow humans.

Our primary promise to our fellow humans is to receive their soul prints (their unique and irreplaceable personalities). Our great hope is to be received by another.

What does it mean to receive? What is the art of receiving? It is not by accident that Kabbalah, the name of one of the most important mystical traditions in the world, is a Hebrew word that means, “to receive.” Receiving lies at the core of mystical practice. If biblical consciousness is about the move from loneliness to loving as a primary human drive and telos of existence, then it makes sense that biblical mystical knowledge is called Sefer Ha-Kabbalah, the Book of Receiving, since to receive another is the highest fulfillment of biblical wisdom.

Judging from the fact that the Book of Ruth was written long ago and thereafter received widely and lovingly, one could say, “Ruth has been received,” at least historically. “’Femininity’ has been received” – at least within the conscious constructs of the collective, at least as far, as virtue and fidelity and appropriate lovemaking are concerned. But has the ideal woman become one who is meekly obedient, without a will of her own? Are we seeing Ruth as too sweet, too good?

An image / idea once integrated into consciousness can become, over a period of time, stale and flat - no longer vital, no longer really conscious. This is not the fault of the image. The image should not be discarded as stale flat beer, but should be revitalized since the mythical meaning in itself did not die – it still is brewing in the cellar of our collective sub-consciousness. To revitalize the image we have to look at it afresh… and we have to find as well that part of it, which was not integrated: the shadow side – in this case Orpah*. But first, let us not throw away the ideal of Ruth.

Few of us can say we’ve “arrived” with all of our Ruth virtues in good working order. There is always much waiting to be discovered in that which we thought well known. The devotion to Naomi, which some might call blind, actually sees with the eyes of a visionary her faithful role. Ruth knew with an insistent surety – far from meek – to whom she belonged, and thereby what destiny she must follow. This love has remained the epitome of selfless devotion through the ages and is still calling to us, still deeply touching our hearts. How many of us can follow so “blindly” – without knowing what is in store for us – our true vision, own calling, our own love?

Ruth and Naomi share in this quality of commitment to their destiny, connected according to a Kabbalistic interpretation to two aspects of the Shechinah. Naomi is often perceived as the feminine component of the Hebrew psyche, devoted to the patriarchal culture of which she is a part, and to its spiritual, not merely male, God.

Ruth’s commitment is also perceived as a religious one – and therein might lie our need to receive Ruth as well as to be a Ruth and a Naomi, ever and ever again. “Religious” need not mean to a particular dogma, but is religious in the meaning of lovingly committed to an ideal that transcends – but is intimately connected with – a personal devotion. A religious view sees the larger picture and one’s place in it. The Book of Ruth is not a love story based on personal desire alone. The beauty of the story is just in its simplicity of appearing to be a personal story of love and at the same time allowing that to be the carrier of the transcendent meaning.

Best of all, the story does not pontificate. It “only” displays the instinctual womb-wisdom of mother-daughter being – which then allures into being, the masculine initiative. We see this initiation into action so beautifully on the threshing floor, under Naomi’s instruction to the beautiful Ruth.

There is even a phrase in Kabbalah, “mayin de nukba” or ”mayin nukvin” (Aramaic for “waters of the feminine”) which refers to the feminine (Shechinah or humanity) sexual allure in order to arouse Tiferet-Yesod into uniting with her, arousing upward to bring downward the flow, not being the receptive only. This is what Kabbalah calls “the drawing down of the King.” This is actually a theme throughout the Zohar: “Through an action below, an action above is aroused,” through an action on the human plane, the divine will be aroused… in our case Ruth’s and Boaz’s actions as arousing the divine response, via the cunning of Naomi. In doing this she brings about the flow within God – then flowing into the world below. An act of redemption.

Sadly or fortunately, we know that redemption, as far as we’ve come in our world and in our beings as mortals, is temporary… and tempus fugit… and mutit! With the mutations in the winds of time our archetypal images may undergo transmutations, with the archetypal core (the archetype as such) retaining its life. Redemption is at hand (or not) ever and again. Though Ruth may be alive and well, we in our cultural mutations and transformations need now to review the new form of the feminine as including Orpah, that aspect which didn’t make it way back then, that which had been cast out. We have to redeem Orpah. She has come into our lives already, in various shapes, under various names. We have seen here how receiving Ruth can be read both ways, she was received and she receives. Now we have to receive Orpah…

Prof. Dr. Tania Reytan-Marincheshka - scholar in politics and religion, University professor and human rights activist in Sofia (Bulgaria), involved in Jewish women's issues, scholar of Hadassah International Research Institute on Jewish Women at Brandeis University in 2001/2002

1. "Ye shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy." (Leviticus 19:2)
2. "You shall not oppress a stranger for you know the heart of a stranger as you were slaves in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9). See also Nathan Glazer, Jews and American Liberalism.
3. Leonard Fein, Where are We? The Inner Life of America's Jews (1988), pp. 205, 207.
4. E. Beck-Gernsheim, Schwarze Jüden und griechische Deutsche, in: U. Beck (Hg.), Perspectiven der Weltgesellschhaft. Edition Zweite Moderne (1997).
5. Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, (1999)
6. Sharon D. Welch, A Feminist Ethics of Risk, (2000)
7. Tania Reytan. D’Var Torah, Sivan 10, 5762 , May 21, 2002, HIRJIW Board Meeting, New York.