Reviews for The Way Into Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World)

The average rating for The Way Into Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World) based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-10-10 00:00:00 Johan Lepamets The Way Into series from Jewish Lights Publishing is a series I've been wanting to delve into for some time now. These are definately books that dive into some weighty topics, they give you plenty of Jewish theological thought to chew on, but with the understanding that the reader needs more of an introduction than a PhD thesis. I started with the tikkun olam book because acts of charity and volunterism/social justice work are how I connect the most to my culture, my faith and G-d in general. For me tikkun olam is my Judaism in action. I think this book gives the reader, Jew and non-Jew alike a very good jumping off point to understand the Jewish passion for liberal social reform throughout the centuries. There are quotes from the Talmud, the Mishnah, the Torah, pretty much the Tanankh in general in large quantities. This allows the reader to realize that for Jews, the bible is call to social action. It requires us to dive into society and make it better. Not just for us, not just for our fellow Jews, but EVERYONE. A concept not shared by certain other religions, for whom social reform is only for the group. The micro and not the marco as it were. All this is well and good, but there are sections of this book that dragged, and dragged a lot. Mostly the sections about negative speech, and I get it, slander, lies and harmful gossip are bad. They are are bad for the the person being slandered and they are bad for the speaker. Basically the book is trying to say that speech doesn't exist in a vacuum and has consequences for everyone. I agree, but this section went on way too long. Rabbi Dorf ended up beating a dead horse here. Also, the section about what parents owe their children was out of touch with the times and with reality. He talks about how parents need to help their children find spouses if they aren't married by their mid-twenties and to see college as a prospective marriage market. It's obvious that he wants a return the shidduch* sytem of old that the ultra orthodox still practice. However he realizes that that will never happen outside that demographic, so he tries every which way to have parents do everything but arrange marriages for their 'tagically single Jewish children'. His section within this section about children and how Jews need to BREED, BREED, BREED was also nearly comically out of touch as well. He honestly mentions, several times that after the mid-twenties infertility issues begin to abound for women and sometimes for men and so Jewish singles need to be married by that time and having babies aplenty. Once again, VERY out of touch with the times and with reality. I actually found this section a tad offensive and as though Rabbi Dorf, while attempting to posit himself as a liberal Jewish theologian, instead feels that women are merely recepticals for the next generation. All in all a decent book, but one with some weighty flaws. For Jews, who can easily spot these inconsistencies I give this book 3 stars. For non-Jews, who aren't as equipped to spot the flaws in this book, I give it 2 stars. There are better books in which to learn about our philosophy of tikkun olam**. *The shidduch system = An arranged dating system wherein a Jewish person's parents use a matchmaker to screen potential dates for their child in the hopes of finding a suitable marriage. Very akin to an arranged marriage, but with the children having the final say. No one in Judaism practices this anymore except for the Orthodox and even among them it is falling out of favor in all but the Haredi and Hasidic communities. **Tikkun Olam = This means, literally, healing the world. A Jewish system of charitable philosophy.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-02-15 00:00:00 Christine Pierce has some good entry into the evolution of the theology of Tikkun and how the thinking has evolved. I love being reminded how central justice is to judaism.