Tikkun

Values

Tikkun means “repair” or “mend.” It is used alongside the word olam (world) to express the Jewish responsibility to repair the world. Tikkun can also refer to specific texts read on various occasions, specific nights of Torah study, such as Hoshanah Rabbah and Shavuot, the process of making a shared courtyard into a personal space so that one can carry in it on Shabbat, or the process of improving character traits.

Notable Sources

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From Sin to Sanctuary

COMMENTARY

Moses transformed the Israelites' collective sin into a positive communal action by building the Mishkan. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his 21st-century Torah commentary, explores how Moses led the people in communal restoration and rebuilding.

Moses’ act is what the kabbalists called a tikkun: a restoration, a making-good-again, the redemption of a past misdemeanour. Just as the sin was committed by the people acting as a community, a kahal or kehilla, so atonement was to be achieved by their again acting as a kehilla, this time by making a home [Mishkan] for the Divine Presence as they earlier sought to make a substitute for it. Moses orchestrates the people for good, as they had once been assembled for bad.

Covenant and Conversation; Exodus; The Book of Redemption, Vayakhel, Three Kinds of Community 7

Charity as the Ultimate Tikkun

CHASIDUT

Charity is not just a good deed but a comprehensive rectification (tikkun) for all business activities. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, in his collection of teachings, Likkutei Etzot, emphasizes that every business action should be aimed at earning money to give to charity.

Charity is the comprehensive tikkun for business activity. With every step a person takes as he goes about his business, with every word he speaks and every ounce of strength he puts into his work, he should have it in mind that his only goal is to give charity from the money he earns (29:9).

Likkutei Etzot, Charity 8

Transforming Desires

KABBALAH

According to the Ba'al HaSulam, a prominent 20th-century Kabbalist, the desire to receive for oneself is inherently corrupt and problematic, but this urge can be transformed into a higher spiritual state. In his foundational work, he explains this transformation process.

[On the other hand,] the essence of the body is a selfish desire to receive. All of its experiences and everything it acquires fill this defective desire to receive, which was initially created only to be destroyed and eliminated from the world in order to reach the perfect third stage and the end of the repair. That is why [the body] – along with all of its acquisitions – is lowly, mortal, and temporary, like a passing shadow, which leaves nothing after it.

Baal HaSulam's Introduction to Zohar 24:1

Legal Reforms for Social Repair

COMMENTARY

Rabban Gamliel the Elder instituted legal reforms that were designed to repair the social order. Dr. Judith Hauptman’s 20th-century analysis of these first-century enactments highlights their significance in the context of tikkun olam, or repairing the world.

Support for this idea can be found in the second part of the very same mishnah. It reports that Rabban Gamliel the Elder introduced yet another enactment to repair the social order: that all names by which the husband and wife are known be entered into the get so that there will be no question as to who is divorcing whom. The next mishnah (4:3) presents yet two more divorce enactments by Rabban Gamliel, one that made it possible for the woman to collect a marriage settlement upon the death of her husband at a time when many rabbis made it impossible for her to do so…

Rereading the Rabbis; A Woman's Voice, 5 Divorce 45

The Timing of Spiritual Liberation

JEWISH THOUGHT

Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook explains that spiritual liberation needs to take a place at the appropriate time and requires specific preparation. He draws a parallel between the confinement of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in the cave and the confinement in Noah's Ark.

This section compares the confined and restricted nature of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s assembly of Kabbalistic scholars to that of the restrictive and confined nature of Noah’s Ark. In the Ark, for humanity and nature to be saved, they had to be confined until the time was right for their departure. Similarly, the Kabbalistic teachings of Tikkun can only be spread widely at the right time. With this in mind, Rav Kook returns to the individual and explains that in character development, there is a need to first place restricting measures on the soul…

Musar Avikha 2:1:17

Prayer for Wholeness

CHASIDUT

Rabbi Nathan of Breslov’s Likutei Tefilot offers prayers that inspire personal reflection, encourage spiritual growth, and articulate longing for a perfected world. In this passage, Rabbi Nathan utilizes wordplay to describe his hope for a mystical transformation from laments to wholeness.

The Ultimate Rectification
Arouse Your compassion for Your children. Quickly bring us our righteous Mashiach. Redeem us with a complete, eternal redemption. Then he will rectify for us the level of teiku with the ultimate tikun, with the ultimate wholeness. Then the letter nun from the word KINOT (laments) will be drawn down to the teiku, so that TeIKU will turn into TIKUN (rectification). Then all kinot will be nullified and the letters of the word KINOT will be rearranged into the word TIKUN.

Likutei Tefilot, Volume I 142:21

The Spiritual Power of All-Night Torah Study

MUSAR

Staying up all night to study Torah on Shavuot is believed to create a powerful spiritual force and bring an outpouring of holiness. The Kav HaYashar, a popular 17th-century musar work, discusses the custom of Tikkun Leil Shavuot, rooted in kabbalistic tradition.

Therefore it is fitting for everyone who fears Hashem and trembles at His word to study all night long on the Yom Tov of Shavuos, reciting the Tikkun [a text comprised of passages from all the various sections of the Torah] composed by the disciples of the Ari, z”l. And to toil in the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, the Mishnah and selected passages from the Zohar. Some recite the Tikkun on both nights of Shavuos and fortunate is the one who does so. For through the arousal from below one arouses a unification On High, resulting in a tremendous outpouring of holiness…

Kav HaYashar 92:7

The Night of Sweetness and Light

CHASIDUT

Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin, a 19th-century mystic, elaborates on the practice of studying Oral Torah on the night before Shavuot. He describes the spirituality inside of this tradition and asserts that implants the light and sweetness of Torah into the heart.

And now that the Torah has already been given, it is due to this reason that we must remain awake and occupy ourselves with the oral Torah. And it is as it is written in the holy Zohar (1:98a), "Since one must be occupied on that night with the Oral Torah, because, etc." And in another place (Introduction 14:125), it is found, "to be occupied with the Torah, from the Torah to the Prophets, from the Prophets to the Writings, from the Writings to the teachings about the verses and the secrets of wisdom, etc…

Peri Tzadik, Shavuot 2:2

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