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Words from the Head of School

Your Tikkun Olam

 
Dear Brandeis community,
 
Tomorrow morning, we’ll celebrate the culmination of the seventh grade Tzedek Program. These are the words I will be sharing with our students—I thought to share them with all of you, as well.
 
At some point last year (I can’t quite pinpoint when; the moments blur), Brandeis played host to a delegation of JCC directors from Israel. We came together to talk about and learn from each other about the work of community building, of creating communities where people feel bonded to one another. We had a morning of constructive, engaged dialogue, and shared ideas that have continued to inform my thinking in the many months since. But one moment in particular has stuck with me and continues to resonate. One of the directors, a middle-aged man with a particularly vibrant charisma, used the phrase “my tikkun olam” in talking about what had called him to work with youth and communities.
 
What struck me about that phrase—“my tikkun olam”—is that it shifts the narrative around the work of repairing the world, from the world’s needs to the individual’s strengths and talents. Sometimes, I think, we hear the phrase “repair the world” and it can feel so vast. I heard the vastness of the world’s needs in the conversation our seventh graders had last week in making their decisions about allocating funds from the Tzedek Program—how to determine which needs are greatest, which programs most impactful? I heard the aches of this age tumbling from adolescent mouths, to pool uncertainly on the floor between us: climate change, homelessness, income inequality, refugees swirling across the globe, animal injustice, food scarcity, and so much more.
 
All of it put me in mind of a story I shared the very first day of school, my first year here at Brandeis. It’s a story that comes from the Jewish tradition, from Rabbi Isaac Luria, a sixteenth century rabbi who became known as The Ari. The story The Ari told goes like this:
 
When the world was new, God’s presence filled everything. To make room for the universe, God drew in a breath; then God breathed out the light of creation in the form of ten vessels, ten containers of all the light and meaning and connectedness of the universe. That’s a lot to carry in a container though, all of that everything! And so, the vessels shattered, and the light and meaning and connectedness was scattered all over the world as sparks. Some would say it was even scattered in you and in me and in all of us.
 
According to The Ari, this, then, is why we were created: to seek out and gather up those sparks, no matter where they are hidden, to repair the vessels of creation.
 
What I think The Ari understands in this story as well, is that these sparks in us call us to our own meaningful work; that we can each use this light and spirit inside of us—our talents, our passions—to effect change. Seventh graders, you have learned much this year about organizations doing powerful, impactful work in our community and our world. I hope learning from the good work of the individuals involved with these organizations inspires each of you to find your tikkun olam, to help build the better world that you uniquely can.
 
Wishing you all weekends full of your tikkun olam, my friends.
 
Warmly,
 
Dan
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