• Alana Vincent deposited Tzedakah, Tikkun: Jewish approaches to social justice on Humanities Commons 6 years, 5 months ago

    This chapter will present a historicised phenomenological account of the two dominant forms of social justice within Judaism: tzedakah (justice) and tikkun (advocacy, or, literally, ‘mending’). Tzedakah is a core principle of religious Judaism and also has profound resonances within secular Judaism; the history of the Anglo-Jewish community is illustrative of the manner and extent to which tzedakah has shaped Jewish identity. The concept of tikkun is conceptually more ambiguous, and even now is understood very differently by different Jewish communities. Liberal Jews understand tikkun to be both the action of social justice advocacy (of which charitable giving is only a single component) and, simultaneously, a meta-principle which governs the interpretation of halakah (Jewish law) even to the point of overriding particular halakhic restrictions which may otherwise impede advocacy activity. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, are, conversely, likely to view strict adherence to halakah, including the practice of tzedakah, as the primary means of tikkun ha-olam (the mending of creation).