YUTOPIA

Over the summer of 2018, I resuscitated this site and undertook a personal writing project to finally address in long-form¹ several topics which I feel have been intentionally oversimplified, in some cases to the point of distortion. The result is what I call the “Sacred Slogan Series,” including PDF source sheets, collected below for convenience.

Introducing “Sacred Slogans”
The introduction explains what I mean by “Sacred Slogans” and why I feel they are so important to explore in greater detail. I also define my methodologies and goals.

Tzelem Elokim / Imago Dei / Image of God
The idea that all human beings are created in the image of God is a core tenet of faith for universalist approaches to Judaism, but for Biblical and Rabbinic sources it’s far more complicated.

“70 Faces of Torah” and Eilu Va’Eilu Divrei Elokim Hayyim – The Limits of Pluralism
These two idioms are often cited in defense of pluralism, but in the original Rabbinic sources, they actually define the limits of pluralism.

Ohr Lagoyim / “Light unto the Nations”
Aside from the dubious origins of “Light unto the Nations” as a slogan, this entry addresses the extent to which Torah is concerned with how Jews are perceived by gentiles.

“A Jew is a Jew” – Identity vs. Inclusion
This entry addresses a modern-day Sacred Slogan in order to differentiate between one’s immutable status of being a Jew and one’s acceptance in Jewish communal life.

“Love the Stranger” – The Ger in Jewish Society
While the Biblical commandment to “love the stranger” is often invoked in the context of immigration and refugee policy, Torah comes with its own regulations.

Tikkun Olam
Tikkun Olam is the most ubiquitous of the Sacred Slogans. This entry discusses how Tikkun Olam was implemented by the tradition which coined the term.

See the Introduction to Sacred Slogans for methodology and goals 
Click here for a downloadable PDF source sheet

Of the Sacred Slogans we have addressed so far, none are as socially significant as “tikkun olam.” Tikkun olam literally translates to “repairing the world,” which is ambitious as it is open to interpretation. Despite the fact that there is no commandment mandate anywhere in Biblical¹ or Rabbinic literature for Jews to undertake tikkun olam,² some have understood it as a universalist mandate for the Jewish people. For example, according to Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, “We cannot consider ourselves servants of the Divine King unless we take upon ourselves the task ‘to perfect the World under the Kingdom of the Almighty.”³ Nearly 60 years later, R. Richard Hirsch asserted, “God has chosen us for a sacred mission: Tikkun Olam, to complete the universe. This concept of Tikkun Olam as the collective mission of the Jewish people has permeated every movement in Jewish life.”⁴

To illustrate the pervasiveness of “tikkun olam,” Andrew Silow-Carroll and Jonathan Krasner both used Google’s NGram Viewer to find the frequency of “tikkun olam” in published books and found a huge spike in its usage starting in early 1980’s and continued with a consistent upward trend that continues to this day.

With the extensive literature discussing tikkun olam constantly growing, a discussion of how the term has evolved would be a worthy study in its own right.⁵ However, my focus here is what did the idiom mean in its original context, with a focus on its practical implementations.

See the Introduction to Sacred Slogans for methodology and goals
Click here for a downloadable PDF source sheet

Not long after he accepted chairmanship of the Jewish Agency, former Israeli MK Isaac Herzog referred to intermarriage as a “plague” that required a “solution.” One might expect this sort of rhetoric out of an Orthodox rabbi, but not from the head of the Jewish Agency, whose mission is “to connect the global Jewish family.” Herzog subsequently clarified, “A Jew is a Jew is a Jew, no matter which stream he belongs to, if he wears a skullcap or not.”

While “a Jew is a Jew” does not appear in that exact form in traditional Jewish texts, the Rabbinic analogue can be found in the Talmud. Commenting on Joshua 7:11, R. Abba b. Zavda says, “even though he has sinned, he is still ‘Israel’”.¹ Meaning, a Jew who sins is still part of the Jewish people. This is a fundamental concept for Jewish outreach among those who try to ignite the latent “Jewish spark” within all Jews.

At the same time, “a Jew is a Jew” hits at the core issues of inclusion and exclusion in the Jewish community. This is a particularly contentious issue in Israel where non-Orthodox denominations lobby for official recognition and legitimacy in the Jewish state. As discussed at length in a previous podcast series, the politics of exclusion has been a constant theme throughout Jewish history. And as we will see in this post, certain people may be halakhically Jewish, but may still be excluded from society due to their actions. The point of this entry is to differentiate between the status of one’s Jewish identity and one’s role in a Jewish society, in that the former does not guarantee the latter.²

See the Introduction to Sacred Slogans for methodology and goals
Click here for a downloadable PDF source sheet

Much of the Torah is particularistic, that is, for or about Jews exclusively. For example, we find particularistic sentiments such as like the Jews being chosen by God to be a treasured nation over all others¹ or God giving the Torah to the Jewish people to the exclusion of gentiles.² At the same time, there are also expressions of universalism, where the scope of Torah extends to the entire world beyond the Jewish nation such as Isaiah 2:1-4.³ 

Following in a universalist mindset, there are those who claim that Jews have a national mission to become exemplars to the rest of the world, however defined. The sacred slogan behind this claim is that the Jews ought to be, “ohr lagoyim” / “a light unto the nations.”

See the Introduction to Sacred Slogans for methodology and goals
Click here for a downloadable PDF source sheet

Introduction

The idea of tzelem elokim,¹ also known as imago dei, posits that humanity is created in the image of God. The primary source for this idea in Judaism comes from a creation narrative in the book of Genesis.² There is a long fascinating tradition of Jewish philosophers and theologians speculating on the nature of what it means to be created in the image of God, which is beyond the scope of this essay. My present concern tzelem elokim’s usage as the foundation for a universal/humanist conception of Judaism, to what extent this conception is compatible with Torah, and if we should take tzelem elokim at face value.

I am excited to launch a new series in which I will analyze what I call “Sacred Slogans.” By “Sacred Slogans,” I refer to phrases or idioms from Torah which have been appropriated to promote various agendas.¹ Like all slogans, these are pithy, memorable, and easily repeatable. But slogans which are taken from sacred texts are automatically infused with the cultural weight of religious authority.

As we approach Tisha B’Av, arguably the most tragic day in Jewish history, it is common for Jews to explore the religious causes for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple. After all, the hurban, was cataclysmic for the Jewish people politically and religiously as we lost both our sovereignty in becoming exiles and our Temple through which we connected with God. And if such a cataclysm was the result of transgressing particular sins, then these sins must be among the most grievous, and thus the most urgent in need of correcting.

According to the Talmud in B. Yoma 9b, the sins which caused the destruction of the First Temple were idolatry, forbidden sexual relations, and murder. The severity of these sins is well documented in Jewish law as all of them are not only capital offenses, but they are known as יהרג ואל יעבור/yeihareig v’al ya’avor – sins for which one ought to let oneself be killed rather than violate.¹

Regarding the destruction of the Second Temple, the Talmud in Yoma continues that even though the Jews were engaged in Torah study, fulfilling the commandments, and performing acts of kindness, the Second Temple was destroyed because of a שנאת חינם/sin’at hinam or “baseless hatred” throughout the nation.² This demonstrates that the sin of baseless hatred is just as severe as the sins of idolatry, sexual transgressions, and murder since all of these transgressions were responsible for the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people.

In my experience, most Jews are familiar with the reasons for the destruction given in B. Yoma 9b, and why it’s common to find much discussion over the harms of “baseless hatred”³ around this time of year.⁴

But the Talmud records additional reasons given for the destruction of Jerusalem which are rarely discussed. Here is a sample of some of them from B. Shabbat 119b: