Find the Light: Healing Through Tikkun Olam

“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” — Leonard Cohen

This past week my wife and I were in Santa Barbara, our childhood home. Over dinner with dear family friends I hadn’t seen in years—a retired California state legislator and a semi-retired Superior Court judge—the conversation turned to the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, which means “healing the world,” and modernly, refers to the pursuit of social justice.

They explained it as the Jewish call to action for people to improve the world. They continued to explain that their own careers as lifelong public servants and community organizers reflected their commitment to repair the world.  

I have never studied religions other than Buddhism, so this concept of tikkun olam was new. From my initial investigations, the words tikkun olam first appear in Jewish texts in the 2nd century, specifically in the Talmud. But my favorite story about the origins of tikkun olam dates back to 16th century Galilee, to Rabbi Yitzhak Luria, the father of modern Kabbalah. Rabbi Luria’s writings expound on a myth called Shevirat HaKelim—the shattering of the vessels. The story goes like this: when God set out to create the world, divine light was poured into ten vessels. But seven of the ten vessels couldn’t hold the light due to its power. They shattered, scattering sparks of divinity across creation.

The belief is that those sparks are still here, trapped in matter, hidden in ordinary things. And human beings, through good deeds, or mitzvot, can free that light. That’s the alchemy: good deeds releasing the light. Each act of repair—each moment of goodness—releases a spark. This is tikkun: the slow restoration of harmony, a way of bringing the broken pieces of the universe back toward divine unity. Wow!

Within Jewish thought there are different interpretations of this concept of olam, which means “the world.” Some traditions interpret olam as the external “world.” External reality. Others view it more cosmically: the world as the entire order of being, which includes the inner world of the self. This interpretation of olam being a blend of inner and outer world resonates with me because it connects with Buddhist ideas that I have studied for years.

There is another related image from the Kabbalistic tradition about sparks of divine light trapped in shells called klipot. Light trapped in shells; like a pearl in its oyster. Humans are the ultimate “shells”—carriers of trapped light. In order to release that divine light within each of us, we must each take responsibility for the emotional and psychic baggage we carry.  The most important work of repair must begin as an inside job, with a commitment to interact with the world with the intention to improve it. 

Combining this with my own understanding of Buddhist thought, it is this inner world that needs to be repaired first. Then once we have tended to our own repair, we can look to engaging with the outer world as a more integrated “whole” human. 

The way I see it,  these are acts of tikkun within the self. When we crack open our own “shells,” when we break through illusion and integrate our pieces into deeper unity of being, this is what they mean by recovering the light. Buddhists call this enlightenment.

This is where repair begins: with the self. Only then can it move outward. Without tending to our own broken places, how can we hope to help repair the world? But when we do the work—when we mend our inner fractures—we can be agents of healing in the larger world.

Monday Meditation: On a slow ten-count breath, reflect: where has your inner light been unlocked? What shells still remain unbroken? Are they in relationships, in work, in the hidden corners of your heart? This weekend, as we walked along the beach, we found fragments of shells everywhere. What if the ocean is a vast body of divine light, forever spitting broken shells onto the shore—each fragment a spark liberated, each one a small step closer to unity? Who knows. But what I do know is that the concept of Tikkun Olam has changed me for the better.