Apparently Hebrew Has Words Other Than ‘Tikkun Olam’ …?

By Rabbi Andy Kahn

New York, February 18 – Today I Learned that the language of most of the Hebrew Bible contains words that are not ‘Tikkun’ and ‘Olam.’ I was Today Years Old when I discovered that. Who knew?

For the uninitiated, ‘Tikkun Olam’ means “repairing the world,” and it bespeaks the supreme, ancient Jewish value of subordinating all other values to twenty-first-century American progressive politics.

Imagine my shock, then, to discover that the language of the Bible, even the Bible itself, contains many other words. Hundreds of thousands of them, even millions! One rando on Twitter even had the audacity to mention that the word “Tikkun” itself occurs not at all in the Bible, with the root T-K-N (Hebrew has roots? I guess you DO need roots if your language has more than two words, huh?) appearing less than a handful of times, and the word “Olam” appearing many, many times, but in only two of those cases does it mean “world” and not “eternity.” Can you believe that?! I couldn’t either! Next you’re going to tell me solidarity with Palestine isn’t in the Ten Commandments! (I wonder what language was used for those?)

Words in Yiddish, I do know. “Shanda,” for example. It’s related etymologically to the English “scandal,” but it means more like “You should be ashamed!” and it sounds better because Yiddish. Everything sounds more authentically Jewish in Yiddish. That’s why Mizrahi Jews only count as Jews when being invoked to prove Israel is a racist endeavor. Jews with a Semitic language as their mother tongue? You’ve got to be kidding me. They don’t even eat gefilte fish, and – this came as a shock to me also – Mizrahi tradition eschews the eating of dairy and fish together – how can they be authentically Jewish if they won’t eat a bagel with lox and a shmear of cream cheese?! Pull the other one, sand Jew.

Part of me wonders whether the other Hebrew words mean anything. Like, I automatically “know” they exist only to serve the overall message of Tikkun Olam, but maybe I can work them into a sermon or something? Or a tweet. That would work, too. I preach a lot about our responsibility to leave our comfort zones for the sake of advancing Tikkun Olam – Black Lives Matter protests, defending antisemitic progressives, the whole deal – but leaving my comfort zone of examining sources that might challenge my world view? Not so much, you know?

I suppose I can just cancel the rest of the Hebrew Bible if it comes that. I mean, it worked for the Christians…

Please support our work through Patreon.