Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Letters

Debating Tikkun Olam

In “Abusing Tikkun Olam,” (March 23) Joel Alperson writes that “Jewishly speaking, tikkun olam without God is impossible.” Quite the contrary. In its original usage in the Mishnah, tikkun olam was the rabbinic principle that allowed God’s decrees in the Torah to be set aside whenever they got in the way of maintaining a stable social order. According to both Maimonides and the influential 14th-century talmudist Rabbi Nissim of Gerona, a Jewish king may, if the exigency of the hour demands it, execute criminals without proper evidence for the sake of tikkun olam. Thus, if the concept of tikkun olam is best heralded in support of any policy position, it is clearly the right-wing position that some of the niceties of American criminal law can legitimately be suspended in the War on Terror.

Nathan Bloom
Chicago, Ill.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.