[Avodah] Tiqun Olam

[Zev Sero]

Michael Makovi wrote:

> Aleynu uses tikkun olam

Aleynu does not say "tikun olam"; it says "letaken olam *bemalchut
ShDY*".  Those last two words are the ikkar, not the tafel, and those
who use the term "tikun olam" definitely do not mean them at all.
I have never heard a frum person use the term "tikun olam" or refer
to it at all as a Jewish value; AFAIK it is entirely a foreign
concept, and even the term is not used anywhere Jewish - the closest
we come is the takanot that were made "mipnei tikun ha'olam".

Similar objections to slogans formed by quoting half of a genuine
source while leaving out the ikkar:

1. Some of the people who were organising public demonstrations against
the USSR in the '60s used the slogan "Shalach et `ami", which was a
corruption of the original source, whose main word is "veya`avduni".
They meant "shalach et `ami" to be hefker, and had no right to use
the pasuk to imply that this was some sort of Jewish idea.

2. BILU in the 1880s, shouted "Beis Yisroel Lechu Veneilcho" (they
hadn't yet invented the pseudo-Sefardi accent), but deliberately
left out "Be'or Hashem".  The then-LR, the RaShaB, commented at the
time that if only they'd added the "Be'or Hashem" he'd have joined
them.  (His father the Rebbe MaHaRaSh, once threatened the Russian
government that if they didn't relent on some decree he would order
all his chassidim to shift to EY, and devastate the Russian economy.)


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas