Volunteer service, for many Jewish young adults in particular, is the primary way they express their Jewish values and embody some of our most ancient teachings. Yet service alone is not a sustainable path of ongoing meaningful engagement nor a strategy to strengthen the Jewish community. When Moses is catapulted through time in an imaginative move by the wildly creative Rabbis of the Talmud (Babylonia Talmud Menahot 29b) and he sees Rabbi Akiva the great sage teaching his Torah, albeit in a slightly different form, he is assuaged. He realizes that his Torah, though transformed, is still part of the same wisdom and tradition of his people. As our people change, our Torah needs to adapt with them. The same goes for the service learning that we believe in at Repair the World. For Jewish service to welcome more people into Jewish life and create positive change across the Jewish community, it must be grounded in transformative Jewish education.

Undoubtedly, service as a stand-alone, episodic act can be impactful; the annual mitzvah day or the Thanksgiving morning soup kitchen shift helps communities around the country. However, and especially after October 7th, people are asking a pointed question: is Tikkun Olam as a value facile and reductive? The answer, we believe, is “no,” so long as we teach that these acts of repair embody what it means to be Jewish with the depth and complexity that the term itself has meant throughout centuries of Jewish teachers engaging with it.  Service acts paired with serious Jewish learning move participants beyond surface engagement and connect them to enduring purpose, identity, and belonging. They learn that part of being Jewish means caring for others even over ourselves. With meaningful education, service adds  value and meaning........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)