For US Jews, disengaging from Israel is not an option |
To many of us raised in American Jewish homes — regardless of denomination or degree of observance — one principle was woven deeply into our moral vocabulary: Tikkun Olam, the obligation to help repair a broken world.
The concept was never presented as naïve optimism. Judaism does not teach that the world will become perfect. Quite the opposite. Jewish tradition assumes fracture, conflict, injustice, and human imperfection as constants of history. Yet our tradition also insists that awareness of brokenness is not permission for passivity.
As taught in Pirkei Avot: “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
That obligation feels especially urgent today.
Israeli society is under extraordinary strain. Families across the country have endured months of sleepless nights in bomb shelters. Parents, reservists, active-duty service members, including teenagers, have cycled through repeated military deployments in dangerous settings within and beyond Israel’s borders. Trauma, grief, and exhaustion are now embedded in daily life.
Recently, my wife and I hosted a barbecue for an armory battalion on leave in northern Israel. The soldiers carried themselves with quiet dignity. There was little bravado. Their easy camaraderie — forged through countless days and nights together in cramped tanks........