According to the Kabbalah, which is a kind of Jewish mysticism, when God created the world, it was totally whole and perfect. But then it got broken and all the pieces rained down and mixed together. According to this story, today, it is our job, or even responsibility, to repair the world, to make it whole again. This is something we Jews call “tikkun olam.” Repairing the world.
Tikkun olam can mean something like doing acts of chesed—kindness— or it can mean getting involved in social justice activities. It’s basically about making the world better by fixing what needs to be fixed in whatever way that we can.
Telling my story of surviving the Holocaust doesn’t change the past or fix the world, but I do feel that it might just help make this world better because I can share a part of history as I experienced it with my own eyes and ears instead of something you read in a book. I can also be an example for other people who…
