Tikkun Olam through Teaching

Tamar Duke-Cohan, Prozdor Faculty

I believe in Tikkun Olam through teaching. Tikkun Olam—“repairing the world”—is a central tenet of Judaism. An idea whose roots reach back to the Mishna, it has evolved into the belief that the world is “broken” and that each of us should take steps to make it whole and perfect.

I had never wanted to be a teacher and never thought I’d be one. Teaching came to me by chance: A beloved Prozdor teacher made Aliya, a replacement could not be found, another teacher knew me, and an offer to come and teach classes about the Holocaust was made. It was an intriguing idea, my services were needed, and so I accepted and became a teacher.

Teaching is painstaking and inexact. It is the gentle, constant pressure that guides young men and women into gradually recognizing the right path. It is about helping the students to find order in chaos and certainty in doubt; about their acceptance that the world is gray, and that we must find our way in its mists. I do not aim to identify the right path, but rather prefer to give my students lamps and maps with which to find it for themselves. One of my guiding lights is Judaism, and I hope it will light their way too.

I arrived at Prozdor by chance, but I am staying on purpose. Like the click of a seatbelt snapping into its holder, when I first stepped into the classroom, everything was “right.” I had completed a picture, and it had completed me. And so, every Sunday, when we finish taking attendance and resume our discussion of such topics as the Eichmann Trial or the fate of Holocaust survivors, I believe that I am working to fix that tiny part of the broken world that has been assigned to me. This is my Tikkun Olam.