Tikkun Olam — Repairing the World
Va’eira (Let My People Go) • Gathering Sparks • Something Good
Read Gathering Sparks; brainstorm a class ‘repair’ project.
Children wonder and discover; you facilitate more than you lecture.
- Why is it important to stand up for others?
- How does Moses stand up for others?
- What are ways you can make the world better?
Tikkun olam means ‘repairing the world.’ Moses stood up to Pharaoh for his people. Gathering Sparks tells the mystical story of gathering scattered sparks of goodness.
- Tikkun olam — repairing the world
- Mitzvah — good deed
- “Can a kid really fix the world?”
- Yes — every kind act gathers a spark. Small repairs add up.
- Children understand tikkun olam as repairing the world.
- Children name one repair they can make.
Offer many ways to ‘repair’ (kindness, helping, speaking up) so every child can contribute.
Folktale. Gathering the Sparks (Kabbalistic) — the world’s light scattered into sparks, and our good deeds gather them back.
Changemaker. Our meal rota — the people who cook and deliver food when somebody here is ill or somebody has died. There are dozens of them and almost nobody outside the kitchen knows their names.
What would you do today to make the world a little better?
“We learned about tikkun olam. Try at home: do one small repair together — a kindness, a clean-up, a thank-you.”