Mystical systems
Tikkun
Direct answer
Tikkun is Hebrew for repair: in Lurianic Kabbalah, the mending of creation after the breaking of the vessels, carried out through human acts of prayer and commandment.
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At a glance
- Also called
- repair of the world, tikun olam
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Kabbalah, Tzimtzum, Zohar, Sephiroth
Tikkun is Hebrew for repair: in Lurianic Kabbalah, the mending of creation after the breaking of the vessels, carried out through human acts of prayer and commandment.
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What does tikkun mean?
Tikkun means repair, mending or setting right. In the Kabbalah of Isaac Luria it is the third act of creation. After the vessels break and sparks of divine light are scattered, the world has to be put back together, and that work falls to people. Each commandment performed with full intention is said to lift a spark and restore a little of the broken order.
The fuller phrase, tikkun olam, repair of the world, is far older and has had several meanings. In the Mishnah it describes rulings made for the good order of society. In modern Jewish life, since the middle of the twentieth century, it has come to mean social action and justice.
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What sets Tikkun apart
Tikkun gives people a share in finishing creation, which is the daring part. In Luria's teaching God began the repair and left the rest to human hands, so that a commandment kept in a kitchen in Poland mends something on high. The word also names particular rites spread by the kabbalists of Safed, such as the night of study on Shavuot and the midnight lament for the Temple. Its modern sense of social action keeps the idea of shared responsibility and drops the sparks.
- Hebrew: repair or mending, from a root meaning to set straight
- Oldest phrase: mipnei tikkun ha-olam, for the good order of the world, in the Mishnah
- In prayer: the Aleinu: to set the world right under the rule of God
- Lurianic sense: raising the fallen sparks through commandment and intention
- Named rites: Tikkun Leil Shavuot and Tikkun Chatzot, spread by the kabbalists of Safed
- Modern sense: social action and justice, common from the 1950s
Often mistaken for something else: Tzimtzum and the breaking are acts within God at the beginning; tikkun is the long work afterwards, and it is the part that depends on people.
The story behind Tikkun
The phrase appears in the Mishnah, compiled about 200 CE, and in the Aleinu prayer, which hopes for a world set right under God. Luria gave tikkun its mystical sense in Safed about 1570. Its present use for social responsibility spread among American Jews from the 1950s onward and is now the most common meaning, though it leaves the mystical framework behind.
Why Tikkun matters
Tikkun turns Luria's account of a broken creation into a task, and it is the idea from Kabbalah that has travelled furthest into everyday speech.
How to read Tikkun
In kabbalistic writing it names the raising of sparks through sacred acts; in modern usage tikkun olam names work for a more just society.
Tikkun in practice: an example
Someone who mends a quarrel in their family could call it a small tikkun, in either the old sense or the new.
Where readings of Tikkun go wrong
The mystical and the modern senses are not the same, and quoting Luria for a social programme reads later ideas back into him.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- tikkun olam, tikkun meaning, tikkun in kabbalah, repair of the world, tikun olam
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What does tikkun mean?
It is Hebrew for repair. In Kabbalah it means the mending of creation after the breaking of the vessels; in ordinary modern use it means setting something right.
What is tikkun olam?
It means repair of the world. The phrase is found in the Mishnah and the Aleinu prayer, took a mystical sense in Lurianic Kabbalah, and today usually means social action.
How is tikkun done in Kabbalah?
According to Luria, through the commandments, prayer and ethical acts performed with intention, each of which raises a spark of divine light from where it fell.
