This week's omer study packet, on advocacy, features articles on how to make our synagogues into vessels of tikkun olam, and how to make decisions on controversial issues, as well as tachlis policy documents formulated by JRF congregations: Adat Shalom, Mishkan Shalom, and Tzedek v'Shalom.

This topic will also be featured on the last of our tikkun-olam-themed PEARL tele-conference calls, on Wednesday May 14. To register, click here.

"Reconstructionists seek to live in two civilizations … this has led the movement to place social action high on its agenda. It is not only as individuals but also as Jews working together in our communities that Reconstructionists seek to improve the world.

Tikkun Olam committees have promoted a wide range of such projects: internal programming to educate members about how to live in environmentally sound ways, political lobbying and demonstrating to protest genocide or welfare cutbacks, volunteering in inner city soup kitchens, turning synagogues into homeless shelters, declaring sanctuary for illegal immigrants fleeing political oppression...

Many Reconstructionists have their most profound experiences of God through tikkun olam: working together, fighting injustice, acting to help others. It is not out of charity that they ally themselves with those who are oppressed or less fortunate, but rather out of the teaching that all human beings are worthy of respect and opportunity. If that is true, then injustice and discrimination deprive people of their birthright, and tikkun olam may be the most concrete and palpable way to make God’s Presence manifest in our world."

- Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach, Rebecca Alpert and Jacob Staub, p. 59-60