Shame on every ethnic group in Los Angeles with one exception, maybe?
Voter turnout in the Los Angeles Municipal elections was the worst in 100 years: 23% of the electorate turned out. Shortly after the election, one winning politician laid a very interesting statistic on me. I haven’t verified it but it was from a reliable source and I see no reason to disbelieve it as fantastic as it sounds.
50% of the voters who did turn out were Jewish.
Los Angeles now has a Jewish Mayor (Eric Garcetti), a Jewish City Attorney (Mike Feuer), and a Jewish City Controller (Ron Galperin, whose husband is a Rabbi). Likewise, Nancy Pearlman won an incredible come from behind victory to win by 14% after coming in second in the primary for re-election to the Community College Board.
Knowing all of these four people personally, I’m confident that they all agree with me that whether or not god exists (I’m an existentialist Rabbi-Tlamatini of the Jewish Existentialist World Society) the Jewish tribal commitment to Tikkun Olam, healing the world, is part and parcel of what motivates them to public service. What I hope is that my fellow Jews who turned out in massive percentage did so with the same motivation, and not just mindless voting by tribal affiliation.
Tikkun Olam is a Hebrew phrase that means “repairing the world” (or “healing the world”) which suggests humanity’s shared responsibility to heal, repair and transform the world. In Judaism, the concept of Tikkun Olam originated in the early rabbinic period. The concept was given new meanings in the Kabbalah of the medieval period and has come to possess further connotations in modern Judaism.
In Lurianic Kabbalah, the physical world is connected to spiritual realms above, and these spiritual realms in turn influence the physical world. In the Derech Hashem, it is written that Jews have the ability, through physical deeds and free will, to direct and control these spiritual forces. These spiritual forces include Tikkun (rectification, good; the presence of Divine light) and Kilkul (damage, evil; not merely the absence of goodness and Divine light, but its own force that is strengthened by the absence of goodness and Divine light).
I will be officiating at a Bar/Bat Mitzvah Sunday at Hollywood Forever, Beit Olam Mortuary section at 2:00 p.m. for four quadruplets who have already begun their journey in life with Tikkun Olam, helping at Food Banks for the poor, campaigning for candidates who will make the world better, and participating in a whole host of programs against racism, sexism, and violence. You’re all invited. Check my FB event page for June 16 for details or email me at [email protected].
