Presented byRabbi Alexander. Before “Tikkun Olam” became a catchall phrase for all good and charitable deeds, before it was used in mystical parlance to refer to restoring God’s wholeness, even before it entered the early rabbinic liturgy of Aleinu — before all of that, the words Tikkun Olam first appeared in the Mishnah around the year 200 C.E. There they meant something quite specific: The need to reform Jewish law when it threatened to further marginalize those who were already vulnerable. Who were those groups? How was Jewish law changed? And how might tracing “Tikkun Olam” back to its original sources help to inform and guide our justice work today?