‘Repairing the World’: Tikkun Olam and Jürgen Moltmann’s Theology of Hope

The concept of tikkun olam, translated normally as ‘repairing the world’, has come to the forefront in recent decades as one of the most important contemporary Jewish ideas in the Western world. While the widespread use of the expression is recent, the idea itself stems from a very long and complex history within Jewish thought. Moreover, the notion of tikkun olam also resembles aspects of Jürgen Moltmann’s famous book Theology of Hope (1964), and his overall messianic theology, which seek to retrieve aspects of both the Hebrew Bible and Judaism. In fact, by the end of his theological project, Moltmann was openly identifying with tikkun olam, that is, hope for the final renewal of the entire world, and an anticipatory activist commitment in all areas in light of it. In this thesis, I argue two main points. Firstly, that Moltmann’s Theology of Hope is essentially a Christianised form of tikkun olam, which the Protestant theologian came into contact with, and developed, through multiple sources, in particular, Ernst Bloch’s The Principle of Hope, the Blumhardts’ theology, Bonhoeffer, the Frankfurt School, Martin Buber, and other Jewish thinkers. But also, via various forms of biblical theology, mediated through scholars like Van Ruler, von Rad, and Hoekendijk, which focused on the concept of promise in the Old Testament, hope for the future, history as God’s place of activity, the resurrection of the body, and the redemption of the earth. Secondly, I argue that the retrieval of tikkun olam, and the cluster of Jewish and biblical ideas linked to it, through Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, and later in his overall theological project, represents a powerful and original eschatological paradigm which offers important theological resources for tackling some of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.