Tzedek Hillel: Social Justice and Jewish Values
Rabbi Jeffrey Summit

There is a line in the text of the Birkat Hamazon, the Blessing After Meals, that has always bothered me. It reads, "I was a young man, now I am old and I have never seen a righteous person forsaken and his children begging for food." I recently sat with a group of students and together we asked, "How could we possibly include this line in our prayers!?" We are painfully aware that injustice exists in the world and within blocks of our university, people go hungry. The discussion was intense. One student was outraged and suggested that we should drop this line from the prayer. Another thought that maybe it meant that the key to economic success was developing righteous character and action. Still, this did not solve our problem: we all had met good people who were poor through no fault of their own. We finally agreed that the line must be in the prayer specifically to get our attention and focus our energy on social justice. As Jews, we could not be by-standers. Part of being thankful for having food ourselves was being concerned about people who were hungry.

Tufts Hillel was recently chosen by National Hillel and the Nathan Cummings Foundation to participate in a national project called Tzedek Hillel. The Hebrew word tzedek means "righteousness" or "righteous action." Tzedek Hillel is an national initiative that makes social justice and the teaching of related Jewish texts and values a core component of Hillel's mission on campus. Through Tzedek Hillel, we will teach the centrality of social justice in the Jewish tradition and work to integrate those values into every aspect of the Hillel program. Students will learn that community responsibility and service is more than "a good idea." A responsibility to care for the hungry and homeless and create a society that strives for wholeness is a vision articulated in the Torah, stressed by the Prophets, refined and implemented by the rabbis throughout Jewish history.

In the first year of this project, we will focus our attention in two areas: children (literacy, mentoring, health/nutrition) and hunger/homelessness. After long discussion, we agreed that our goal is to move beyond "band-aid" solutions. As important as it is to have students serve food in a homeless shelter, we also plan to address and explore the root causes of these problems and formulate strategies for effective advocacy and social change.

Tzedek Hillel is conceived as a project that works closely with other campus organizations, especially with the Leonard Carmichael Society, to share resources and create service opportunities for our students. We are very excited to have formed a partnership with Tufts Lincoln Filene Center for Citizenship and Public Affairs and together are discussing a University symposia that will examine the ethics of social justice, religious values and citizen participation. We also will be working with the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council, who have developed volunteer sites and opportunities in the local Boston community. Tzedek Hillel will both build on the important work of Hillel's Social Action Committee and is designed to engage students in the study and practice of these values who are not presently involved in the Hillel program.

An exciting resource for this project will be the development of an interactive Website, Hillel.daat.com. "Daat" is the Hebrew word for knowledge. Classical Jewish texts (Bible, Talmud, Midrash, Codes) that deal with the concepts of tzedukah (righteousness/charity), gemillut hasidim (deeds of loving kindness/social service) and tikun olam ("repairing the world," social justice) will be posted both in the original Hebrew and in English translation. Students will be able to comment and discuss these texts both on line and in a weekly seminar at the Hillel Center. Members of the university from all religious traditions and backgrounds are invited to participate in this seminar and on-line discussion.

In the Jewish tradition, learning is about living. The values taught in our texts provide the basis for our long history of commitment to social action and social justice. The Talmud tells the story of a debate between two major rabbinic academies, the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai. They struggled to resolve the following question: If a person had to choose between studying Torah and performing good deeds, what should he or she do? After years of argument, they concluded that if a person could only choose one thing, they should study Torah. Their logic was as follows: If you only performed good deeds, you would be a good person, but you might never understand the richness and complexity of our tradition. On the other hand, everyone agreed that it was impossible to study Torah and not be motivated to perform good deeds and pursue justice. The rabbis found it inconceivable that study would not lead to action.

Through Tzedek Hillel, we hope to expand the breadth and depth of activism and Jewish learning on the Tufts campus, strengthening and nurturing a new generation of knowledgeable, committed Jews.