About Tikkun Institute and its Staff

The Tikkun Institute is committed to the task of reconceiving the relationship of the social, political, emotional and spiritual dimensions of life in a manner that will foster unity, protect diversity, and promote justice, compassion, deeper understanding among the world's peoples.

What we will do

The Tikkun Institute will draw from the wisdom of the world's spiritual traditions and the insights of contemporary social science to promote ideas that help to achieve a deepening of our nation's public discourse, and improve the quality, outcome, and soul of our public policy. We will also explore the psychological and spiritual dynamics that cause citizens to lose hope and retreat from their ideals and examine how to heal our pathways back to hope and trust.

The work of the Tikkun Institute will focus on three areas:

1. Values Identification and Messaging:

Rethinking the underpinnings of progressive political thought in terms that highlight its roots in traditional and contemporary spiritual, moral, and ethical teachings. Connecting these principles to a larger progressive vision for the United States and its relations with the world community.

2. Innovative, Values-Informed Policy Development:

Using the above principles to promote innovative ideas about public life and public policy that help to feed not only physical hunger, but also the hunger for meaning, connection, vitality, true security, and purpose in daily life. Applying this perspective to policy analysis and development on a range of contemporary issues including the relationship between science and ethics, the environment, trade, economic justice, social welfare, foreign policy and war and peace.

3. Psycho-social analysis

Highlighting the psychological, social, and cultural dimensions of public policy issues. Developing approaches to policy formation and community-building initiatives that effectively address and engage these underlying dimensions of human motivation to achieve more successful policy outcomes.

The Tikkun Institute is a project of Tikkun and the Institute for Labor and Mental Health, a non-profit and non-partisan institute, and will share what it produces with policy makers, journalists, editors, academics, and members of the general public.

Why we are

The Tikkun Think Tank seeks to connect the spiritual hunger so evident in contemporary American society with a policy agenda that actually nourishes the human spirit and the natural world. Many Americans long for deeper meaning in their lives and a greater sense of belonging. They want to be recognized and valued by others for who they are, not simply for what they own or what they have achieved. Many also long for supportive and loving communities that offer respite from the excessive individualism, materialism, and selfishness they experience all too often in their daily lives. Increasing numbers are seeking a spiritual connection that can provide them a sense of higher purpose.

The Religious Right has long understood how to tap into human longings for meaning and connection. The outcome of the 2004 presidential election demonstrated the fruits of their long-standing efforts to address these impulses in the American people. The Religious Right speaks of values that are attractive to many such as the importance of faith, family, and responsibility. Through its churches, the movement has created nurturing communities that meet many needs of its members.

However, the political and economic policies that the Religious Right endorses often worsen the very social attitudes such as excessive individualism and empty secular materialism that they understandably critique. Its leaders have forged an unnatural alliance with far-right corporate political forces. As a result they often downplay critical aspects of spiritual import such as social responsibility and economic justice when these are inconvenient to right-wing political and commercial interests. Instead the Religious Right uses galvanizing issues such as gay marriage and abortion to secure the loyalty of their followers. Consequently, the policy platform endorsed by religious conservatives is often at odds with many of core values of their own major religious traditions such as justice, mercy, love for the stranger, peacemaking and caring for the poor.

Meanwhile liberal and progressive leaders have shied away from explicitly addressing people's "spiritual" hunger for meaning and deeper connection to each other. Instead, the progressive Left has primarily focused-in both language and deed-on addressing economic disparities (e.g., universal health insurance) and expanding political and civil rights (e.g., gay marriage). While these issues are laudable, they do not constitute an end in themselves. Until the Left is able to articulate a more visionary agenda that speaks directly to the emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs of people, its appeal will continue to decline despite its vital and well-intentioned policies.

Clearly the time has come for the progressive world to connect its platform with the deep underlying moral values and transcendent vision from which its inspiration actually emanates. The Tikkun Institute will play a vital role helping the progressive community to accomplish this goal.