1.  People Need Meaning as Much as they need Money. People's need for love, mutual recognition, and a sense of transcendent meaning are as important as their need for money, food, sex and power. It is the deprivation of meaning needs which often accounts for behavior that otherwise seems purely irrational. In our society, people are taught that the meaning of their life is to satisfy their material needs, their sexual needs, and their needs for fame and power. But even when some of these needs are met, many people feel unsatisfied, frustrated, and depressed—because they want their lives to connect to something of higher value and importance. They often turn to nationalist or right-wing religious communities because those communities attempt to provide that framework of meaning.
To combat fundamentalism and ultra-nationalism, we need to provide an alternative framework of meaning: an emancipatory spirituality – a spirituality that does not negate science or rational thinking, and does not make some group a demeaned “Other” as frequently happens in reactionary forms of spirituality (as for example, the “goyim bashing” or “Palestinian bashing” that often occurs in the Jewish world, or “gay bashing” in the Christian fundamentalist world).  It is because people have these kinds of needs that corporate capital can never create a stable world – because capital can try to manipulate meaning needs (that’s the focus of the smartest corporate advertising) but it cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the soul.   

2. We need a New Bottom Line. Institutions, corporations, and social practices should be judged "productive," "efficient," and "rational" not only to the extent that they maximize money and power (which is the criterion we use today), but ethical and ecological sensitivity, and enhance our capacities to transcend a narrow utilitarian consciousness—so that we can respond to the universe with awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur of creation. We seek to transform the world of work and our professional lives— and in fact every aspect of our society—by placing this kind of consciousness, rather than the consciousness that seeks money and power, at the center of our lives. If, for example, we judge our schools not solely by how talented our graduates are at creating the next generation of computers, but how talented they are at being able to see the spirit of God in other people, or to respond with loving and caring to "the Other," or how talented they are at responding to the universe with awe and wonder, we would quickly realize that our schools have been failing us and need fundamental transformation. We seek to transform every aspect of our society in accord with this new notion of what counts as rational and productive. For that reason, we will educate people about the Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

3. We need a Global Consciousness and Global Ecological Sanity. We can no longer see ourselves as separate from the rest of humanity or the fate of our planet. Thus, economic justice for everyone on the planet, ecological sanity for the entire planet, and the spiritual and emotional wellbeing of every human being on the planet becomes an immediate necessity for us. This cannot be a merely theoretical understanding or a religious ideal—it must be translated into immediate realities. We need to stop the destruction of the life support system of the planet, and end the irrational use of scarce resources.


4. We need to develop an inner life.  Recognizing that all forms of social change will be undermined if we rely on externals. The process of Tikkun (the healing and transformation of the planet) will take a long time, and in the process we need to take care of each other, and encourage each other to develop a personal inner life, spiritual practice, and a connection to Spirit (however that is conceived or encountered).

5. We need to reject the idolatry of "being realistic" and instead put our life energies behind our highest vision of the good. Our only hope of saving this planet from ecological destruction is to put our intelligence, energy, time and money behind our highest ideals, rather than to continue to scale that down to what others tell us is "realistic." Being realistic is idolatry—to be a part of the Tikkun community is to affirm a spiritual vision, to connect to the Force of Healing and Transformation of the Universe, to affirm that there is an aspect of reality that makes possible the transcendence of "that which is" (reality) toward that which ought to be. We want to make it safe for others to go for their own most loving ideals. Our existence will testify to the possibility of a world of love, gentleness, and kindness.

6. In building community we need lots of compassion for each other. We are all deeply flawed, are likely to disappoint each other, and will not always live up to our own highest ideals.  The Tikkun community will also at times not be as wonderful as it should be, because every human institution is limited and will at times disappoint. So we need to have compassion for each other even as we gently and lovingly assist each other to reach new heights of generosity, open-heartedness and joy. We know that even these high ideals can be used as clubs to beat up on each other—our organizational "bottom line" must be kindness, gentleness, and real caring for each other’s well being.

7. Our goal is to create a network of people who share the Core Vision of the Tikkun Community and who can provide support for each other through the years ahead. We will not necessarily be working on the same projects, but we will all be attempting to bring the central ideas of our Community into the institutions in which we work, into our professional lives, into our political, communal, religious and spiritual communities. We will brainstorm with each other about how best to advance these ideals in our many different life situations, and will let each other know that we can be counted on to help advance each other’s projects and life opportunities.

For a fuller description of our beliefs, please see our Core Vision and Founding Principles at www.tikkun.org