Tikkun olam
Etymology
Hebrew תיקון עולם, "repair of the world," from "tikkun" (repair, mending) and "olam" (world). The phrase appears in early rabbinic law and later takes on a mystical meaning in Lurianic Kabbalah; its now-dominant sense of social justice is largely a twentieth-century development, so the modern usage is more recent than the ancient words suggest.
noun phrase · /tee-KOON oh-LAHM/
The idea that one has a duty to help repair or improve the broken world.
What it names
It frames social and moral improvement as an ongoing act of mending, giving individual good deeds a cosmic sense of purpose.
Example
She framed her volunteering not as charity but as her small share of tikkun olam.
Related idea
Unlike generic philanthropy, tikkun olam carries a theological charge — the sense that mending the world is a partnership with the divine.