Below are some additional texts that you may find interesting. The texts at the beginning are source texts. At the end you will find two commentaries/critiques of Tikkun Olam.
To find the full text you can click on the name of the text e.g. 'Genesis 1:7' and it will take you to the full text.
עַל כֵּן נְקַוֶּה לְּךָ יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ לִרְאוֹת מְהֵרָה בְּתִפְאֶֽרֶ
עֻזֶּֽךָ לְהַעֲבִיר גִּלּוּלִים מִן הָאָֽרֶץ וְהָאֱלִילִים כָּרוֹת יִכָּרֵתוּן לְתַקֵּן עוֹלָם בְּמַלְכוּת שַׁדַּי: וְכָל בְּנֵי בָשָׂר יִקְרְאוּ בִשְׁמֶֽךָ לְהַפְנוֹת אֵלֶֽיךָ כָּל רִשְׁעֵי אָֽרֶץ: יַכִּֽירוּ וְיֵדְעוּ כָּל יוֹשְׁבֵי תֵבֵל כִּי לְךָ תִּכְרַע כָּל בֶּֽרֶךְ תִּשָּׁבַע כָּל לָשׁוֹן: לְפָנֶֽיךָ יְיָ אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ יִכְרְעוּ וְיִפּֽוֹלוּ וְלִכְבוֹד שִׁמְךָ יְקָר יִתֵּֽנוּ: וִיקַבְּלוּ כֻלָּם
Therefore we put our hope in You, Hashem our G-d, that we may soon see Your mighty splendor, removing detestable idolatry from the earth, and false gods will be utterly cut off, when the world will be perfected (l’takein olam) through the Almighty's sovereignty. Then all humanity will call upon Your Name, to turn all the earth's wicked toward you. All the world's inhabitants will recognize and know that to You every knee should bend, every tongue should swear.
-Aleinu (Second Paragraph)
המוכר עבדו לגוי או לחוצה לארץ, יצא בן חורין. אין פודין את השבויין יותר על כדי דמיהן, מפני תקון העולם. ואין מבריחין את השבויין, מפני תקון העולם. רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר: מפני תקנת השבויין. ואין לוקחים ספרים תפלין ומזוזות מן הגוים יותר על כדי דמיהן, מפני תקון העולם.
[With regard to] one who sells his slave to a non-Jew or to someone outside Eretz Yisrael, [the slave automatically] goes free. We do not ransom captives for more than they are worth, due to Tikkun HaOlam. We do not help captives escape, due to Tikkun HaOlam. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: "[It is] due to the enactment of the captives. We do not buy sefarim [Torah scrolls or holy books], tefillin, and mezuzot from the non-Jews for more than their worth, due to Tikkun HaOlam.
- R. Jill Jacobs, There Shall be No Needy (p. 35-36), 2009
בראשונה היה עושה בית דין במקום אחר ומבטלו. התקין רבן גמליאל הזקן שלא יהו עושין כן, מפני תקון העולם.
בראשונה היה משנה שמו ושמה, שם עירו ושם עירה. התקין רבן גמליאל הזקן שיהא כותב איש פלוני וכל שם שיש לו, אשה פלונית וכל שם שיש לה, מפני תקון העולם.
...הלל התקין פרוזבול מפני תקון העולם.
At first, a man [who had sent his wife a divorce via messenger] would set up a religious court in a different place [from where the wife lived] and cancel [the bill of divorce]. Rabban Gamliel the Elder enacted that they not be able to do this, due to Tikkun HaOlam.
At first, a man could change his name and her name, the name of his city, or the name of her city. Rabban Gamliel the Elder enacted that one would write: "The man, So-and-so, and any other name that he has, and the woman, So-and-so, and any other name that she has," due to Tikkun HaOlam.
...Hillel instituted the prozbul [a court-issued exemption from the Sabbatical year cancellation of a personal loan] due to Tikkun HaOlam.
At the beginning of time, God’s presence filled the universe. When God decided to bring this world into being, to make room for creation, He first drew in His breath, contracting Himself. From that contraction darkness was created. And when God said, “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3), the light that came into being filled the darkness, and ten holy vessels came forth, each filled with primordial light.
In this way God sent forth those ten vessels, like a fleet of ships, each carrying its cargo of light. Had they all arrived intact, the world would have been perfect. But the vessels were too fragile to contain such a powerful, divine light. They broke open, split asunder, and all the holy sparks were scattered like sand, like seeds, like stars. Those sparks fell everywhere, but more fell on the Holy Land than anywhere else.
That is why we were created — to gather the sparks, no matter where they are hidden. God created the world so that the descendents of Jacob could raise up the holy sparks. That is why there have been so many exiles — to release the holy sparks from the servitude of captivity. In this way the Jewish people will sift all the holy sparks from the four corners of the earth.
And when enough holy sparks have been gathered, the broken vessels will be restored, and tikkun olam,the repair of the world, awaited so long, will finally be complete. Therefore it should be the aim of everyone to raise these sparks from wherever they are imprisoned and to elevate them to holiness by the power of their soul.
...The Ari explained that whenever the Torah was studied or one of the commandments of the law fulfilled, some of the holy sparks were raised up... Now, for the first time, the Ari proposed that there was a purpose to the mitzvot, the commandments, beyond serving God’s will. Studying the Torah, observing the law, healing the ills of the world, or performing good deeds all made it possible to gather the sparks, and thus fulfill the great mitzvah of tikkun olam.
- Prof. Howard Schwartz, "How the Ari Created a Myth and Transformed Judaism", Tikkun Magazine, 2011 http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/how-the-ari-created-a-myth-and-transformed-judaism
Or, [as said] in the aleinu prayer, it is the promise and the challenge l’takayn olam b’malchut Sha-dai – to perfect the world under the sovereignty of G-d. It is the last task of Jewish history, and it is the hardest task.
...The Torah is a book about us, yet it doesn’t begin with the Jewish people... [Instead, it starts as] a story about humanity as a whole. It tells a story of two orders of civilizations [Adam, and later, Noah] which began as covenants with all of mankind and how they failed... Both are explicitly founded on the concept of humanity as betzelem Elokim, ‘in the image of G-d.’ Both fail.
...The Almighty tried twice to teach humanity universal rules... They failed; because the most powerful way to teach is by particular example. If you want to instruct someone on how to be good, identify a role model and let him see how that person lives... That became the Jewish vocation; not to stand for some universal truth but to be a particular, specific living example of how to live...
...Our task is to become a particular living example of a set of universal truths, and therefore the conflict between the universal and the particular in Judaism is not a conflict at all because... it is only by being true to ourselves that we can be true to other people... Only by having the courage to be different can we be role models to the dignity of difference. That is why Tikkun Olam in my view is the special responsibility of we who are the guardians of Torah.
... We have the chance today of shaping a society built on justice and compassion... If we do it the world will be a better place; if we do it, we will be better Jews.
- R. Jonathan Sacks, "Tikkun Olam: Orthodoxy's Responsibility to Perfect G-d's World", Orthodox Union West Coast Convention Speech, 1997 http://advocacy.ou.org/tikkun-olam-orthodoxys-responsibility-to-perfect-g-ds-world/
[On many] issues, we are told that solidarity with the easy left is our Jewish duty under God. But there is no coherent standard for changing Jewish law except the spirit of the times, an epoch that is hardly worthy of emulation...
We want Jews to line up with all the smug and self-confident liberals rather than stake out original and dangerous alternatives.... All this begins, I believe, with distorting tikkun olam. A teaching about compromise, sharpening, trimming and humanizing rabbinic law, a mystical doctrine about putting God's world back together again, this strange and half-understood notion becomes a huge umbrella under which our petty moral concerns and political panaceas can come in out of the rain....Our world does need repair. So do we. Our much-vaunted "spirituality" will be tested in our politics.
- R. Arnold Jacob Wolf, "Repairing Tikkun Olam," Judaism Journal, 2001.