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We continue our exploration of HaRav Ginsburgh’s book, Awakening the Spark Within: Five Dynamics of Leadership that Can Change the World. Having treated the broader vision of leadership and the first two of the five dynamics, the art of compromise and the drive for wholeness, we now turn to the third of the five dynamics: the power of compassion. Compassion inspires others to lead with compassion.
The Power of Compassion to Inspire
Continuing our exploration of the five dynamics of leadership that can change the world, we now turn to the third dynamic: the power of compassion to inspire. As emphasized throughout this series, leadership is not limited to public figures or formal positions of authority. Rather, it is an inherent potential embedded within the soul-root of everyone. Each person, in his or her own sphere of influence—family, community, workplace, or society at large—has the potential to lead, to guide, and to uplift.
At its core, leadership is the ability to influence others positively. Yet the capacity to inspire others cannot be manufactured externally. It emerges organically from one’s own inner state. Only when inspiration is alive within the soul can it radiate outward and awaken that same potential in others. Compassion plays a central role in this process. It is compassion that enables a person to see beyond superficial appearances, and beyond the limitations of a judgmental attitude towards others.
To see the world through compassionate eyes is to recognize that beneath every external form lies an inner spark of Divine life. This perspective allows the potential leader to perceive not only what is, but also what can be.
Compassion and the Messianic Ideal
The prophet Isaiah describes the future and the ultimate leader, the Mashiach with the following words: “For he who shows them compassion will lead them; by fountains of water, he will guide them.”[1] Isaiah does not describe the Mashiach primarily as a conqueror, philosopher, or miracle-worker, but as one who leads through compassion. Compassion, according to this vision is the very engine that generates inspiration and guidance. Through compassion, leadership becomes life-giving, likened here to flowing waters that sustain and refresh.
Chasidic thought deepens this idea by identifying three distinct levels of compassion. The first level is having compassion on every human being whose lofty soul descends from its spiritual origin into the constraints of a body and a physical and unrectified world. Recognition of this fact alone should evoke compassion for oneself and for others, simply because of the challenge presented by existing within limits, struggle, and concealment.
The second level is compassion for the people of Israel. This compassion arises not only from shared identity but from an honest reckoning with a history of centuries of persecution, displacement, and suffering.
Lastly, is the compassion for the Creator Himself and the exile of the Shechinah, the Divine Presence. Jewish tradition speaks of the “pain” God experiences, as it were, when seeing the world He created for harmony and unity, existing instead in such fragmentation and disarray. To feel compassion at this level is to align one’s heart with Divine will and purpose and to yearn for the healing of all of Creation.
Each of these levels of compassion draws forth a corresponding Divine response. As a person refines and elevates his or her capacity for compassion, God responds by granting deeper inspiration and a greater ability to act meaningfully to rectify the world.
Moses: Compassion and Selflessness United
Jewish tradition teaches that the soul of Moses reappears in the soul of Mashiach: “He is the first redeemer, and he will be the last redeemer.”[2] Moses’ life serves as a living model of leadership rooted in compassion.
His compassion is evident from the very beginning. Though raised as a prince of Egypt, Moses sacrifices his privileged position to defend a fellow Jew being brutally beaten by an Egyptian taskmaster.[3] This act of moral courage forces him into exile, yet it reveals the essence of his leadership: an inability to remain indifferent in the face of suffering.
Soon after, Moses intervenes again—this time on behalf of defenseless women being harassed by shepherds at a well.[4] Once more, his compassion is expressed through decisive action, without concern for personal benefit or recognition.
A beautiful midrash describes how Moses runs after a young suckling lamb that had run away. He locates him drinking water from a small crevice in a rock and blames himself for not providing the sheep sufficiently. He puts the exhausted lamb on his shoulder to return him to the flock. God who is watching this scene declares: this is the shepherd I want for my flock, the people of Israel.[5]
Throughout the forty years in the desert, Moses repeatedly stands as the defender of the Jewish people. Time and again, he intercedes with God following episodes of complaint, rebellion, and spiritual failure. His leadership is characterized not by a dominating temperament, but by acting with compassion and taking responsibility for the weak.
Yet, greater even than his compassion is Moses’ sense of selflessness. The Torah itself testifies: “And the man Moses was exceedingly humble, more than any man on the face of the earth.”[6] Humility and compassion together form the foundation of authentic leadership. While the Mashiach will embody humility, Isaiah emphasizes that compassion will be his most defining trait—extending not only to Israel but ultimately to all humanity.
Compassion as Action
In Jewish thought, compassion is never confined to feeling alone. True compassion demands action. Rabbi Eliezer, a second-century sage, taught that one should perform an act of compassion before turning to God in prayer.[7] He himself would give charity to a needy person prior to praying each morning, embodying the principle that spiritual elevation must be grounded in care for others.
This approach was emphasized and expanded by the Ba’al Shem Tov and his followers. He taught that serving God is inseparable from caring for people. Acts of kindness, involvement in communal welfares, and sensitivity to the needs of others are not distractions from spiritual life—they are its very expression. This was nothing less than a revolution for those spiritual adepts who until the Ba’al Shem Tov had viewed the solitary, even hermetic pursuit of spirituality far from the crowd, as the pinnacle of religious development. Famously, the Ba’al Shem Tov taught these great giants of the spirit to refocus their energy from developing their own connection with God to caring for the well-being of others—first for their physical needs and only then for the elevation of their religious level.
Compassion and Divine Inspiration
Isaiah describes the source of true inspiration as the spirit of God: “The spirit of God shall rest upon him—the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of God.”[8]
This passage refers explicitly to the Mashiach, yet implicitly to the spark of leadership present within every Jew. Notably, the Divine name used in this verse—“the spirit of Havayah”—is Havayah, the four-letter Name, the Tetragrammaton, which Kabbalah identifies as the “Name of compassion,” i.e., the Name of God that represents His trait of compassion. This again reveals a profound connection between Divine inspiration and compassion. Previously, we saw how Isaiah identifies the Mashiach with compassion and here as the recipient of Divine inspiration. Where compassion is cultivated, inspiration naturally follows.
The Development of Compassionate Leadership
A powerful illustration of the importance of compassion emerges in the figure of Noah. Though described as a tzaddik, a righteous individual,[9] he is criticized by the sages and later commentaries for failing to plead for God’s compassion on behalf of his generation.
The Zohar relates that when Noah exits the ark and beholds the devastation caused by the Flood, he questions God’s justice. God responds by calling him a “foolish shepherd,” rebuking him for not requesting mercy while there was still time. In fact, God had delayed the flood repeatedly, affording Noah with opportunity after opportunity to plead for compassion.[10]
There is a debate among the sages whether Noah, if he had been alive at the time of Abraham, would have been more or less righteous than he was in his own generation. Some are of the opinion that had he lived at the time of Abraham, he would have been influenced by Abraham’s example to be greater than he had been in his own generation. Others claim, though, that he was only called righteous in comparison to his evil generation and had he lived at the time of Abraham, he would have been thought of as quite ordinary.[11]
The comparison with Abraham is purposeful. When God informs Abraham of the impending destruction of Sodom, Abraham immediately pleads on behalf of its inhabitants, negotiating persistently to save them, despite their evil ways.[12] Though only Lot and his daughters are ultimately spared, from that lineage emerges Ruth, King David, and eventually the Mashiach.
The full rectification of Noah’s failing comes about through Moses. After the Sin of the Golden Calf, God threatens to destroy the Jewish people and begin building a nation from Moses. Moses responds with unparalleled self-sacrifice: “And now, if You would but forgive their sin—but if not, erase me now from Your book which You have written.”[13]
Kabbalistic tradition teaches that the letters of the word “erase me” (מְחֵנִי), when rearranged spell “the waters of Noah”[14] (מֵי נֹחַ), alluding to the waters of the Flood. Because he did not seek compassion for his generation’s people, the Flood is named after Noah. At that moment, Moses repaired the spiritual blemish left by Noah’s failure to plead for his generation. Moses is willing to sacrifice not only his leadership, but his very place in the Torah, for the sake of the people.
Creating a New World
When Noah left the ark at God’s instruction,[15] he was in a unique position, as he was one of the few people to ever witness, quite literally, a “new world.” The command for Noah to leave the ark also implied that to build a new world, one had to leave behind an old-world consciousness to build a new one.
Inasmuch as the teachings of the Torah are eternal and all its stories and personalities are archetypal in nature, the idea of creating a new world by leaving the old world behind has great relevance for the Jewish people today. World War II and the Holocaust in great measure brought the world as we knew it to an end and demanded new solutions. This is especially true for the Jewish people, as only three years after the Holocaust, Jewish sovereignty was renewed in the Land of Israel after two thousand years. This was like a post-flood reality where Noah had the opportunity to create a new world.
Although Israel from its inception has had to face enemies trying to destroy it, nonetheless, the Jewish people are faced today with the opportunity to create a new world that will lead to the Messianic era. To do so does not mean being naive or passive in the face of our enemy’s opposition, but just as God promised Noah after the flood that there would be no future flood, Israel is called upon to trust that another Holocaust will not occur and to go about our affairs fearlessly creating a new world ready for true redemption.
The passage of Isaiah about the spirit of God and the spirit of counsel and might represents the collective potential of the Jewish people to be a source of great counsel and a light unto the nations. In fact, Isaiah in one verse calls the Mashiach “a wondrous giver of counsel.”
As discussed above, compassion entails more than passive empathy but rather an active involvement in the present. Every person, in their sphere of influence, by cultivating compassion that moves us to act in an inspired manner, can align themselves with the spirit of God and participate in the ongoing work of healing the world—preparing it for the ultimate redemption led by a compassionate leader who inspires the same in others.
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[1]. Isaiah 49:10.
[2]. Shemot Rabbah 4:2
[3]. Exodus 2:11–12.
[4]. Ibid. 2:16–17.
[5]. Shemot Rabbah 2:2.
[6]. Numbers 12:3.
[7]. Bava Batra 10a.
[8]. Isaiah 11:2.
[9]. Genesis 6:9.
[10]. Zohar (Hashmatat) 1:254b.
[11]. See Rashi on Genesis 6:9.
[12]. Genesis 18:23–33.
[13]. Exodus 32:32.
[14]. Genesis 8:17.
