Our mission is to “Inspire The Jewish Future.” Inspiration is at the core of everything we do. But what does it actually mean to inspire?
There’s a common assumption in leadership that inspiration is something we give, and that our role is to motivate, energize, or elevate others. But I’ve come to believe that real inspiration doesn’t begin with what we give. It begins with how we see.
In the important work we do, whether with teens, staff, or the people who look to us for guidance, the most powerful form of inspiration comes when we are genuinely moved by what is unique about the person in front of us. Not their potential in the abstract. Not who we hope they become. But who they are right now.
Carl Rogers, a famous American psychologist, wrote in his book A Way of Being, “When someone really hears you without passing judgment, without trying to take responsibility for you, without trying to mold you, it feels [darn] good.” There is something deeply instructive in that. Before change, before growth, before inspiration, there is being seen. When a person feels that we are inspired by them, their individuality, their struggle, their voice, it unlocks something far deeper than external motivation ever could. It creates the conditions for them to access their own inner inspiration.
This idea is expressed so powerfully in the words of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, as translated in The Spiritual Revolution of Rav Kook by Rabbi Ari Zee’ev Schwartz.
“Each person is called upon in a unique way. All people must understand that they are being called to serve in a way that is unique to their intellectual and emotional personalities, according to each person’s unique root soul.
In this world, which includes infinite worlds, one must find the treasure chest of one’s life. Do not allow external things that come into your world to confuse you. They will not be absorbed correctly, and you will not be able to gather them into your unique life. Those external worlds will find what they need in order to reach perfection on their own. You must focus on your own life, on your own inner world that fills all that you do. “Each person is obligated to say, the world was created for me’” (Sanhedrin 37a).
This great level of humility brings joy and helps each person reach the ultimate perfection that is waiting for him or her. Indeed, when one walks down the secure path, one’s own unique trail in a way of righteousness that is unique to oneself, one is filled with the strength of life and the joy of spirituality. The light of God will shine upon such a person, and strength and light will come from one special letter in the Torah. (SK 4:6)”
What Rav Kook is reminding us is that each person carries something irreducibly their own, a unique path, a unique voice, a unique calling. And our role as leaders is not to shape people into something external, but to recognize, honor, and be inspired by that uniqueness. Perhaps this is the quiet shift in leadership: We don’t inspire by pushing people forward. We inspire by being moved by who they already are.
When we lead this way, inspiration stops being a performance and becomes a relationship. And with that we all move forward.