Scripture is a transcript of our dialogue with the divine. Its pages reflect the light of G-d, but are not the source of it. Its words, long ago recorded and faithfully copied, persist in a world of evolving context, challenging our ability to construe their truest meaning. Compassionate insight, reverence, and rigour are required of those who would interpret it well.

Compassion flows through us to those in need, but only if we allow it.

It cannot be saved for another day, or for a person we deem worthy.

Given freely, it can never be depleted. Conserving it, our capacity to

engage it is diminished. Compassion reserved is compassion denied. 

Empathy is a feeling of concern provoked by observing the suffering of another.

Compassion conflates this emotion with action (or beneficial inaction) appropriate to mitigating the perceived distress.

Pity may result from empathy and may resemble compassion, but it is absent of the requirement to acknowledge the sufferer as an equal.

Because of this, the works of pity are always sullied to some degree by its remote, subtly contemptuous nature. Whereas pity emphasises the distance between us, compassion dissolves it.

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