From the Introduction:

The idea for this collection of ma’amarim emerged several years ago, beginning with assembling writings that would be appropriate for such a volume. The plan was to divide the content on spiritual leadership into three sections. The first would be classical hassidic texts. The second was to include some musings by R. Zalman which had not been printed or widely circulated. The third unit was to include some things that I had written over the years.

In the first unit of Hassidic texts about the tzaddik, we’ve chosen a sample that are not about how to be a leader/rebbe but are about the character and spiritual traits of a person who might serve as one if and when the situation requires.

The goal is to show different, hopefully complementary models, rather than looking for one definitive model. This collection arises mostly from the organic process of my own learning along with task of cataloguing Reb Zalman’s word files.This is not intended to be comprehensive, especially with regard to Reb Zalman’s writings which were written over the many years of his life and the phases he went through. There are many more of his thoughts still in the files which we hope to make publicly available. While there are themes that are common over a wide range of these writings, I believe that his writings resist compilation into a fixed compendium.

Part four is an opening ma'amar by my partner, R. Amy Grossblatt Pessah which serves as the introduction to the next, ongoing development of ma'amarim on the subject from you, the readers and next generation of Jewish Renewal.

Daniel Siegel