The Chutzpah Imperative: Empowering Today's Jews for a Life That Matters

Reconnect with Judaism's most important contribution to humanity--and redeem our world.

The gift of Judaism is an understanding of what it means to be a human being--what we can do, what we can hope for, how we can live with purpose, what is expected of us. It is a celebration of human freedom, human possibility and human responsibility. Judaism is a way to live a heroic life, to construct a life devoted to values that are eternal, values of ultimate significance. The reward of a Jewish life is walking the world with a profound faith that you matter, your life matters, your dreams matter. I call this chutzpah.

--from the Introduction

In this clarion call for a new way to do Judaism, award-winning spiritual leader Rabbi Edward Feinstein urges us to recover this message of Jewish self-empowerment--or chutzpah--to reshape our world. He walks us through the history of chutzpah--from the early chapters of Genesis, Jewish biblical law and the Rabbis of the Talmud to the mystics of medieval Spain and the European Hasidic tradition, Zionism and post-Holocaust thought. By showing us the ever-presence of chutzpah in Judaism he reveals the inner story of the Jewish People's soul as well as the meaning that Judaism's deepest purpose and most precious treasure has for us today.

Rabbi Edward Feinstein is senior rabbi of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, California. He is an instructor in the Ziegler Rabbinical School of American Jewish University and the Wexner Heritage Program. He is the author of Tough Questions Jews Ask: A Young Adult's Guide to Building a Jewish Life (Jewish Lights) and Capturing the Moon; and the editor of Jews and Judaism in the 21st Century: Human Responsibilities, the Presence of God, and the Future of the Covenant (Jewish Lights). He contributed to May God Remember: Memory and Memorializing in Judaism-Yizkor; Who by Fire, Who by Water-Un'taneh Tokef and We Have Sinned: Sin and Confession in Judaism-Ashamnu and Al Chet (all Jewish Lights).