Edward Feld 
Joy, Despair, and Hope 
Reading Psalms

Joy, Despair, and Hope recaptures the power and immediacy of psalms for modern readers, showing how these biblical poems can speak to us yet again. Accompanying the author on his personal spiritual search through psalms, readers find their own inner lives given voice within these texts.

Edward Feld analyzes fifteen personal psalms from the book of Psalms, showing how each provides a different perspective on the life of faith. Feld’s insights reveal how individual psalmists struggle with their faith, how they are wracked by doubt and self-questioning, and how they come finally to a greater understanding of faith. This book’s clearly articulated analysis is both moving and sophisticated, helping us to enter the spiritual world of these writers, to recognize our own struggles in their ancient words, and to feel these poets alive and walking beside us. Along the way, Feld teaches us how to read psalms as poems and unlocks both their theological message and their literary splendor. Readers emerge with a new appreciation of and connection to the profound religious life and artistry of the biblical psalmists.

About the author

Rabbi Edward Feld is the senior editor of Mahzor Lev Shalem (2010) and the author of The Spirit of Renewal: Finding Faith after the Holocaust (1994). He has served as Rabbi-in-Residence at the Jewish Theological Seminary and as Hillel Director and Chaplain to the College at Princeton University and Smith and Amherst Colleges. As the Educational Director of Rabbis for Human Rights he developed a curriculum for teaching ‘Judaism and Human Rights.’