You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right:
Finding Faith Without Fanaticism
A former member of the militant settler’s underground movement in the West Bank, internationally
renowned rabbi and president of the Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL) Brad Hirschfield now
teaches a new morality of inclusiveness, acceptance, and the celebration of diversity grounded in
deeply personal as well as Biblical stories (Harmony, 2008).
Wapner’s roles:
• Proposal development and writing • Co-writing
From the Acknowledgments:
“I am deeply grateful to Kenneth Wapner for helping me find and capture my own literary voice. From
the moment we met, Kenny’s excitement about this project never waned, not did his vision about how
to get us there weaken. He pushed me to explore images and ideas in ways that only one who is your
teacher can, while sharing the joy of discovery that comes from the most eager of students. An
amazing friend, he even put up with the lousy pizza and worse coffee that we often shared in our work
together—a true act of devotion from a gourmet like him!”
“A wise and important story, engagingly told. I hope everyone, from the most piously committed to the
most militantly atheist, reads it and absorbs its lessons.”
—Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People
“Brad Hirschfield is one of the freshest and most innovative minds in religious thought today. From the
ashes of Ground Zero to the summits of global leaders, he has pioneered a philosophy of using
ancient texts to create coalitions of understanding and hope. Anyone committed to religious tolerance
today must understand his ideas—and must put them to work.”
—Bruce Feiler, author of Walking the Bible
“Spiritual sojourners of all faiths seeking sincerity and authenticity of religion will benefit greatly from
Rabbi Hirschfield’s candid testimony of his life’s journey. His visionary first-person narrative reveals
that the man who makes the voyage—to the human core of tolerance, respect, generosity, and peace
—discovers that the voyage makes the man.”
—Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, author of What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America
“ ‘Through you all the families of the earth will be blessed,’ God says to Abraham in the Bible. Yet, for
so much of history, the different religions have often turned the hardest of hearts to those who don’t
accept all their teachings. Brad Hirschfield brings a unique understanding—forged in years of
theological study and personal interreligious dialogues—of where so many great faiths have gone
wrong, and what can be done to guarantee that the blessing God bestowed on Abraham can, after
almost four thousand years, finally be achieved.”
—Joseph Telushkin, author of Jewish Literacy