Chutzpah renders others speechless and incredulous ... one cannot quite believe that another person totally lacks common human traits like remorse, regret, guilt, sympathy and insight. The implication is at least some degree of psychopathy in the subject, as well as the awestruck amazement of the observer at the display. The cognate of "chutzpah" in Classical Arabic, "" (), does not mean "impudence" or "cheekiness" or anything similar, but rather "sound judgment". Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis distinguishes the meaning of "chutzpah" as stubbornness and contrariness from what he calls a tradition of "spiritual audacity" or ""chutzpah klapei shmaya"": As an example,
Chutzpah usage, the word expresses a strong sense of disapproval, condemnation and outrage. Leo Rosten in "The Joys of Yiddish" defines chutzpah as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts', presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to". In this sense, "chutzpah" expresses both strong disapproval and condemnation. In the same work, Rosten also defines the term as "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan". "Chutzpah" amounts to a total denial of personal responsibility, which