an old writer and his words

  • LISTEN UP, ABRAHAM

    A commentary on a holy book suggested snakes cannot hear one another. Perhaps their deafness goes beyond family and species. It would do much to explain God’s rejection of Eve’s proffered excuse that despite her protestations and those of Adam the snake would not take no for an answer – a deaf snake, after all…

    Lou Faber

  • SITTING SHIVA

    The sitting of  Shiva is a tribal right performed with Kaddish and coffeecake. The mourning is harder for the adult child, for the now severed bond grows with time and not distance, and there comes a point where the loss invokes your mortality. Tonight we all speak of the departed off on a journey we never…

    Lou Faber

  • THE WATCHER

    He stands transfixed on the bridge, arms outstretched, staring at the river always flowing slowly by below. He wears a garland of gold, an inscription in Hebrew, the holiest of holies, mocking those who hold him a man. Did he peer out of the corner of his eyes as they marched them across the bridge…

    Lou Faber

  • THIS IS HOW WE MOURN

    This is how we mourn: we don’t berate the clouds for gathering, nor begrudge the rain’s ultimate descent. Our tears fall to the earth as well, and there are moments when we need the gray, moments when the sun would be an unwelcomed interloper. This is how we mourn: we wipe the walls clean of…

    Lou Faber

  • THE WORLD HONORED ONE ASCENDS

    The student may comment, “Hillel was asked to sum up all of the teaching while standing on one foot and did so.” If this student asks the teacher to provide the essential nature of Dharma in one sitting, what choice does the teacher have but to rise and leave the room. The teacher may comment,…

    Lou Faber

  • AN OFF YEAR

    The was a winter, once, where even in the north the snow refused to fall, ice rejected jamming the culverts, and the sky stared down in amazement. That was the year trees would not bud and flowers fled deeper into the sweetness of the earth, grass sighed and lay indolent. It was a year my…

    Lou Faber

  • RETURN FROM NINEVAH

    Jonah, what color is the sun at dawn?           Black as the night preceding it Jonah, what is the odor of spring?           That of rotting rincinus Jonah, what shall we say to a crying baby?           The gates of Ninevah will be…

    Lou Faber

  • HISTORY AS IT WAS?

    The reason the Jews spent forty years wandering in the desert had nothing to do with bad directions, or generational turnover, according to Larry’s father who worked in advertising. It was quite simply because God got really pissed off at Aaron’s marketing plan, “A Golden Calf, my ass!” is what he probably said. “I had better…

    Lou Faber

  • OT

    Standing in the garden soaking in the sudden downpour Eve turned to Adam and said, “Did you bring the umbrella?” “What’s an umbrella?” Adam asked. “I’m eating the apple” Eve replied.

    Lou Faber

  • AKEDA

    My father never walked me up a hill, never asked two servants to wait below, never bid me be strong, never asked me to have faith in the Lord, never raised the blade only to see a ram in a thicket. My father never did any of these things and so I have no special…

    Lou Faber