A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community
Mount Moriah
Then God said, “Take your son,
your only son, whom you love
—Isaac—and go to Moriah.
Sacrifice him there as a burnt
offering.
—Genesis 22:2
They climbed the mountain and were back in a day.
The boy knew why he was going. He saw the knife, and when he asked, his father told him the truth. But it will never happen, his father promised. Winter, the boy shivered, took his father's hand, warm in his, and they went up, both of them together. As they climbed, the boy listened to his father tell how much he loved him. He kept stride, afterwards recollecting the twisted pines and a grey sky empty of birds. When they reached the rocky clearing, his father offered him water. As he helped his father build the altar of broken stones and gather the wood, his father spoke of love. Even when he bound the boy's hands. After the boy saw the ram burn, he cried. Only later came the rage.
Whispers of wind
agitate the ash.
The story goes on and on.
David Grubin
David Grubin has been a documentary film producer for decades, winning numerous prizes including five from the Writer's Guild, ten Emmys, and a Guggenheim fellowship. His series from the Dodge Poetry Festival, The Power of the Word and The Language of Life, both with Bill Moyers on PBS, brought the work of contemporary poets to a wide audience. He received an MFA in poetry from Pacific University in 2025. His poems have appeared in Narrative and Gyroscope Review. Additionally, his essay, "Stanley Kunitz and the Wilderness of Age," was published in The American Poetry Review. Formerly chairman of the board of the Film Forum in New York and currently a member of the Society of American Historians, he has served for more than a decade on the board of Poets House.
