The Rabbi and the Widow

Charles David Isbell is Director of Jewish Studies at Louisiana State University and rabbi at Temple Sinai in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He is the author of seven scholarly books and of more than one hundred scholarly articles in the fields of biblical and rabbinic studies.

Romance and philosophy combine in this engaging, imaginative tale of grizzled LSU professor, Rabbi Baraq Broulliette, and the lovely young Sara, widowed when her husband of 25 years died of cancer and still finding her new single life baffling.Sara, seeking comfort from the religious faith of her childhood, meets Baraq, whose own difficult times left him alone in a world of university teaching, scholarship, and Jewish worship. Throughout a year of counselling, the rabbi and the widow become fast friends as each finds solace from grief, loss, illness, and the death of cherished loved ones.How can the rabbi and the widow handle the delicate and mystifying effects of their mutual trust in each other? Can the grizzled rabbi and the lovely widow remain friends? Or will their relationship be a temporary detour on the road back to wholeness and perhaps new romantic possibilities?The story takes a surprising twist as it winds toward a conclusion that neither one could have foreseen.