The Reb Aryeh Legacy Fund insures the continuity and strength of the P’nai Or community, as well as Reb Aryeh’s musical legacy;

The Gemillut Chasadim Fund (Acts of Lovingkindness), supports Reb Aryeh’s family, and other community members in need.
Please visit the P’nai Or website to make a secure, online donation.

And please, consider joining us for High Holiday services. A complete schedule is available on the P’nai Or website

Please check out our newest page with Cathy Z’s beautiful Shloshim talk, along with detailed info about our Tzedakah Partners, South West Community Health Center and Abir Aramin’s Garden Project — Combatants for Peace .  You can also give tzedakah by supporting our teens in their challah bake sale,  which supports our tzedakah partners.  See the P’nai Or website for details/order forms.

which will be dedicated to the memory of Reb Aryeh this month

4:00 PM, Sunday Jan 25

at Augustana Lutheran Church

NE 15th & Knott

poem by Cassandra Zaharah Sagan

In honor of my beloved Rebbe, Aryeh Lev ben Sarah Leahv’Yakov ha Levi

There might have been a boat, a motor, an oar
There might have been a heart attack, a panic, a cramp
You might have been waving, you might have been flailing.

Was there a fish bite? A tangled line? A crack in the mask?

Absolutely there was joy, face down in the warm salt water
marveling at the hidden world beneath the world,
joy until the moment mayim flooded your chaim
maybe even then, we cannot know

we cannot follow you into the world to come
but we have the stories you loved to tell
all the holy rebbes and their mystical deaths
blue, and twisting, music buoyant as water
breath made of light, brilliant, flowing
How they returned to teach in dreams
How they lived in the hearts of their students

Maybe a yellow fish became the Baal Shem Tov’s carriage
transporting your neshama beyond your siddur of flesh
All the prayers are for the living
Maybe it was Chagall, swimming in stained glass
flying in the arms of the Beloved
Maybe you wrestled the Angel of the Deep
as your soul silently witnessed
Maybe the Angel was headed towards your loved ones on the shore
and you gave your own precious life

Maybe it was a vision, maybe you thought you could return
Maybe you found the spark that made the world whole
Maybe you are strolling through Gan Eden with Rabbi Akiba
Maybe the mythologies fused and scrambled, falling through space,
coyote tumbling from his tree, a bit of fur lodged in each of our hearts

Maybe it was the sun dance, the rock ridge, the eagle buckle holding up your jeans
Maybe you were laughing, an eel slithering beneath your heel
Maybe your Torah is made of light
Maybe you are the white space between the holy letters

Maybe you are still
floating in infinite, IN-spiring the hidden beauty beneath you
a tiny tube connecting you to the world of breath
the coral, the seaweed, the barnacled tortoise
the ripples of sunlight shimmering across your outstretched hands

Memory now, mayim, you are alive absolutely in our imagination
Inside our mouths, shaping the words of the ha motzi
Covering our eyes as we chant with you your last Shema
Ehad ehad ehad

January 8, 2009

This site is dedicated to the loving memory of  Aryeh Hirschfield z”l, Rabbi, teacher, friend, husband, father, musician, tzadik and so much more.

We are grateful to have a format to share our memories and photos of Reb Aryeh.  Please click on the page links on the right to leave memory in the form of a comment.  Photos can be found on the photo link– this will take you to a flikr page, where anyone may upload photos of Reb Aryeh.  Other photo projects are also being organized.

We recognize that members of the many communities touched by Reb Aryeh want to make donations in support of his spiritual legacy, Congregation P’nai Or of Portland (Oregon). These tax-deductible contributions should be mailed to:

Congregation P’nai Or of Portland
9750 SW Terwilliger Blvd 
Portland, OR 97219-6531
(telephone 503 248-4500)

Please make checks out to “P’nai Or of Portland” and specify “Reb Aryeh Legacy Fund” on the check.

May his memory be for a blessing.

 In Gratitude,

Jess Schurtman