Poems in Memory of Rabbi Aryeh
This page is the place for poetry and prose about Rabbi Aryeh or your grieving process around his loss.
Please note, these enteries may make use of poetic license, and rely on the writer’s imaginations, and therefore are not necesarily 100% factual.
Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield
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by Gulzar Ahmed, ICGP co-chair > Rabbi Aryeh, we will miss you
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> Your face, reflected peace
> Your smile, serene and calm
> Your eyes, full of wisdom
> Your voice, a beautiful song
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> In despair, you echoed hope
> In doubt, you reassured
> Our faith in humankind
> You refurbished, you restored
> Rabbi Aryeh, we will miss you
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> Human rights, love, and friendship
> You were teaching us to care
> Honesty and peace thru justice
> You were coaching to be fair
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> We are all divine creation
> Though we are of different faith
> You encouraged true acceptance
> You promoted interfaith
> Rabbi Aryeh, we will miss you
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> Now you are not among us
> May your essence rest in peace
> We are feeling your absence
> Your happy smiling face
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> Tell us who will teach us patience
> Who will read us lovely psalms?
> Who will share your gift of kindness?
> Who will sing Shalom, Salaam?
> Rabbi Aryeh, we will miss you
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> By: Gulzar Ahmed
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> 1/12/09
Remembering Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield 
January 14, 2009 at 6:22 pm
THE HOLY REBBE FLOATS IN OLAM HABA
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
Cassandra Zaharah Sagan
January 8, 2009
January 15, 2009 at 6:08 am
Cassandra…stunning. Thank you.
January 15, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Cassandra –
Thank you for this gorgeous poem in Aryeh’s memory.
Love,
Lisa
January 15, 2009 at 8:35 pm
blessings and gratitude for the channel to the infinite that you treat us to, dear holy sister. love, Cathy
January 15, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Cassandra, I love your poem, and will read it over and over. I am still searching for my own words. Love, Pam
January 18, 2009 at 5:50 am
Cassandra, thank you forthis poem, for touching the inconceivable mystery, for beauty in bottomless sadness.
March 3, 2009 at 10:54 pm
The following poem came out of the P’nai Or Writers Group, where we continue to explore the ongoing process of grief and growth through creative expression.
THE RABBI’S NAME
In loving memory of Yehudah Aryeh Leib Eliahu ben Sarah v’Levi
by Lyssa Tall Anolik
A unique richness of names
announces a deep richness of soul,
embodying a host of personalities,
all those co-mingled points of light,
points of in-between,
like the white spaces between the Hebrew letters,
points of living between the spaces of being.
It has been said that Reb Aryeh, with his five sons,
raised his own basketball team.
But he also carried a team within his very being,
inhabited by and inhabiting all those names,
with their conflicts and figuring out the rules as he went along,
carrying us through his game of life.
He wasn’t stingy with the ball.
He threw it to any of us who were willing to step onto the court
and dribble with him. He always encouraged us to take a shot.
He has left the ball in our hands now.
It is our turn to embrace the team,
to become the keepers of the game,
and the keeper of his names.