This words below were written by our son, Jonah, within hours of learning that Rabbi Aryeh had died. Jonah had been preparing for his Bar Mitzvah with Reb. Aryeh.
(From Jonah) My last visit with Rabbi Aryeh was in his house, in his office. Talking about my torah portion. While this may seem like any ordinary conversation, it wasn’t. Of all of the people I have had the pleasure of meeting, Rabbi Aryeh understood me the most. People say that I have a complicated mind. Rabbi Aryeh’s was more complicated. He could tell where I was going with a thought the second that it left my mouth…There are two paths that people take from here. The path to acceptance, and the path to ignorance. I have chosen the path of acceptance, and here I am, Hineni. Even though I mourn with you, I am proud to have known a man such as Rabbi Aryeh.
Jonah thank you for wonderful comments, I am deeply moved by them. I think you family knows that Aryeh felt blessed to have you as part of his class. Your thoughtful comments and contributions inspired discussion and contemplation during lessons and I am sure during your personal time with Reb Aryeh.
I look forward to your Bar Mitzvah and having you become a “adult” member of our wonderful congregation and community. We need the energy and commitment you and your family offer to help build upon Aryeh’s wonderful legacy and to strengthen our community for the future.
I met Aryeh when I was doing my graduate work in Theology. I called him up to offer my “leadership” and “advanced knowledge” to him and PNai Or. After basically trying to put him out of a job, he patiently, gently, and honestly helped place me at the beginning of an unfolding relationship with Judaism, service, and love for God. He was a talented man, great leader, and willing to sacrifice ego for love. He gave me humility.
Rebbe Aryeh was willing to teach me about Judiasm and to convert even though I was married to a non Jew. He understood my heritage and understood where I was coming from as a person who wanted to convert. He is/was a wonderful man and willing to help me and I will never forget him and I so miss him, Kara
We were so saddened to hear of Reb Aryeh’s untimely death and send out prayers of love and comfort to his family and the community. We so enjoyed meeting the Hirshfields when they came to Hawaii last Feb for Reb Zalman’s shabbaton. We will console ourselves by listening to his wonderful CD’s that we purchased. In our place of birth, South Africa, it is the custom to wish mourners, “long life”. So we send those wishes to you all.
B’shalom,
Vivienne and Michael Aronowitz
(for those who were at the shabbaton, I was the one with the birthday on that shabbat.)
I know that Reb Arayeh’s passing leaves a hole in all of our hearts even as we tap into the larger whole of which he can never depart.
My first trip to Israel was his first spiritual tour in 1991. It was life changing for our group, the “Kislev 18.” We meditated in Hillel’s cave, danced in Tzfat, toured holy sites in west and east Jerusalem, the Galeel, Bethlehem…it was the perferct first trip for me where I fell in love with the land and the peoples and felt the calling to continue to work on doing my part of resolving the holy land conflict.
Reb Aryeh was an amazing guide…a strong and silent or singing or teaching presence, always caring and passionate and also directionally challenged 🙂 The times we spent loss were as joyful as the rest of the time there and it became clear that there is no lost when with such a guide.
Did I say it was a life changing trip? My best one ever, it’s memory lingers and echoes and reverberates through the years of hurt and sadness and disappointment at watching the conflict deepen, move toward resolution, and deepen again. I am so grateful to have been with him there…for the trip he gifted us and for the gift of getting to know such a wonderful being.
May his memory be a true blessing in all of our days.
Aryeh took me on a great journey to Israel in 1991 and became my partner/haver in the exploration there of my hypothesis that Shema was an encoded meditation instruction. We danced and sang together, chanted shema in holy venues, tested the hypothesis in orthodox yeshivot and in with scholars of Kabbalah in Sfat.
So, in life, he co-authored my article on Shema and The Mother Letters, soon to be feature in TIFERET, Journal of Spirituality, with cover art of David Friedman (http://www.kosmic-kabbalah.com/pages/cards_envelopes_primary_shapes.htm) The article has been circulated privately for over 18 years in different forms.
I remained connected with Aryeh following our journey, attended his wedding, and visited him in Ashland following my own honeymoon drive up the California coast. He inspired me to bring Jewish Renewal activities to Marin county, and together we contributed to the evolution of the Neshamah Minyan within Marin’s Conservative Congregation Kol Shofar. He is missed, but will never be forgotten. My friend and mentor will live on in his teachings and by the works of my hands and my heart.
Jerry Green
Yitzak Ahron
Laughing Priest
Sebastopol, California
From the article:
Shema and The Mother Letters of Abraham
The Sounds of Healing Peace by Yitzak Ahron
QUIETING DOWN THE AWARENESS OF THE PHYSICAL
“The lowest part of the soul interfaces with the physical body. It is on this level of Nefesh that a person gains awareness of the body as a receptacle for the spiritual. This is only possible, however, when one is able to isolate himself from the constant stream of internal and external stimuli that occupy his thoughts. Awareness of the spiritual thus necessarily begins by quieting down the awareness of the physical.” Aryeh Kaplan
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan encourages us to examine Jewish meditation in it’s most universal dimensions when he states, “Looking at the entire field of meditation from a historical viewpoint, we find that the closer one gets to the present, the less dangerous and more universal the methods become.”
In Jewish Meditation, Kaplan suggests that the Shema may be an encoded meditation instruction. He elaborated upon the mystery of Shema as being in the name Shem. The Mother Letters are explored more deeply in Sefer Yetzirah. If we translate the phrase, “Listen, Yisrael, to God’s Oneness” or “to your Oneness with God,” where would this lead? To/for what might we be inclined to listen? …….And what might we expect to hear? Shin/Mem are gateways into the Silent Oneness of Alef.
Most vocal sounds wake us up in one way or another. Two sounds call us to quiet down. Shhh, don’t tell anyone yet. They create the energetic context from which other sounds derive their power. The sounds of The Mother Letters, Shin and Mem, contain universal messages that quiet our minds and evoke listening. Shushing gets attention in many languages. It calls upon the stream of thoughts to cease. Humming uses only the single letter that we pronounce without opening our mouths. It implies, “I am listening.” It is the only sound we make that doesn’t interrupt someone else’s train of thought.
“Neshama” means soul. The name contains the sounds of Shema. Neshama also means breath, the awareness of which is universal among meditation practices. (We say in Psalm 150, “Every soul (breath) praises God’s Name.”) There is also something special about the sounds of Shema that beckons us to pay attention more deeply. They are also the sounds of Shalom and Hashem, and of So’Ham. It is said that the mystery of Shema is in the name Shem. Shem refers also to our name, even the very concept of identity, beingness and presence. Hashem is The Beingness. We have many identities, and we are One Being. Shalem is “healing, complete or whole.” “Hashamayim” (heaven) contains fire (ayish,) water (mayim,) and shema.
In all these powerful names, the sounds of ShinMem on our breath move us from the distinctions of ordinary thinking into Chochmah (Wisdom) or undifferentiated consciousness, and prepare us to go beyond into the stillness that unifies all. Meditating with the rhythmic interplay between Shin and Mem elicits awareness of Alef.
Three Mothers: Aleph Mem Shin
Mem hums, Shin hisses
and Alef is the Breath of air
deciding between them.
Sefer Yetzirah: 2:1. Sefer Yetzirah contains the earliest of teachings from the Kabbalah, attributed to Abraham, including the Tree of Life (Ten Sefirot,) its relation to the body, universal elements, the cosmology of time and space, morality and the creative process. The Mother Letters are instruments in creation. “In the mystery of The Three Mothers” there was formed the letters of His Great Name, the six directions (1:13), the Sefirot (3:12), good & evil (3:1), air, fire & water (3:4) head, belly & chest and male & female (3:6.)
Wshhh
Hmmm
Ahhh
Shema Hashem Shalom
Salam Shalem Shalom
Hear the sounds, Issmao issim,
the sounds of peace, issim il salam,
the sounds of healing peace. issim shifa il salam.
Shema Hashem Shalom
Salam Shalem Shalom
Wshhh
Hmmm
Ahhh
This poem/prayer emerged from meditations, and its Arabic refrain developed in Jewish-Palestinian dialogues. Its prayer is devoted to healing the rift between Isaac and Ishmael, forefathers respectively of the Jewish and Arabic peoples, and estranged brothers in the tents of their father Abraham. Shalem means “healing,” and refers to the re-uniting of broken parts of the whole.
These words have been recited in connection with praying The Shema, chanted as a peace-healing meditation in diverse events and dialogue groups, in Jewish Renewal services, and in interfaith and New Thought settings such as Unity and Religious Science. May its quieting sounds, and the One Silence they reveal within us, bring peace and healing to all.
Salam Shalem Shalom Healing Meditation in G
B B B C C B
D D D E E D
D E D C
C D C B
B C B A B G
A GF# G
B B B C C B
D D D E E D
Intersections of Life – Remembrance of Reb Aryeh Hirchfield
My name is Doug Banasky, I am third generation native Portlandian (I like to say Portloondian), my grandfather born here in 1894, son of Polish Jewish immigrants. My parents were both born here, in 1916 and 1920, my Dad’s side of the family Jews from Ukraine. I was born in 1957, bar mitzvah’d at the Neveh Shalom, and went to Israel for the summer of 1974 just after the Yom Kippur War. My family was not very religious, we went to synagogue mostly on the High Holy Days and celebrated Passover and Hannukah in the home.
I first encountered Reb Aryeh in Eugene, circa 1977. I heard Aryeh and Yitzhak singing in a coffee house, and was taken by the heart and soul in their words and music. “Vahaviotim el har kashi…” and they will come to my Holy Mountain… For a short while I was part of an informal singing group that Aryeh organized. As a 20 year old, I was just beginning my spiritual journey, starting to explore chanting and meditation and sacred writings and practices from many traditions. Finding through Aryeh an expression of the Spirit in the Jewish prayers and texts became a touchstone for me, that I would come back to time and again in a spiral labyrinthine path. And as a musician myself, just starting to pick up the guitar in my 20’s, Aryeh was a powerful role model.
When I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico for several years in the early 80’s, I organized a Seder for the Progressive community, and used resources inspired by Aryeh to put together an alternative Haggadah, which I still use on occasion.
I managed to keep track of Aryeh in quite a peripheral way, as I moved to Madison, Wisconsin for graduate school, eventally hearing that he was in Ashland, which is a very special place to me, and then in Portland. I returned to Portland 1989-91, and then again in 2000, and have been living here since, working as a medical social worker and raising two children.
Shortly after moving back to Portland in 2000, I attended Rosh Hashana services with P’nai Or, up at the Lewis and Clark College chapel. I felt at home, and knew that if I ever were to become involved in a Jewish community again, this would be it. But I didn’t, being very busy working full time and busy with kids and marriage. And then in 2004 I became re-connected with a very intense spiritual practice that I had encountered on a trip to Brazil in 1996. At that time in 1996, I realized strongly that I had found my ‘path’, but then I let it go for seven years, getting remarried and becoming a father.
It was through my work as a hospice social worker (which also became a point of contact with Aryeh) that I took the Sacred Art of Dying training with Richard and Mary Groves of Bend (Mary just recently passed away also…). Richard is a Catholic priest who left the priesthood to marry, became a hospice chaplain, and now operates the Sacred Art of Living Institute. I know he and Aryeh worked together at times, and Aryeh had a strong influence on Richard’s work. Richard challenged me, in a way, saying that in order to do effective end-of-life work with people, one has to have a spritual discipline, a daily way to connect with the Divine. At that moment, I realized two things: one – that I did not have that kind of spirtual practice or discipline in my life yet; and two — that my life, my spirituality, was destined to be a bridge between the Judeo and the Christian. I wasn’t sure how that would be, but I just knew it. And out of that feeling, it wasn’t long before I was able to re-connect with the spiritual path that I had encountered in Brazil, and have since been very strongly studying and steadily growing in that discipline.
I think it was in 2006 or 2007 that Aryeh and I re-connected as well. One of my hospice patients and families was a Jewish couple from the east coast, who had been in Portland for quite a while, but had not become involved in the Jewish community. The patient’s wife requested that I connect her with a rabbi who could lead the memorial gathering for her husband. She had a quality about her that made me think that Aryeh would be a good match. I contacted him, and he agreed to meet with her and conduct the memorial. I took up the harp in the late 90’s, and played the harp occasionally for my hospice families. I was asked to play at the memorial, and so Aryeh and I had an opportunity to collaborate, and we played and sang Oseh Shalom together for the gathering.
This brings me up to the present. In the beginning of December, I got in touch with part of myself that needed healing. My Jewish heritage was calling out for some attention and some healing. Fortunately, I knew right where to go. I attended Friday night Shabbat with P’nai Or on December 12, which I believe was the last Erev Shabbat Aryeh led here. I got the healing I was asking for. I saw and felt, coming through Aryeh, and expressed in the community, the spiritual light and presence that I was familiar with from my own spiritual practice. Seeing and feeling that there was a healing balm for whatever was troubling me in my Jewish lineage. I had a chance to talk with Aryeh for quite a while after the service. We reminisced about Eugene in the 70’s. I told him that I still played on the guitar a song I learned from him, “vahaviotim el har kadshi…” and I sang it to him — he remembered the melody, and said that there was some correction that needed to be made in the words or something (exactly what he said I have forgotten). I thanked him for the “Jewish fix.” He laughed, “Is that all it is for you?” No, I told him, I do have my children who I want to have some Jewish contact and education, and perhaps I would start coming to P’nai Or more with them. Aryeh invited me to play music sometime with him at P’nai Or. He told me of the trip to Oaxaca for his son’s wedding. I had been to Monte Alban, the ancient mountaintop ruins outside of the city of Oaxaca, and told Aryeh how I had been there and learned that there was probably a healing center of some kind there, with many of the stelae, large flat stone statues, seeming to depict bodily maladies and their cures. Aryeh was fascinated by this, said he would probably be going there, and appreciated hearing that information. Someone else came up to talk with Aryeh, and we said goodnight.
From that conversation, I knew I wanted to talk with Aryeh more. I wanted to tell him the story of my spiritual journey, and my imagined role of being a bridge in the Judeo-Christian lineage, and I felt that maybe my renewal of connection with Aryeh and P’nai Or could play a role in that. I wanted Aryeh’s support and assistance, and felt that I had a lot to give to this community in return.
Interestingly, it was in the middle of a spiritual ceremony of my own tradition on Saturday, January 10th that I heard of Aryeh’s passing. Someone who knew Aryeh from Ashland was there, and presented a song of his in the middle of our own work. We paused and prayed for Aryeh and his family. Of course, I was in shock and disbelief at first. I wasn’t working that next week, and was able to attend the large memorial gathering at the Neveh Shalom, as well as the burial gathering the next day. I also attended P’nai Or Saturday morning services on January 24th, and the Interfaith memorial service on the 25th. I was struck very strongly, how, in the middle of the grieving, people were already stepping up and carrying on. Aryeh’s light had certainly not died, and perhaps was even growing stronger.
I feel like I am also ‘stepping up,’ and that Aryeh’s passing is having a strong influence in my own process. Stepping into P’nai Or at this time, as a re-affirmation of my Jewish heritage and its role in the whole of my spritual life, is a possibility that holds much promise and power. When we lose someone, a loved one, a teacher, a role model, a rebbe – I think that a noble human tendency is to give that loss meaning, to elevate it, to use it, to allow it to empower us in some way. So I am grieving the loss of Aryeh, the loss of what could have been a very mutually enriching connection, the loss of my children not being able to learn directly from him, the loss of not hearing the songs and stories and teachings that I had chosen to distance myself from for all these years. I am grieving this loss. And out of the grief comes a vow, a promise, a desire, an upliftment, a movement forward. Aryeh and what he brought all of us has not died.
So a couple days ago I looked up the words from the Prophet Isaiah that are the source of the Holy Mountain song. I read the Hebrew to Isaiah chapter 56, and saw where the words to the song I learned from Aryeh in the 70’s in Eugene needed to be changed. The old melody could be stretched just a bit to fit the words. It still worked!
Va-haviotim el har kadshi
V’simahtim b’vayt t’filati
Ki vay-ti
Bayt t’filah yi-kah-ray l’hol ha-amim
Even then will I bring to My Holy Mountain
And make them joyful in my house of prayer
For my house
Shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples
Remembering Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield 
January 10, 2009 at 6:18 am
This words below were written by our son, Jonah, within hours of learning that Rabbi Aryeh had died. Jonah had been preparing for his Bar Mitzvah with Reb. Aryeh.
(From Jonah) My last visit with Rabbi Aryeh was in his house, in his office. Talking about my torah portion. While this may seem like any ordinary conversation, it wasn’t. Of all of the people I have had the pleasure of meeting, Rabbi Aryeh understood me the most. People say that I have a complicated mind. Rabbi Aryeh’s was more complicated. He could tell where I was going with a thought the second that it left my mouth…There are two paths that people take from here. The path to acceptance, and the path to ignorance. I have chosen the path of acceptance, and here I am, Hineni. Even though I mourn with you, I am proud to have known a man such as Rabbi Aryeh.
By Jonah Harris (13)
January 10, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Jonah thank you for wonderful comments, I am deeply moved by them. I think you family knows that Aryeh felt blessed to have you as part of his class. Your thoughtful comments and contributions inspired discussion and contemplation during lessons and I am sure during your personal time with Reb Aryeh.
I look forward to your Bar Mitzvah and having you become a “adult” member of our wonderful congregation and community. We need the energy and commitment you and your family offer to help build upon Aryeh’s wonderful legacy and to strengthen our community for the future.
David
January 10, 2009 at 6:18 pm
I met Aryeh when I was doing my graduate work in Theology. I called him up to offer my “leadership” and “advanced knowledge” to him and PNai Or. After basically trying to put him out of a job, he patiently, gently, and honestly helped place me at the beginning of an unfolding relationship with Judaism, service, and love for God. He was a talented man, great leader, and willing to sacrifice ego for love. He gave me humility.
January 12, 2009 at 10:04 am
Rebbe Aryeh was willing to teach me about Judiasm and to convert even though I was married to a non Jew. He understood my heritage and understood where I was coming from as a person who wanted to convert. He is/was a wonderful man and willing to help me and I will never forget him and I so miss him, Kara
January 16, 2009 at 5:23 am
We were so saddened to hear of Reb Aryeh’s untimely death and send out prayers of love and comfort to his family and the community. We so enjoyed meeting the Hirshfields when they came to Hawaii last Feb for Reb Zalman’s shabbaton. We will console ourselves by listening to his wonderful CD’s that we purchased. In our place of birth, South Africa, it is the custom to wish mourners, “long life”. So we send those wishes to you all.
B’shalom,
Vivienne and Michael Aronowitz
(for those who were at the shabbaton, I was the one with the birthday on that shabbat.)
January 21, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Dear Ones~
I know that Reb Arayeh’s passing leaves a hole in all of our hearts even as we tap into the larger whole of which he can never depart.
My first trip to Israel was his first spiritual tour in 1991. It was life changing for our group, the “Kislev 18.” We meditated in Hillel’s cave, danced in Tzfat, toured holy sites in west and east Jerusalem, the Galeel, Bethlehem…it was the perferct first trip for me where I fell in love with the land and the peoples and felt the calling to continue to work on doing my part of resolving the holy land conflict.
Reb Aryeh was an amazing guide…a strong and silent or singing or teaching presence, always caring and passionate and also directionally challenged 🙂 The times we spent loss were as joyful as the rest of the time there and it became clear that there is no lost when with such a guide.
Did I say it was a life changing trip? My best one ever, it’s memory lingers and echoes and reverberates through the years of hurt and sadness and disappointment at watching the conflict deepen, move toward resolution, and deepen again. I am so grateful to have been with him there…for the trip he gifted us and for the gift of getting to know such a wonderful being.
May his memory be a true blessing in all of our days.
Rachel Eryn Kalish
January 23, 2009 at 5:48 am
Aryeh took me on a great journey to Israel in 1991 and became my partner/haver in the exploration there of my hypothesis that Shema was an encoded meditation instruction. We danced and sang together, chanted shema in holy venues, tested the hypothesis in orthodox yeshivot and in with scholars of Kabbalah in Sfat.
So, in life, he co-authored my article on Shema and The Mother Letters, soon to be feature in TIFERET, Journal of Spirituality, with cover art of David Friedman (http://www.kosmic-kabbalah.com/pages/cards_envelopes_primary_shapes.htm) The article has been circulated privately for over 18 years in different forms.
I remained connected with Aryeh following our journey, attended his wedding, and visited him in Ashland following my own honeymoon drive up the California coast. He inspired me to bring Jewish Renewal activities to Marin county, and together we contributed to the evolution of the Neshamah Minyan within Marin’s Conservative Congregation Kol Shofar. He is missed, but will never be forgotten. My friend and mentor will live on in his teachings and by the works of my hands and my heart.
Jerry Green
Yitzak Ahron
Laughing Priest
Sebastopol, California
From the article:
Shema and The Mother Letters of Abraham
The Sounds of Healing Peace by Yitzak Ahron
For a copy of the full article, you may email: OneSilence@GreenerMediations.net.
QUIETING DOWN THE AWARENESS OF THE PHYSICAL
“The lowest part of the soul interfaces with the physical body. It is on this level of Nefesh that a person gains awareness of the body as a receptacle for the spiritual. This is only possible, however, when one is able to isolate himself from the constant stream of internal and external stimuli that occupy his thoughts. Awareness of the spiritual thus necessarily begins by quieting down the awareness of the physical.” Aryeh Kaplan
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan encourages us to examine Jewish meditation in it’s most universal dimensions when he states, “Looking at the entire field of meditation from a historical viewpoint, we find that the closer one gets to the present, the less dangerous and more universal the methods become.”
In Jewish Meditation, Kaplan suggests that the Shema may be an encoded meditation instruction. He elaborated upon the mystery of Shema as being in the name Shem. The Mother Letters are explored more deeply in Sefer Yetzirah. If we translate the phrase, “Listen, Yisrael, to God’s Oneness” or “to your Oneness with God,” where would this lead? To/for what might we be inclined to listen? …….And what might we expect to hear? Shin/Mem are gateways into the Silent Oneness of Alef.
Most vocal sounds wake us up in one way or another. Two sounds call us to quiet down. Shhh, don’t tell anyone yet. They create the energetic context from which other sounds derive their power. The sounds of The Mother Letters, Shin and Mem, contain universal messages that quiet our minds and evoke listening. Shushing gets attention in many languages. It calls upon the stream of thoughts to cease. Humming uses only the single letter that we pronounce without opening our mouths. It implies, “I am listening.” It is the only sound we make that doesn’t interrupt someone else’s train of thought.
“Neshama” means soul. The name contains the sounds of Shema. Neshama also means breath, the awareness of which is universal among meditation practices. (We say in Psalm 150, “Every soul (breath) praises God’s Name.”) There is also something special about the sounds of Shema that beckons us to pay attention more deeply. They are also the sounds of Shalom and Hashem, and of So’Ham. It is said that the mystery of Shema is in the name Shem. Shem refers also to our name, even the very concept of identity, beingness and presence. Hashem is The Beingness. We have many identities, and we are One Being. Shalem is “healing, complete or whole.” “Hashamayim” (heaven) contains fire (ayish,) water (mayim,) and shema.
In all these powerful names, the sounds of ShinMem on our breath move us from the distinctions of ordinary thinking into Chochmah (Wisdom) or undifferentiated consciousness, and prepare us to go beyond into the stillness that unifies all. Meditating with the rhythmic interplay between Shin and Mem elicits awareness of Alef.
Three Mothers: Aleph Mem Shin
Mem hums, Shin hisses
and Alef is the Breath of air
deciding between them.
Sefer Yetzirah: 2:1. Sefer Yetzirah contains the earliest of teachings from the Kabbalah, attributed to Abraham, including the Tree of Life (Ten Sefirot,) its relation to the body, universal elements, the cosmology of time and space, morality and the creative process. The Mother Letters are instruments in creation. “In the mystery of The Three Mothers” there was formed the letters of His Great Name, the six directions (1:13), the Sefirot (3:12), good & evil (3:1), air, fire & water (3:4) head, belly & chest and male & female (3:6.)
Wshhh
Hmmm
Ahhh
Shema Hashem Shalom
Salam Shalem Shalom
Hear the sounds, Issmao issim,
the sounds of peace, issim il salam,
the sounds of healing peace. issim shifa il salam.
Shema Hashem Shalom
Salam Shalem Shalom
Wshhh
Hmmm
Ahhh
This poem/prayer emerged from meditations, and its Arabic refrain developed in Jewish-Palestinian dialogues. Its prayer is devoted to healing the rift between Isaac and Ishmael, forefathers respectively of the Jewish and Arabic peoples, and estranged brothers in the tents of their father Abraham. Shalem means “healing,” and refers to the re-uniting of broken parts of the whole.
These words have been recited in connection with praying The Shema, chanted as a peace-healing meditation in diverse events and dialogue groups, in Jewish Renewal services, and in interfaith and New Thought settings such as Unity and Religious Science. May its quieting sounds, and the One Silence they reveal within us, bring peace and healing to all.
Salam Shalem Shalom Healing Meditation in G
B B B C C B
D D D E E D
D E D C
C D C B
B C B A B G
A GF# G
B B B C C B
D D D E E D
B B B C C B
B B B A B A G
February 7, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Intersections of Life – Remembrance of Reb Aryeh Hirchfield
My name is Doug Banasky, I am third generation native Portlandian (I like to say Portloondian), my grandfather born here in 1894, son of Polish Jewish immigrants. My parents were both born here, in 1916 and 1920, my Dad’s side of the family Jews from Ukraine. I was born in 1957, bar mitzvah’d at the Neveh Shalom, and went to Israel for the summer of 1974 just after the Yom Kippur War. My family was not very religious, we went to synagogue mostly on the High Holy Days and celebrated Passover and Hannukah in the home.
I first encountered Reb Aryeh in Eugene, circa 1977. I heard Aryeh and Yitzhak singing in a coffee house, and was taken by the heart and soul in their words and music. “Vahaviotim el har kashi…” and they will come to my Holy Mountain… For a short while I was part of an informal singing group that Aryeh organized. As a 20 year old, I was just beginning my spiritual journey, starting to explore chanting and meditation and sacred writings and practices from many traditions. Finding through Aryeh an expression of the Spirit in the Jewish prayers and texts became a touchstone for me, that I would come back to time and again in a spiral labyrinthine path. And as a musician myself, just starting to pick up the guitar in my 20’s, Aryeh was a powerful role model.
When I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico for several years in the early 80’s, I organized a Seder for the Progressive community, and used resources inspired by Aryeh to put together an alternative Haggadah, which I still use on occasion.
I managed to keep track of Aryeh in quite a peripheral way, as I moved to Madison, Wisconsin for graduate school, eventally hearing that he was in Ashland, which is a very special place to me, and then in Portland. I returned to Portland 1989-91, and then again in 2000, and have been living here since, working as a medical social worker and raising two children.
Shortly after moving back to Portland in 2000, I attended Rosh Hashana services with P’nai Or, up at the Lewis and Clark College chapel. I felt at home, and knew that if I ever were to become involved in a Jewish community again, this would be it. But I didn’t, being very busy working full time and busy with kids and marriage. And then in 2004 I became re-connected with a very intense spiritual practice that I had encountered on a trip to Brazil in 1996. At that time in 1996, I realized strongly that I had found my ‘path’, but then I let it go for seven years, getting remarried and becoming a father.
It was through my work as a hospice social worker (which also became a point of contact with Aryeh) that I took the Sacred Art of Dying training with Richard and Mary Groves of Bend (Mary just recently passed away also…). Richard is a Catholic priest who left the priesthood to marry, became a hospice chaplain, and now operates the Sacred Art of Living Institute. I know he and Aryeh worked together at times, and Aryeh had a strong influence on Richard’s work. Richard challenged me, in a way, saying that in order to do effective end-of-life work with people, one has to have a spritual discipline, a daily way to connect with the Divine. At that moment, I realized two things: one – that I did not have that kind of spirtual practice or discipline in my life yet; and two — that my life, my spirituality, was destined to be a bridge between the Judeo and the Christian. I wasn’t sure how that would be, but I just knew it. And out of that feeling, it wasn’t long before I was able to re-connect with the spiritual path that I had encountered in Brazil, and have since been very strongly studying and steadily growing in that discipline.
I think it was in 2006 or 2007 that Aryeh and I re-connected as well. One of my hospice patients and families was a Jewish couple from the east coast, who had been in Portland for quite a while, but had not become involved in the Jewish community. The patient’s wife requested that I connect her with a rabbi who could lead the memorial gathering for her husband. She had a quality about her that made me think that Aryeh would be a good match. I contacted him, and he agreed to meet with her and conduct the memorial. I took up the harp in the late 90’s, and played the harp occasionally for my hospice families. I was asked to play at the memorial, and so Aryeh and I had an opportunity to collaborate, and we played and sang Oseh Shalom together for the gathering.
This brings me up to the present. In the beginning of December, I got in touch with part of myself that needed healing. My Jewish heritage was calling out for some attention and some healing. Fortunately, I knew right where to go. I attended Friday night Shabbat with P’nai Or on December 12, which I believe was the last Erev Shabbat Aryeh led here. I got the healing I was asking for. I saw and felt, coming through Aryeh, and expressed in the community, the spiritual light and presence that I was familiar with from my own spiritual practice. Seeing and feeling that there was a healing balm for whatever was troubling me in my Jewish lineage. I had a chance to talk with Aryeh for quite a while after the service. We reminisced about Eugene in the 70’s. I told him that I still played on the guitar a song I learned from him, “vahaviotim el har kadshi…” and I sang it to him — he remembered the melody, and said that there was some correction that needed to be made in the words or something (exactly what he said I have forgotten). I thanked him for the “Jewish fix.” He laughed, “Is that all it is for you?” No, I told him, I do have my children who I want to have some Jewish contact and education, and perhaps I would start coming to P’nai Or more with them. Aryeh invited me to play music sometime with him at P’nai Or. He told me of the trip to Oaxaca for his son’s wedding. I had been to Monte Alban, the ancient mountaintop ruins outside of the city of Oaxaca, and told Aryeh how I had been there and learned that there was probably a healing center of some kind there, with many of the stelae, large flat stone statues, seeming to depict bodily maladies and their cures. Aryeh was fascinated by this, said he would probably be going there, and appreciated hearing that information. Someone else came up to talk with Aryeh, and we said goodnight.
From that conversation, I knew I wanted to talk with Aryeh more. I wanted to tell him the story of my spiritual journey, and my imagined role of being a bridge in the Judeo-Christian lineage, and I felt that maybe my renewal of connection with Aryeh and P’nai Or could play a role in that. I wanted Aryeh’s support and assistance, and felt that I had a lot to give to this community in return.
Interestingly, it was in the middle of a spiritual ceremony of my own tradition on Saturday, January 10th that I heard of Aryeh’s passing. Someone who knew Aryeh from Ashland was there, and presented a song of his in the middle of our own work. We paused and prayed for Aryeh and his family. Of course, I was in shock and disbelief at first. I wasn’t working that next week, and was able to attend the large memorial gathering at the Neveh Shalom, as well as the burial gathering the next day. I also attended P’nai Or Saturday morning services on January 24th, and the Interfaith memorial service on the 25th. I was struck very strongly, how, in the middle of the grieving, people were already stepping up and carrying on. Aryeh’s light had certainly not died, and perhaps was even growing stronger.
I feel like I am also ‘stepping up,’ and that Aryeh’s passing is having a strong influence in my own process. Stepping into P’nai Or at this time, as a re-affirmation of my Jewish heritage and its role in the whole of my spritual life, is a possibility that holds much promise and power. When we lose someone, a loved one, a teacher, a role model, a rebbe – I think that a noble human tendency is to give that loss meaning, to elevate it, to use it, to allow it to empower us in some way. So I am grieving the loss of Aryeh, the loss of what could have been a very mutually enriching connection, the loss of my children not being able to learn directly from him, the loss of not hearing the songs and stories and teachings that I had chosen to distance myself from for all these years. I am grieving this loss. And out of the grief comes a vow, a promise, a desire, an upliftment, a movement forward. Aryeh and what he brought all of us has not died.
So a couple days ago I looked up the words from the Prophet Isaiah that are the source of the Holy Mountain song. I read the Hebrew to Isaiah chapter 56, and saw where the words to the song I learned from Aryeh in the 70’s in Eugene needed to be changed. The old melody could be stretched just a bit to fit the words. It still worked!
Va-haviotim el har kadshi
V’simahtim b’vayt t’filati
Ki vay-ti
Bayt t’filah yi-kah-ray l’hol ha-amim
Even then will I bring to My Holy Mountain
And make them joyful in my house of prayer
For my house
Shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples