Tribute To An Old Friend, Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield, 65

Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield passed away on Jan. 6, the Fast of Tevet, at age 65.

Hirschfield, the spiritual leader of Congregation P’nai-Or in Portland, Oregon, was an accomplished composer and musician. More importantly, he was a dedicated rebbe who served his community well, with heart and soul, with mindfulness and cheer, with sensitivity and passion. He was vacationing in Oaxaca, Mexico, when he died, only days after attending the wedding of one of his sons. Hirschfield’s survivors include his wife Beth and sons Jonathan, Aviel, Dov, Isaiah and Elisha.

I remember a quiet moment with Aryeh. It was a long time ago, the first time we’d met. He had invited me to Oregon to do a weekend of teachings for his community. He looked me in the eye as we sat together in the awkwardness that two men left alone often find with one another. We could find nothing to share in the moment. Not sports, not CNN, not Talmud, not kabbalah. We were stone silent, in what I call a male coma, just eyeing each other, feeling good that we were sharing time together but clueless as to what to do with that time. Women always have something to discuss with one another and with men. But men are different. We are not always in the discussion mode. In fact, we are rarely in the discussion mode. We just want to exist, with as little thought as possible. Kind of like a stone. It’s complicated, hard to explain.

Reb Aryeh finally broke the silence.

“This has been absolutely great,” he said.

“I agree,” I replied.

At which point we both rose, shook hands, hugged, slapped one another on the shoulders and parted ways. It had been an amazing encounter, none like it. Other men would have forced conversation, discussed questions of Torah or Jewish law and lore, or asked what I thought of this or that. Reb Aryeh? He, like myself, was satisfied to have shared common sofa space for 52 seconds without a word.

Well, almost.

As I approached the door, he called me back. “Gershon. You have to be kidding. You’re not really leaving, are you?”

“Of course I am. We’re done.”

“But you just got here! I’ve waited years to finally meet you!”

“Good. Wait another four hours and I will be speaking to your congregation.”

“Come on, I was just joking when I said ‘this was absolutely great,’ I didn’t mean it as an ‘OK, adieu’ gesture.”

“Look,” I said, turning toward him while remaining in the doorway, “we’re men. Let’s act like men. We have nothing to say to one another. We are creatures of silence and introspection. If we have anything left in our reservoir of words, we need to save it for the women in our lives. They’ve barely heard anything from us since we dated them, except for grunts and moans.”

Reb Aryeh looked at me completely puzzled. Then he walked over to where I was standing, put his right hand on my bald head and blessed me: “Thank God for you. You are crazier than the schmelves.” The schmelves are Jewish elves. I made them up years ago, and Reb Aryeh was drawn to me because of the stories I made up about the schmelves. He could care less about my knowledge of Talmud, Tanach, Midrash, kabbalah, halachah; all that intrigued him about me was my tales of schmelves.

He ushered me back to the living room where we sat down again and spoke for well over an hour. He shared with me his concern for the dormant Jewish soul, as he called it, still in hiding from millennia of trauma, afraid of emerging and dancing in the sunlight of newer and better times. He spoke of Rabbi Shim’on bar Yo’chai (2nd century) and his son Rabbi Eliezer, who were forced into hiding during the Roman massacre of rabbis, a decree issued by Caesar Adrianus Pluribus who realized that the teachings of the rabbis were responsible for the anti-authority sentiments and rebellious attitudes of the Jewish populace across the length and breadth of the Roman Empire. These two rabbis hid, buried themselves up to their necks in the sand of a cave in the Galilee, and when the Caesar died and the decree was abolished, they emerged from hiding but with a disdain for the world and for anything worldly. Whatever they would cast their eyes at would burst out in flames — so high and spiritual had they become after more than a decade of seclusion.

Then, a heavenly voice rang out: “What!? You come out of the cave to destroy My world?! Return and get your act together.” They returned to the cave, where they spent another year grounding themselves, debriefing themselves from the harmful blend of trauma and spirituality that had distorted their consciousness. When they re-emerged, whatever they set their eyes on would heal or mend. Another version of the story is that when they re-emerged, wherever Rabbi Eliezer directed his eyes, flames would burst forth as before, but his father Rabbi Shim’on would then direct his eyes at the catastrophe and it would be fixed. A perfect marriage of past and present, of what had been and what could be.

“That’s where we’re at,” Reb Aryeh said, his eyes piercing with so much passion I was afraid he would set the sofa on fire. “We’re still trying to emerge from the cave of a tragic past, but we are having difficulty with our vision of future. Everything we look at bursts into flames, everything we try to renew and do differently and better somehow melts before our eyes. We haven’t succeeded in bringing out the fullness of our spirit, of the Jewish Soul. We’re Jewishing with more joy and in a more user-friendly way, but the soul of Judaism remains buried, hidden away in the cave of our trauma. We are dancing again, but have forgotten the music that goes with the dance.”

Reb Aryeh saw. He saw clearly and he lamented the plight of a re-emerging Judaism as much as he celebrated it. Publicly he brought joy, sang, joked, told stories, taught with lightness. Privately, he hurt for what could be and wasn’t, for what could happen and wasn’t happening.

Fare thee well, old friend. I will never forget what you shared with me on your sofa back when, and I promise to do my part in restoring for our people what was left buried in the caves of our lengthy exile.

I’ll start next Tuesday.

Rabbi Winkler is founder and director of Walking Stick Foundation. He is the author of 14 books on Jewish theology, mysticism, law and lore, and teaches Talmud and kabbalah at Temple Beth Torah in Ventura. He can be reached at www.walkingstick.org.