Anonymous

The following was shared by a first-Year Ed. Student at Chabad at Stanford’s memorial service for Amir, March 29, 2004.
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Amir was in psychology with a dozen other students – I’m in the Philosophy section…so I seek out people to debate with – and I always found ample discussion material with Amir – one of the first conversations I had with Amir was about technology. He believed that technology could solve all of the worlds’ problems. It was interesting and frustrating, but I think I came to understand where he was coming from. Amir had a really deep faith in human nature – in people’s ability to be rational, open, humble, unafraid to confront other people. He had a real idealism and compassion, and in many ways, he was the ideal philosopher – open to new ideas, while holding to certain core ideas and principles.

I was thinking he should have been a philosophy program – but if he had done that, I wouldn’t have gotten into the program and benefitted from our conversations. I know so many people have been touched by him.

A fellow graduate student shared the following at Chabad at Stanford’s memorial for Amir, held March 29, 2004.
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I’m waiting for the alarm clock to ring and have this be over; The whole thing hasn’t hit me.

I want to read a song by Jackson brown – “For a Dancer” – it’s a song for someone who has died. I never thought I’d be singing it now.

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don’t remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you’d always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you’re nowhere to be found

I don’t know what happens when people die
Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It’s like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can’t sing
I can’t help listening
And I can’t help feeling stupid standing ’round
Crying as they ease you down
‘Cause I know that you’d rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There’s nothing you can do about it anyway)

Just do the steps that you’ve been shown
By everyone you’ve ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another’s steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you’ll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don’t let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you’ll never know