Aryae’s Story

Aryae Coopersmith is a keeper of the incredible spirit of humanity.

From near-death on a cliff to the power of complete honesty in a 1981 corporate job interview to encounters with a homeless man's music lessons, a sacred pause that stopped a fight, and his great-grandfather's experience of freedom in prison -- Aryae's journey has been a path propelled by the power of presence, spirituality, and human humility. 

He's the founder of One World Lights (OWL), a community of global citizens with the shared vision of people everywhere supporting a course change for humanity by supporting each other.

In the 1960s, he was co-founder of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach's House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco. The "House" became a milestone in the history of 20th century American Judaism, and a well known part of the legend of 1960s San Francisco. Along the way, it opened its doors to thousands of young people of all faiths -- Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Sufis, and more. Aryae's spiritual memoir, Holy Beggars: A Journey from Haight Street to Jerusalem, chronicles the journey, starting as a 22-year-old college student to meeting teacher and musician Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach to the sights and stories along the community's winding road.

Aryae went on to found a career development firm and worked as a community college instructor in the 1970s, an account executive and sales manager in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, a Principal at the Tom Peters Group in Palo Alto in the 1990s, and founded and led the HR Forums, an association of Silicon Valley’s human resource executives, from 1997 to 2013.

Aryae was ordained in 2011 by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi as a Jewish spiritual teacher, and he holds an MA in Humanistic Psychology from California State University, Sonoma. His remarkable lens of unlocking spirit in the spaces he comes across has led to a world of stories, learnings, and wisdom that we are thrilled to have the opportunity to hear in our Story Booth!