Yom Kippur: Hineini


From the Song of Yehuda Al Harizi

"I have hoped with His hope.
O Master of the House
Here I am
Do with me whatever you wish"


ooo0ooo


HEGYON HA LEV COMMENTARY


I have hoped with His hope.
*

Any expectation we might have of intimacy with G-d; any expectation we may have of making progress is dependent upon His Gift. If He had not placed the desire for union with Him inside one’s soul, no such desire would exist. This is the dynamic of the hadith an-nawafil, for G-d becomes the hasid’s ‘hearing with which he shall hear, and the sight with which he shall see’.




Lord of the House, do with me whatever you wish. Here I am!
*

The Judeo Arabic word for Lord/Master in this poem is "rabb". In Sufism, the term “rabb” often denotes 'the root cause' of a thing. G-d is the only Cause—the only true Sovereign: both of the house which is the receptive soul of the salik (seeker) and of the “house” which is the congregation of each Tariqa. He is the Melech HaOlamim: the ruler of all worlds, whose reign we have just proclaimed on Rosh HaShana.


If the “House” is the “Eidah” of a tariqa meeting for prayer, then we ask the Mighty One to guard— as the apple of the eye— those who declare his unity, asking that He guide his congregation as they are engaged in hazkara-dhikr. (Na gibor dorshei yehudcha kavavat shomreim, Yachid geih lamcha pnei zochrei kedushatecha).


The prayer of the poet expresses the utmost submission to the Divine will, without any thought of reward or punishment.


In this expectant act of prayer,one simply stands before the Divine Throne in receptive contemplation and declares: ‘Hineini’: ‘Here I am, at your service’ in the manner of a humble servant or an obedient soldier.

oooOooo


Wishing all the friends of Tariqa Eliyahu who visit this page a "Good Shabbat of All Shabbatot" this Yom Kippur.


Gmar Hatima Tova.




Nachman Davies
Safed
October 10 2024


Netzavim: All of Us Together


In this  week’s Parshat Netzavim we read the  words:


 “This day, 

ALL of you stand here 

before G-d your Lord.”

 Deuteronomy 29:9


In our Tariqa's Foundation Documents we read:

 “Our tariqa is predominantly Orthodox in character,and is inclusive of (for example) Litvish, Ḥasidic, Haredi, Sefardi, Ashkenazi, Mizraḥi, Modern Orthodox, Rationalist, and Kabbalistic streams.  It  welcomes members from  all streams of Judaism who respect traditional  Halakha, though each individual member's chosen level of observance is to be respected.”

In our Safed Group’s description we read:

 “We  hope to bring together local contemplatives (and would-be contemplatives) from all streams  of Judaism and of  Israeli society: streams whose members can so often be shockingly antagonistic,dismissive,or intolerant  of  one another.

In these times of denominational,sectarian, racial, and political turmoil in Israel (and  globally) it is  hoped that by keeping shared contemplative silence, all religious, sectarian, racial,or political differences may be shelved (however briefly) by the commonly shared  desire  to be personally attentive  to the ‘Voice of  G-d’ within all of us.... 

Attendance at our meetings  is  open to people of all religions and none."

oooOooo

   In the  midst of many acts  of cloaked or open hatred amongst the fanatics and extremists of our world (some  of whom are Jewish)—these times of war, political polarisation, and sectarianism are an opportunity for  contemplatives and other spiritually motivated activists to plant  the  seeds for coexistence and tolerance to flourish...regardless of our differences.  

Because in the  end—we ALL  stand together  before G-d.

Because in the  end—the King whose reign we proclaim on Rosh Hashana is King of all Humanity and  All Worlds.

Even the  ones we cannot see or understand.

 

 

Nachman Davies

Sept 26 2024

Safed

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

 

VIGILS IN ELUL


 Rabbenu Abraham ben Ha Rambam [1186-1237] wanted to restore the contemplative practice of solitary retreat and vigils that he believed had been forgotten by Jews....but preserved by the sufis of Islam. In our own day, Tariqa Eliyahu promotes such (originally Jewish) contemplative practices within  contemporary Judaism.

  Sefardim perform a vigil each weekday night during Elul in the ritual recitation of Selichot. It is a liturgy with many connections to sufic dhikr, and at its core is the chanting of the Divine Attributes. In many versions (the Syrian for example) it also features many repetitions of our “Elijan Mantra”. Some Sefardim rise around halachic midnight to recite Selichot—some attend a synagogue recitation immediately before Shacharit.

  I am not a particularly ascetic type of Jewish-Sufi, and I am very fond indeed of sleep—so many years, during Elul, I have only performed an abbreviated  Selichot, usually recited just before retiring late at night.

  By and large, "sleep" gets a bad name (as a form of laziness) in many Jewish and Islamic mystical systems—but both those traditions also stress its role as a time for inspirational or prophetic experiences during our dreams.

  Both Ibn Arabi and Al Ghazali go into considerable detail in describing the level of imaginative inspiration received during waking dreams (for example,in the moments between sleep and waking up) or during deep night-time sleep itself.

  The Rambam speaks of lower forms of prophecy that are accessible to many contemplatives solely in such dreams. In a passage that could well have been written by Ibn Arabi, he states:

“Just as a bud is the actual fruit itself that has not yet developed fully, similarly, the power of the imagination at the time of sleep is exactly that which operates at the time of prophecy, in an incomplete and unperfected state.” [Moreh Nevuchim,2:36]

  Whether we practice ascetic vigils or not, the idea of breaking one's sleep or rising extra-early to perform devotional acts has been one of the core practices of Jewish Sufism —from the time of the baqashot of Ibn Pequda onwards (at the very least). And significantly it is a practice dear to all of the leading Safed Kabbalists of later times.

  Here is Rabbenu Obadyah ben Abraham Maimuni’s take on the importance of vigils as a penitential rite:

“Know O brother that if we are cast aside from his intimacy (al-qurb) it is because we have severed the bond (wusla) between us and Him. We have turned aside from the soul so that it has become tarnished like a mirror that no longer reflecteth any light, inasmuch as it hath sinned by forsaking moral improvement (al islah). Therefore do I recommend thee to seek the face of the Lord in moments of respite from the burden of corporeal matter. When Satan is slumbering, arise in the dead of night and turn to the Most High in prayer and supplication.”
[from P.Fenton: The Treatise of the Pool: Al-Maqala al-Hawdiyya, Octagon Press, London, 1981, p87 emphasis mine]

oooOooo

  Throughout the year, night-time is the optimal time for solitary meditation. Once again this view is held in common by all classical streams of Jewish contemplative practice.

  It is simulated in the darkness of the khalwa-cell, and it is something that we hold precious after the business of the day is done.

  But special times of reflection in solitude during the quiet hours at night-time are something we should treasure especially during the month of Elul: It is clear from the above extract from the Treatise of the Pool that there was a specifically penitential aspect to the Jewish Sufi practice of vigils in his day.

The King is always in the field,

 but we need to find and make the time

 to sit alone with Him, 

with a receptive and open heart,

 if we are to see that.


SHABBAT SHALOM!!



Nachman Davies
Safed
19th September 2024

 




 

Elul: Ani l'Dodi v’Dodi Li

 


The phrase “Ani l'Dodi v’Dodi Li” displays an acronymic reference to the Month of Elul.

   In this  month of Elul—perhaps the  most ‘Sufi’ of Jewish months because of its history as a time  of retreat and meditation — the phrase offers us a springboard for contemplative reflection, and also presents us with a  potential recitation mantra for our private dhikr.

The imaginative possibility that this biblical text from the Song of Songs might refer to the  Sufi concepts of fana and baqa  was apparent to our Jewish-Sufi forebears. Furthermore, they  chose to emphasise such a reading of its hidden meaning within their unique system of Jewish mysticism. 

R.Abraham Ibn Abi'l-Rabi (d c.1223)—also known  as Abraham He-Hasid—was the  teacher and  colleague of R. Abraham ben HaRambam (1186-1237) and he made a clear reference to these two Sufic concepts in his Commentary on Shir HaShirim

In a fragment discovered and  translated by Prof. Paul Fenton, Rabbenu Abraham He-Hasid connects  the phrase to the aspirant’s need for  a mentor and guide (Shaykh/Murshid).   The essential nature of this  system of transmission and guidance was later stressed by both R. Abraham ben Ha Rambam (in the Kifaya) and R. Obadya Maimuni (1228-1265)  in his Hawdiyya.

Most significantly, for us  here in Tariqa Eliyahu haNabi, R. Abraham He-Hasid also connects this pattern of transmission and guidance to the Bnei Neviím: the biblical “Schools of the Prophets”  that so inspired Rabbenu Abraham ben Ha Rambam and his circle.

Rabbenu Abraham He-Hasid writes:

 

“The Sage (Solomon) at times refers to this vision and communion as "bride" and at others as "love", whereas the seeker (qasid) of this "bride" and "love" is called "beloved", as it is said

 "My beloved is mine... as an apple among the trees of the orchard, so is my beloved among the young men". (Cant, ii.3)

The plural is here mentioned as an allusion to those who choose a master in their quest for the goal, these are (2 Kings vi.i and elsewhere) "the disciples of the prophets." *1

 

It was the intention of the  Mediaeval Cairene Pietists  to revive the esoteric practices of the BneiNevi’im that they considered to have been temporarily lost to Judaism— yet fortuitously preserved by the Islamic Sufis. These practices were understood to be a path that led to spiritual maturity, human perfection, and the potential attainment of prophecy. Our Tariqa Eliyahu seeks to renew this specific Jewish-Sufi Path. 

ooOoo

 The Ani l'Dodi quotation appears in connection with the concepts of the fana (annihilation) that leads to baqa (intimate union with the  Divine) in the  writings of R.David ben Joshua  Maimuni (1335-c1414)

Here the  debt to Islamic Sufism is explicit— both linguistically and philosophically—and  his writings indicate precisely how enthusiastically the concepts of fana and  baqa had been adopted by the Jewish-Sufis of his era.  Following his example,we regard them with the  same enthusiasm in our own Tariqa's spiritual practice.

   In an unattributed (but possibly autographic) commentary on Shir HaShirim ( from a manuscript that is nevertheless most certainly in R. David ben Joshua’s  own handwriting) we read:

“I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine” (Cant. 6:3). We have already explained earlier (fol. 8b, Cant. 2:15) that whenever thou turnest to the love of an object and desirest all that that object desires, then it is as though [that object] had become thyself and thou hast become it, insofar as thou possessest it and thou art enslaved unto it. To be sure, thine annihilation (fana) within it is a mighty witness and indication that he belongs to thee and thou belongest to him.” *2

 

In  the Murshid, R. David ben Joshua Maimuni  writes:

“...during the final station, the soul sinks so deeply into love that it is no longer aware either of itself or of its love. Indeed, when the lover reaches the stage where he declares: ‘I am my beloved and my beloved is I’, he loses awareness of his own self due to the contemplation of the object of his love, which occupies him to such an extent that he perceives nothing except [that which he perceives] through his Beloved.”  *3

 

Paraphrasing  Mansour Al-Hallaj*4 — R. David Ben Joshua declares:

 

אנא מן אהוי ומן אהוי אנא

“I am my Beloved and my Beloved is I

...Oh Goal of my desire, in You I am freed from my Self.

You brought  me  so close to You

that it seemed as though You were I "  *5

 

©Nachman Davies

Safed

Elul 1 2023

Revised Sept 16 2024

____________________

*1    Fenton, P“A Mystical Commentary on the Song of Songs in the Hand of David Maimonides II,” (p.49) in Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo-Arabic Culture, ed. B. Hary and H. Ben-Shammai (Leiden: Brill, 2006)

*2   Fenton,P ibid. p 42

*3  translated from: Fenton, PDeux traités de mystique juive;Lagrasse: Éditions Verdier; 1987. (p.288-289)

*4     Mansour Al-Hallaj (c.858-922): a Persian Islamic Sufi saint and martyr who was a proponent of the concept that  annihilation of the  ego could lead to true unio mystica.  He was tortured  and  then executed  for stating this belief.

 *5    translated from  Fenton. P. Deux traites, p289

Ki Teitze: Jewish-Sufi Jihad


Kifaya trans Wincelberg p 431


Can one fight a battle  alone?

  G-d is  the  only true Teacher but all Sufi traditions insist that we  must follow a Guide—though some are Uwaysi, and some have  been instructed by Al Khidr

 Every one of  us  will have a favourite teacher from their schooldays. The  more fortunate  amongst us  will have  met and  been assisted by several such teachers.

  Some  of us  will have realised that everyone and  everything can become  an educational tool if we are granted the  appropriate insight.

  Such teachers encourage and  inspire. They point the  way and sometimes direct us  away from false choices, though the really good teachers will always remind us that we alone can actually make those choices.

  But in this  school of life  we also meet good classmates....fellow students who support encourage; and sometimes become our teachers as well. The  salik (R.Abraham’s term for  a Jewish-sufi “seeker” on the  Path) thrives best when  supported by their fellow salikun. (tariqa members).

In our Tariqa’s private online page this week, one of our salikun (Robert Kaiser) published a thoughtful reflection on Ibn Pequda’s use of the  term “jihad”  in the Jewish-Sufi classic Al-Hidāyah ilā Farāid ̣al-Qulūb (often referred to today in its translations from the  Arabic as “Hovot al Levavot or “Duties of the Heart”). 

  Robert reminded us  that, in Sufism, the  term can refer to a Spiritual and Internal battle as well as a physical one.  I’d like  to continue  his thread in this week’s short Shabbat “Hegyon Ha Lev”.   We begin with the following text (with my italicised emphases) from the Kifaya of Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam:

“Whenever the concentration of ten individuals who have joined together for prayer...is combined, it is greater than the concentration of each of the ten praying individually. 

Mysteries are thereby revealed by intuition (asrar yakshufuhu al-dhawq) to one who has followed the Paths of the Pietists and contemplated their diverse states...

There are certain times and certain states that can enable an individual to attain serenity in contemplation (khalwah)  in which his mind is purified in his state of contemplation  far more than it is during formal public prayer.” 

(Rabbi Avraham ben ha-Rambam:  Sefer ha-Maspik le-‘Ovdey Hashem, Kitab Kifayat al-‘ābidīn; (translated N Dana) p188)

 

Though  he  was speaking  principally  of  khalwa” as reclusive solitary prayer —we can  also view the passage as a statement  in support of the  kind of  communal khalwa that our Tariqa practises during its weekly meetings.

 It is  to be  hoped that by  joining together as a congregation in silent Dhikr/Hazkara each week, we might attain something of the  shared “serenity” spoken of in the above text.  Significantly in this context: one recent  visitor to our meetings wrote to me  afterwards to say that she  had found  it easier to meditate with others present than when she  was alone, even though the  silent session she  attended  was not  a “guided” meditation.   

ooo0ooo

   Gershonides  (R. Levi ben Gershon,1288 –1344)  says that the   strength of an  individual soldier is multiplied exponentially when  he   enters  a battle in the company of like-minded soldiers.

 That is  why it is  important  that our members should supplement their solitary private khalwa (whenever possible) by practising such contemplative silence with other group members  at our weekly meetings. 

   By  doing this, they can generate  a shared  beraka which can uplift both the members and the entire nation, for as Robert pointed out earlier this  week in his commentary:  We are engaged in a jihad (battle) with ourselves. That is an ascetic process  of purification, and it is especially apt during this penitential month of Elul. 

But we are similarly engaged in a shared jihad as a spiritual community—and  each of us has the  power to contribute both support and encouragement. 

At the moment: Our tiny nation is under intensive attack—regionally, internally, and even  globally—and I believe that  our spiritual combat is urgently needed as much the  military one.  Perhaps  it is  needed even more.

Our weekly meetings in Safed, and  by extension—the expression of solidarity in linking-up  with the  group here online— can generate a profound unity amongst the  salikun (seekers/members) of Tariqa Eliyahu. Our Jewish-Sufi mystical tradition  insists that the  Light that is  generated by such activity  can, somehow,  be transmitted to all worlds.  

In Kuntres Maarat HaLev , I quoted R. Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev on the effectiveness of such spiritual activity  when he  claimed (with an unintended reference to fana and  baqa! ):

“When man nullifies himself completely and attaches his thoughts to Nothingness,  then  a new sustenance flows into all the universes. This is a sustenance  that did not exist previously.”

 The Chassidic Masters, R'Aryeh Kaplan, page 73,

   Even if one cannot attend  the Safed Jewish-Sufi  meetings in person, one may share in its beraka by having the  kavanah to be there in spirit.

As an oft-quoted  European Hasid is reputed to have said:

 “One  is  where one’s  thoughts  are”.

oooOooo

 In a few weeks time on Yom Kippur, we will accept shared responsibility for our  failings as Am Yisrael. On that day we  always confess in the plural.  

Thenjust as in our communal khalwa meetingswe will each attempt to meet G-d in interior solitude: but we will be  doing it as one.  Engaged in the  Greater Jihad. Each of us alone....All of us  together. 
 
Yes, with G-d as  one's only Guide, one can  engage in a spiritual Jihad alonebut it helps to have the support and encouragement of "like-minded troops", both before, and  during such a battle. 
 


Nachman Davies

Safed 12th Sept 2024


ketiva v'hatima tova

Shabbat Shalom

Ototenu: Yehuda Al-Harizi's Words Renewed

This essay has been removed temporarily for some extra  editing.
Contact the  author  for details.

Dhikr: The Remembrance of G-d


Introduction

   Each “school” of mysticism or spirituality has its  own particular “path”— usually derived from the  actual experiences of  its founders and leading members, and  almost always  rooted in what they consider to be an  ancient tradition. This  is  as true of the Jews who formed our Pietist movement in Mediaeval Cairo,  as it is  of the Safed Kabbalists, the  Christian Desert Fathers, Carmelites,  and Carthusians— or of the Sufis  of Islam.

    That Juan de la Cruz,  Rabbenu David ben Joshua Maimuni, Ibn Arabi, and Rumi  should share the same (or very similar)  spiritual experiences should  not be surprising— as each of them was trying to meet the  same G-d seen through different lenses.  The  source of their similar experiences  was not so much  an ancestral or tribal culture or a monolithic mesorah, but their personal experience of contact with the  Divine: the  True Teacher: whatever language, text, or method  might  be  used as  a medium of communication and  instruction.

   Some  founders of these “schools” leant heavily on traditional texts  and methods, others made their connection to ancient practice rather more symbolic; being perhaps  less afraid of innovation, they might take a basic traditional principle and then develop it using their creative (and sometimes inspired) imagination.

  Whatever the  ratio of adherence to tradition’s known details in relation to  such  “re-imagining” and “renewal”: each Kabbalistic School, Sufi Tariqa, or Christian monastic Order has its own distinct focus and  methods—an ethos and  a set of principles and  practices which it encourages its members to use and  promote as a way to develop their own truly personal and individual journey.  Tariqa Eliyahu is no exception to this general rule.

   The Egyptian Hasidim of the  mediaeval era were the   first flowering of a fully-fledged  “movement” in  Jewish-Sufism. (The sufi-derived work of Ibn Paquda gained great popularity but it never produced a “movement”.)  Like our  Cairene forebears in  the movement, our Tariqa seeks  to “reimagine”  the elements of spiritual practice that may have  been elements in the  curriculum (as it  were) of the biblical  Bnei haNevi’im (the Sons of  the Prophets). 

  The use of our imagination in forming our “path” is necessary because the historical evidence of that biblical curriculum is minimal.

  We can, however, be certain when identifying the  two main elements in the path of the Bnei haNevi’im:


KHALWA (solitude/retreats/contemplation)

 and 

SEMA (Music/chanting).


SEMA (music and  chanting) is given a secondary and preparatory role in our Tariqa. Music was undoubtedly of great significance to the Sons of the  Prophets and  also to the  mediaeval Egyptian pietists and we have many mentions  of   such “Sufic” musical performance in the  Maimuni texts.*1

 Such music was designed to induce ecstatic experience,expanded consciousness, and various levels of prophetic inspiration.  In our meetings  we begin with a short period of mantra chanting (sometimes with instruments  and  movement) but, for our “sober” tariqa, music or chanting is almost always featured  as a comparitively brief introduction to a  much longer period of silent worship and  contemplation).

   Instead, we have chosen to make KHALWA  our  principal focus  and practice: taking its various stages and  forms from the  categories given by Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam  in the Kifaya—namely:

(i) Extended Retreat:  in full isolated seclusion;

(ii) Periodic Retreat: involving short term residence and incubation in shrines, synagogues, or meditation cells;

(iii) Domestic Retreat: where the term refers to  solitary  contemplation and supererogatory devotions performed at home as vigils or during other times of the day;

 (iv) Interior Retreat: the development of a ‘shiviti consciousness’ of the  Divine  Presence at times of private  devotion or (ultimately) at all times and in all situations (khalwat dar anjuman/khalwa batina). 

To these we have  added a  ‘new ’ practice derived from the  writings  of R.Abraham He-Hasid:*2

(v) Communal Retreat:  the practice of  regular meetings for silent contemplation as a Tariqa congregation.   Such communal khalwa is practiced  at our weekly meetings in Safed and is based on priciples related  to the three-day  “preparation and sanctification” of the  Jewish nation at Sinai. Thus,in a very real sense, we regard it as being a renewed practice rather than  a wholly innovatory one.

   But there is  a form of Sufic practice that involves both Khalwa-meditation and Sema-music and  chanting  simultaneously. Furthermore, it  is performed both by the individual on retreat and  by the community when it meets  as a congregation— This practice  is known as  DHIKR, a term variously translated as “Invocation or “Remembrance”.

 What follows is  a brief exposition of the  way our Tariqa understands this  term.  It is not a comprehensive  study or a scholarly academic essay— rather it is intended as an introductory text,written for the  benefit of new members: some  of whom may have had a limited experience or knowledge of Sufi practice before attending our meetings. 

ooo0ooo

What is Islamic-Sufi  Dhikr?

  The term has several nuances in Islamic Sufism. It can mean the recitation of  Divine Names/ Attributes; the  repetition of any  mantra-phrase as an act of worship, ritual concentration or trance inducement; the repetitive chanting of a short text practiced to  remove  all focus on oneself,on sensation, or on rationation—all  in the attempt to  focus on G-d Alone.  In these ways: one hopes to make some  kind of ‘anamnesis’ of the Ineffable One, immanent somehow— in/through the contemplative action of one’s soul/heart.

  Many Islamic-Sufi tariqas perform set dhikr mantras vocally,often in combination with movements of the upper body, and  often over long periods of intense performance.  Some dance or sway.  Others recite  Divine Names or  religious phrases silently and without movement; sometimes using  beads to count repetitions  and  cycles.

   The term can also refer to the silent and attentive act of focussing on such Names or Phrases (through visualisation and/or mental audition) ceaselessly.*3

It is this state of intimate relationship/union with the Divine in every moment that is also  the aim of Jewish-Sufi practice: Rabbenu Abraham Maimuni refers  to it as wusul (arrival/attainment/gnosis)

  In his  Shaarei Tzedek, an anonymous Abulafian [thought by some  to be R. Shem Tob Ibn Gaon] described the dhikr method of the  Sufis  that he  observed in Palestine in 1295 as follows:

“They chant the  Name of G-d ( Allāh,as it is  in the the language of Ishmael)...when they pronounce  these letters they direct their thought completely away from every possible ‘natural form’, and  even away from the letters of the name “Allāh” themselves  ... They are  carried off into  a trance without  realising how, [which is  remarkable] since no  Kabbalah has been transmitted to them. They refer to this removal of  all forms and  images from the  soul: Effacement. (mahw)” *4

   The author there regards the  sufic method as being “vulgar”, and makes the  point that there are higher forms of Hazkarah— and then  proceeds to outline  the  linguistic methods of his teacher, R. Abraham Abu-l’Afia (1240-1291).   The author regards “the permutations and combinations of letters and  the mysticism of numbers” to be  a higher form of dhikr than mantra style dhikr.  As Jewish-Sufis we might  well disagree with him. *5

   We are  fortunate that we have an entire manuscript on the  subject of  Islamic-Sufi  dhikr from the  pen of Ibn Atā Allāh al-Iskandari (1259-1309).  Al-Iskandari was a follower of the Shadhili path,*6 —and so we can assume that  he will be  referring to the  Shadhili dhikr practice common at the time  our movement was flourishing in his  part of Egypt.

 A few selected passages from his Miftah al Falah (The Key to Salvation)*7 can  thus shed some  welcome  light on (i) Islamic dhikr practice in mediaeval Egypt;and (ii) what we can therefore  assume  to be the actual  dhikr practice that the Jewish Egyptian Pietists were observing and  copying:

“Remembrance  may be  with the tongue,with the  heart, or with the  members of the  body”  Miftah al Falah p46

Quoting Al-Ghazali,he writes: “Dhikr is an inner reality in which the  Invoked takes possession of the  heart while the invoker is effaced and  vanishes.” Miftah al Falah p47

“Dhikr is  like a fire that neither stays nor spreads.  When it enters a  House it says “It is I-there is  noone  else but Me” Miftah al Falah p48

“When you invoke God Most High, all who hear you invoke with you,because you invoke with your tongue,then with your heart,then with your soul,then with your spirit, then with your intellect,then with your innermost self.....When you invoke with your heart, the universe and  all of God’s worlds therein invoke with your heart...When you invoke  with your innermost Self..the invocation is united with the  Essence.” Miftah al Falah p51


What is Jewish-Sufi  Dhikr?




Not surprisingly, given the cross-culturally shared nature of advanced spiritual experience—and of Divine inspiration itself— almost all of the Islamic-Sufic principles mentioned  above would  also apply in venerable Jewish practice.  This practice is  referred to in Midrash Shir HaShirim and Midrash Otiot Rabbi Akiva.  The concept of the  99 Beautiful Names of G-d recited during Islamic dhikr may thus  be strongly  related  to the Judaic  “70 Names of G-d”  and  quite possibly, in a sense, derived from them. 

 The recitation of Divine  Names is  also a  key element in Hekhalot mysticism, and its sixth century practioners actually used the  term ‘Hazkir’ when describing the recitation of such Names.

R. Aryeh Kaplan cites a Merkavah text from Hekhalot Rabbatai as follows:

“The  text presents  a mystical ‘name’ of God, which is  actually a  rather long phrase consisting of a number of mystical words or names. The  instruction says that this phrase must be repeated 120 times, again and  again.” *8

Though Ibn Pequda describes such invocation of Divine  Names in his Hidāya *(where he  uses the  exact  word ‘dhikr’ —the principal reference that we have to such a practice in the extant literature of the  Egyptian Jewish Pietists comes from Rabbenu Abraham HeHasid who writes:

“The spiritual world can be reached through the  practice of external and internal piety, passionate  love of G-d, and  delight in the  invocation of His Holy Names” *10

Nevertheless we can divine similar   hints  concerning the practice in a few other places.    Referring to fragmentary texts concerning  Jewish Pietist vigils,  R. Russ-Fishbane writes that these fragments:

“...mention the constant remembrance or mentioning (dhikr) of God. Obadiah cited the verse from Isaiah 62:6: “... take no rest, all you who mention the Lord” (... ha-mazkirim et ha-shem al domi lakhem). See also ENA NS 10 (laminated 46), 1, verso, ll. 3–5, published by P. Fenton, “A Pietist Letter from the Genizah,” HAR 9 (1985), 162. Another key source is the composite text published by Fenton, “A Mystical Treatise on Prayer,” 156, in which meditation on divine majesty and the remembrance of His name (dhikr ismihi) leads to love that brings one to spiritual union (al-tauhị̄d alā al-haq̣īqah).” *11

   It therefore seems incontestable that the Pietists practiced mantra hazkarah privately.  But there is  no evidence (as yet!) that they held congregational dhikr events such as ours in Tariqa Eliyahu.

  The  scholars  have frequently pointed out that the lack of evidence  may have  been because of (a) reticence  in publishing matters  that deal with any spiritual practice “using” Holy Names (even though such use was never theurgic magic but always a method of contemplative concentration (khalwa); or (b)because of a concern that the exposure of such a  “sufi”  practice might  induce alarm from the  more fanatically conservative members of  the general Jewish comunity, bent on witch-hunting for  traces of supposed avodah zara; or (c) because the outrage of  those who vehemently   opposed the  Maimuni nagidim’s Jewish-Sufi reforms in toto for purely political reasons might result in  religious  and  civil censure and punishment. 

   We can, however be certain that the Cairene Pietists will have observed Sufi sema  and dhikr rituals  closely: both in shared retreats at the  Muqattam Mountains and in Fostat generally, as it was a densely populated  city of multi-storey buildings with countless open windows.  The  air would  have  been full of  the sounds of Islamic-Sufis engaged in vocal dhikr, and there is incontestable  evidence that there was also an Islamic-Sufi zawiyya in the Jewish Quarter of Cairo itself during Rabbenu Abraham’s nagidship.

 

  In his detailed and panoramic essay: Sufis and Jews in Mamluk Egypt,  Professor Paul Fenton lists many of the Islamic-Sufi exemplars whose presence in Cairo must have had a significant role in the development of the Jewish Pietist movement in Ayyubid and Mamluk times. He mentions (for example) the poet ‘Umar Ibn al-Farid (d. 1235), Abu l-Ḥasan al-Shadhili (1196-1258) Ahmad al-Badawi (1199-1276), Abu l-Abbās al-Mursī (1219–1287), and Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari (1259-1309). Furthermore the existence of numerous manuscripts  by these authors in the  Cairo Geniza ( a receptacle for  honoured texts) indicates the  respect and  value that the Jews placed on these sufic texts.  That they studied them is thus evidential.  We already know  from the works of the  Maimuni family that they quoted and paraphrased them extensively in their own writings.*12

 

Dhikr Mantras

“Let whosoever desires the benefits of dhikr follow the  established texts.”

Al Iskandari*13

    We do not know which specific texts or Divine Names might have  been used by the Egyptian Pietists in their  devotions and retreats, but in our Tariqa we have collected certain biblical or prayer-book texts that lend  themselves to choral or private recitation as mantras.

   These include:  Ad-nai melech, Ad-nai malach, Adonai yimloch l’olam va’ed; Ani l’dodi v’dodi li; Ein Kel-heinu; Ana Ad-nai hoshiana; and Ribono Shel Olam. In our meetings  we have  a special litany of mantras and  a formula for their use. Prominence in that litany is given to the  Elijan Mantra ( Ad-nai Hu Ha Elokim) but we also recite mantras that focus on the Divine Name “Hu” and some  of its variations. In Islamic-Sufi rites the name “Hu” is  often performed as a breathing exercise and  as a method whereby the practitioner can cease thinking and start encountering, as it were.

  In Chapter Four of the Miftāh al Falāh, Al-Iskandari  tells us  that the  two most commonly used and  most praiseworthy Sufi mantra texts  are (i) the  Name  of God (Allāh)  and (ii) the statement “There is  no G-d but God”  (lā ilāha illa ‘llāh) so one can assume that in the thirteenth century these will have been the dhikr phrases  with which the  Cairene Jewish-Sufis  will have  been most familiar. It is most unlikely that they will have used this precise name and formula, but highly likely that they will have adapted the Sufi method and form of meditation connected to them. 

  The second of those above-mentioned forms is  the  first line of the  Shahada, and our “Elijan Mantra” with which we end our Tariqa’s Vocal Dhikr  litany —(Ad-nai Hu Ha Elo-kim, sometimes: Ad-nai Hu, Ad-nai Hu, Ad-nai Hu, Ha Elo-kim)—is a Hebrew partner to that Shahada text.

Our  “Elijan Mantra”  also contains the  Hebrew word “Hu” (He) which is both a Jewish and an Islamic Divine  Name — a serendipitous connection that we explored at length  in the previous essay Jewish Sufi Dhikr for  Yom Kippur. (https://jewishsufis.blogspot.com/2023/09/jewish-sufi-dhikr-for-yom-kippur.html)

  The arabic term Hu (He), sometimes appearing in the form Huwa or Hua,  has always been a Divine  Name of the  greatest significance in  Islamic-Sufi dhikr practice. In Judaism, the capitalised hebrew word Hu (He) has been regarded as a Divine Name  since Talmudic times (at the  very least). In Shabbat 104a we read:

ה"ו - זה שמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא

Heh vav: That is the principal name of the Holy One, Blessed be He.

 

  It is because of the great significance of the  “sufic” Name   “Hu/Huwa” that we have  made a Judeo-Arabic phrase by Yehuda al-Harizi (1165-1225)  the signature dhikr mantra of our Safed group.   We will share  more on that shortly, b’ezrat HaShem, in a forthcoming essay.


The  Dhikr of Simplicity

In Vocal Dhikr one frequently  encounters a process of progressive simplification from longer phrases,through a “personal” Name  to the  more abstract “He”— a process which  may be reflected in the format of the litany performed during congregational Dhikr.  But such a progression is equally significant with regard to a salik’s contemplative meditations in private.  Indeed, Al-Iskandari actually suggests that once one  has approached  a trance like  state,one  may use sounds rather than letters or words.  He writes:

“He is  subject  to whatever  comes over him among the  sum total of the  divine mysteries. Hence there  might flow from his  tongue Allāh,Allāh,Allāh or Hu,Hu,Hu, or lā  lā lā lā or a a a a a, or āh āh āh āh, or a sound  without  any letter or noise. His behaviour, therefore is  to submit to the  inspiration.   After the  passing of the  inspiration he  should  be  very quiet.

These are  the  rules of conduct for the one  who needs to invoke  with the  tongue. As for the  one  who invokes with the  heart,he is  in no need of these rules. *14

Al-Ghazali (1057-1111) made a similar comment about the  process of simplification  from texts to single  words, and  from forms to essence, in his Ihya ulum ad-din:

He will endeavour to fix his thought on nought else but the word Allāh. Then, after having settled in his retreat, he will continuously repeat the word Allāh, concentrating to such a degree that he ceases to pronounce the word which will henceforth flow upon his tongue (...) Then the word's form, its letters and its writing will be absorbed into his mind, only the meaning remaining (...) *15

This progressive simplification of mantras used in dhikr and  the  notion of liberation from texts,forms, and  names are of great importance in our own Tariqa and  it is to a brief account of our own practice that we will now turn.


The Practice of  Dhikr/Hazkarah in Tariqa Eliyahu

  You will remember that the  term dhikr refers to remembering or to the invocation of the  Divine. In the Islamic texts  the various forms of “invocation” are listed in several categories and subcategories.  We also have  a ladder of progression on this path which might be outlined, in ascending order (whether performed in a congregational or a solitary setting) as follows:

 

Our Tariqa’s   “Ladder of  Invocation”

(i) The vocal recitation of  Sacred texts or Divine Names;

(ii)The silent recitation of Sacred texts or Divine Names;

(iii)The silent contemplation of the  Divine;

(iv)The total surrender to the  Divine in receptive and  attentive contemplation.   

 

 The third and  fourth rungs on this  ladder take  place in our period of silent dhikr—most often during solitary retreat or devotions (khalwa)— though there is  no reason to doubt that the wusul/encounter that  they represent  may also be possible during  our communal khalwa.

There is also a level of attainment/Divine  blessing that  we might  call a “shiviti consciousness” that can take  place anywhere and  anytime.

Our Teacher and  Master on the  path, R.David ben Joshua Maimuni (1335-1414) ends his Judeo-Arabic treatise (The Murshid/Guide to Solitude and  Detachment) with an exhortation that stresses the  centrality of this  advanced form of dhikr-hazkarah when  he  writes:

“Do not speak without first thinking, and do not cease from the practice of the remembrance (dhikr) of G-d.” *16

  In Tariqa Eliyahu’s meetings, though we make  use of  some movement, postures,and elements  of breath-control in our short VOCAL dhikr:  in our SILENT dhikr we do not specify any motions, breathing exercises, or postures, or indeed any methodology at all. In our usual meetings, we balance fifteen minutes of vocal recitation with thirty to forty of silent free contemplation. 

  In our focus on this  higher form of silent dhikr— physical movement becomes irrelevant and we follow the  Jewish-Sufi mesorah that insists: silent dhikr should  eventually lead to disassociation from all forms and matters physical during the  act of deep contemplation.

   It seems that R. Hayim Vital (1542-1620) had discovered this  “sufic” principle by himself (or was taught it) as we read of a progression from vocal to silent contemplation in Shaarei Kedushah, that incidentally seems to justify our Tariqa’s chosen ratio of vocal and silent dhikr rather well.

  Speaking of the Schools of the  Prophets while  engaged in vocal dhikr,  R. Hayim Vital writes:

This is the secret (meaning of): "the sons of prophets with a timbrel and pipe before them, etc." (I Sam. 10:5). For by means of the sweet voice of the melody, solitude (hitbodedut) descended upon them with the pleasantness of the voice, and they divested their souls (of worldly sensation) and then the musician stopped the melody and the sons of the prophets remained cleaving to the upper realms and prophesied. *17 

  In the  same passage, R. Hayim Vital underscores how the deepest form of contemplation that follows this vocal preparation (correlating to our third and  fourth rungs) produces a certain  release from the  physical world of matter:

 “You already know that all types of inspiration require a man to seclude himself in a house so that his mind will not be distracted. There he must isolate himself in his mind to the farthest limits and divest his body from his soul as if he did not feel that he was clothed in matter at all-as though he were only soul. The further his remoteness from matter, the greater will be his inspiration. *18

 

This station may be attained, if G-d so wills it, through the  practice of  the  silent remembrance of G-d —in the  manner of  our third and  fourth rung on our Tariqa’s   Ladder of Invocation.

 

THE DHIKR OF SILENCE

   During the silent dhikr in our meetings,individual members are  free to be  taught by the  Divine Teacher:  alone and in private whilst— simultaneously— being part of  a  Sufi congregation.

  This silent  dhikr is an  unguided activity during which members are free: to engage in acts  of worship and petition; to practice combinations  of their  own preferred  yogic or meditational systems; to silently recite or meditate on texts or Names; to engage in a discussion with their inner selves; to pray for  others; to examine  their lives and sort-out their problems;  and also— to attempt to empty their minds and   hearts to make room for G-d.  That last possibility may be  termed the  Dhikr of Silence.

   This  fourth rung on our Ladder refers to the process and  method that forms  the core of the Kuntres Maarat HaLev, a booklet written  in 2005 before I had studied anything related to Sufic contemplation techniques and  Dhikr.In retropect,I can now  see it was describing and promoting the  very same dislocation from thought and  forms during meditation that Al-Iskandari  (and possibly Hayim Vital) described and  promoted. 

The relevant passage is as follows:

         

In order to meet G-d in private contemplation,
we really only need to do one simple thing: 
We need to make some time
 

 to be with Him Alone

and give Him our undivided and loving attention.


Contemplative Prayer is giving G-d a chance to speak to us/do something to us.


It is not about us, it’s about Him. 

 הרפו ודעו כי־אנכי אלקים

   — BE STILL and  KNOW  that I AM G-D
(Psalm 46)
 
The method is simply:
Stand or sit in His Presence;
Make space inside yourself for Him to act;
Then listen with focus to whatever He may have to say to you,
personally and individually.

     

The  Cave of the  Heart-Kuntres Maarat HaLev page 31

 

In recent weeks I discovered a beautiful  passage which describes what lies beyond even that process of receptive audition, a passage  that describes how the contemplative may  ultimately enter that state I refer to as the  Dhikr of Silence:

“What has been created disappears, and  the only true subject,the  everlasting God,is as He had been and  will be. This is  the  goal of dhikr, as formulated by Junayd;centuries later the  Naqshbandiyya would  teach that the  end of dhikr without  words is contemplation (mushāhada), in which the  subject and object are  eventually,indiscernable. “True dhikr is that you forget your dhikr”,says Shibli. Since even the  word or thought  “Oh God!” implies the consciousness of subject and object, the  last mystery of recollection is  complete silence.” *19

The  very same  state is   described by R. David ben Joshua Maimuni (1335-1414) in his Murshid:

...during the final station, the soul sinks so deeply into love that it is no longer aware either of itself or of its love. Indeed, when the lover reaches the stage where he declares: ‘I am my beloved and my beloved is I’, he loses awareness of his own self due to the contemplation of the object of his love, which occupies him to such an extent that he perceives nothing except [that which he perceives] through his Beloved.” *20

  Once again, this demonstrates a shared contemplative  experience in both the  Jewish and the  Islamic streams  of Sufi thought.

 

 

©Nachman Davies

August 27th  2024

Safed

 

NOTES

*1  R.Abraham ben HaRambam  writes in the  Kifaya:

 “In order to attain inner solitude that leads to communion [with God] (al-khalwah al-bātinah al-muasṣilah ̣), the prophets and their followers used musical instruments and melodies, seeking to arouse the appetitive faculty toward [God], may He be exalted, and to empty the mind of anything but Him.”   (Rosenblatt, II: p384)   

We should take  note  of the  way in which the  former musical activity is here presented as  a prelude to the  activity of receptive  contemplation: this is  also reflected in the  format of our Safed Group’s meetings.

*2   Rav Abraham Heasid (Abraham ibn Abi’l-Rabi ) d.circa 1223, teacher and  colleague  of R. Abraham ben HaRambam (1186-1237).

*3 Our term  shiviti consciousness refers to a popular meditational text that may appear at the top of a siddur page: or on a calligraphic plaque  just above Psalm 67 in the form of a menorah.  The text reads: “I will set HASHEM  before me always.” (Psalm 16:8).  Some take the shiviti concept it illustrates literally and attempt to hold the letters of the Tetragrammaton in their minds, others regard it as a purely ethical statement. Some others regard  it as a description of the contemplative practice of maintaining  a more-or-less constant awareness of the Presence of  G-d.

*4 Shaarey Tzedek (Jerusalem ms 8o 148 59b) quoted in Scholem G, Major trends in Jewish Mysticism, Shocken, 2011. p147 

*5  Consequently we have placed  vocal and  silent  mantra recitation in the  primary position during vocal  dhikr with regard to methodology (though our principal contemplative method will always  be  receptive silence.)  The Abulafian  methods of Haskarah are similar to Sufic practice when it  comes to choreography and  breathing  control, but they are very closely bound  to letters and often to writing. Traditional Sufi practice also makes use of  letters—including the  visualisation of Divine  Names— but it aims to go beyond them both, in a somewhat less intellectual fashion, through the  repetition of simple mantras: bypassing both cerebral language-focus  and even (as it were) the  Names themselves.    To me personally: an intuitive  and somewhat visceral approach seems  to resonate with the tambourine tapping,dancing, and chanting of the  biblical Bnei Neviím more than with an image  of them  sitting down with a pen and  paper to meditate.

R. Abu-l’Afia’s  methods may frequently differ from ours in form and detail, but they also have  much in common, and  they share  the  same ultimate aim  as those of the Jewish-Sufis: namely the  attainment of  some profound  form of union with the  Divine through the  development of  prophetic skills.....  Therefore: our Tariqa members may well find  the Abulafian methods to be  a supportive  adjunct in their personal contemplative  practice.

*6  Abu l-Hasan al-Shadhili (1196-1258)—one of the  greatest  Sufi Shaykhs in Egypt— was known to have discussions with the Jews of Cairo. Though his official lodge was in  Alexandria, he had  a Jewish optician in Cairo and  it seems  extremely likely to me that he might  have met Rabbenu Abraham (in his capacity as Leader of the  Jewish community there)  or  other  members of his circle.

*7 Ibn Iskandari trans. M.A.Koury Danner, The Key to Salvation (Miftah al Falah), Islamic Texts  Society,Indiana, 1996)

*8 A.Kaplan ,”Jewish Meditation”,Schocken Books, New York,1985, p 56   The mention of counting might suggest the  use of  knot or bead chains reminiscent  of Hesychast eremitic usage and also of the  Muslim tasbih.   Once  again, cross-cultural sharing amongst contemplatives in  different traditions is a highly likely possibility.

 In another fascinating and  related comment,this time on the  use of mantra techniques by the  Safed Kabbalists, R. Kaplan writes:

 “In sixteenth century Safed,for example,there is  mention of  a technique known as gerushin,which appears to consist in repeating a biblical verse over  and  over as a sort of mantra.   Besides bringing the  meditator into a  higher state of consciousness,the  purpose of the  technique was to provide him with deeper insight into the  verse itself.  As he repeated the  verse  it would  eventually appear as if the  verse itself were telling the initiate  its  meaning. Rather than studying or analysing the verse, the  meditator would then be communing with it.” (op cit. p56).

   This would  mean that gerushin was not only comparable  to Dhikr recitation—but also that it resembled our own technique  known   as  “Hegyon HaLev”.   One also wonders if the  practice may have a Sufic origin as we know the Safed Kabbalists at that time  were living in a  city and region  full of  Sufi practitioners. 

*9  Ibn Pequda, Kitāb al-Hidāyah ilā Farāid ̣ al-Qulūb, ed. Y. Qafiḥ (Jerusalem: Yad Mahari Qafih, 1991), p 423 ̣ 4,

*10   P.Fenton, Some Judaeo-Arabic Fragments by Rabbi Abraham he-Haṣīd, the Jewish Sufi, JSS 26 (1981), p50

*11  E.Russ- Fishbane, Judaism,Sufism,and  the  Pietists  of Medieval Egypt, OUP, 2015, Page 105

*12  see our essay at:

https://jewishsufis.blogspot.com/2023/01/islamic-and-jewish-sufis-in-mediaeval.html

*13  Al Iskandari, The Key to Salvation (Miftah al Falah),  p73

*14 Al Iskandari,The Key to Salvation (Miftah al Falah),  p 72.

*15 P. Fenton, Solitary Meditation in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism in the Light of a Recent Archeological Discovery, ME 1 (1995) p283

* 16 P. Fenton, Deux traités de Mystique juive, p300

*17 P. Fenton, Solitary Meditation in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism, p290

*18 P. Fenton, Solitary Meditation in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism, p290

*19 A.Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam,University of North Carolina Press,Chapel Hill,1975

*20  P. Fenton, Deux traités de Mystique juive;Lagrasse: Éditions Verdier; 1987. p.288