We are preparing a new book for use by Tariqa members and over the coming months we hope to post first drafts of this book here. This Preface to the book is more or less complete as it stands.
On the website sidebar you will find other materials under the heading THE MANUAL FOR NOVICES. Some of the texts (marked with an asterisk) are almost complete chapters, others are merely texts already posted on the website but whose contents will be part of the manual. Other chapters are still being written. But for anyone wishing to join us (or just seeking to understand our Path) these links will indicate the core of who we are and what we do.
PREFACE
Many years ago, when I was on extended solitary retreat and living in a cave-house in Spain, it occurred to me that it might be beneficial for other Jewish solitaries (and kindred spirits) to unite in some form of community. This, after all, was an established Jewish practice precedented in the biblical Schools of the Prophets as well as by the fringe Jewish group known by Josephus as the Therapeutai.
In our era, Jews who are also dedicated solitaries do exist—but they are a distinct and tiny minority.*[i] This is not surprising given Rabbinic Judaism's insistence on communal and family-based practices, so I was not imagining for one moment that a geo-physical community might attract a flood of applicants. Consequently my focus was on outreach to Jews living far from Jewish synagogues and on a spiritual form of community.
In 2004, I decided to
form such an online and spiritual community of Dedicated
Jewish Contemplatives (Mitkarevim) with a public website and
a private website as its online
bases.*[ii] At the same time, fortuitously,
Christine Gilbert introduced me to
the writings of Professor Paul Fenton on R.
Abraham ben HaRambam and his son Obadyah, both of whom envisaged Jewish
communal eremiticism as a possibility to
be encouraged.
Over the years that
followed, I read some of the
history and the texts of their
Maimuni descendants and of the group that we now call the "Jewish-Sufis" or “The Mediaeval Egyptian Hasidim”. I realised, with some excitement,that this Jewish-Sufi "path" promoted
the same kind of solitary
contemplative practice I had described in my book “The Cave of the Heart/
Kuntres Maarat Ha-Lev”—a book which was written in 2005 but which was
only published recently in 2022.
In a nutshell—
This Mediaeval Egyptian Jewish
group believed that Khalwa/Hitbodedut was
the key to preparing Israel for the return of
prophecy—and the path by which a contemplative might receive the
kind of inspirational gnosis that we might call devekut through Gilui
Eliyahu.
Professor Fenton describes the term Khalwa-Hitbodedut (as it was used by this group) when
he writes: “the term not only designates the physical retreat and the
ritual technique but also the ensuing spiritual state, a sort of
"evacuation of the physical senses" or "vacuity of the
mind." *[iii] It is precisely this
state that I was describing in Kuntres Maarat HaLev.
After making aliyah to Safed in
Northern Israel in 2019 (and
paradoxically aided somewhat by the
quarantines imposed by the Corona
epidemic) I returned to the solitary life as a Mitkarev (Jewish Hermit) for a further three years. Those years (spent in a log-cabin in southern Safed) were a blessed time of almost total seclusion. My principal contemplative practice became the silent recitation
of Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic Dhikr mantras.
During that period I deepened my understanding of Sufism, spurred on by a totally unexpected visit to my hermitage by Paul Fenton himself. Professor Fenton introduced me to the Murshid of R. David ben Joshua Maimuni and answered so many of the questions that I had stored up over the years about the Egyptian Hasidim.
Encouraged by that very special meeting, I returned to the practice of solitary Judeo-Sufic retreat and there considered the way forward:
The first "Community of Jewish Contemplatives" had by then attracted more supporters than practitioners and eventually became the Facebook Jewish Contemplatives page *[iv] and so—in the midst of this period of transformation—I decided to search for more active and formally dedicated participants to create a second contemplative community that might respond to the call I first made in Kuntres Maarat HaLev—but this time under the Elijan mantle of Jewish-Sufism.
The first stage of that process was to (somewhat brazenly) found a completely new Sufi Tariqa (in 2022) to renew and develop the work begun by the Egyptian Hasidim —and in the manner described in Kuntres Maarat HaLev.
This group is called Tariqa Eliyahu HaNabi [The Sufi Order of Eliyahu HaNabi].
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ABOUT
THE TARIQA
Tariqa
Eliyahu HaNabi is
a global Jewish-Sufi group for religious Jews who wish to renew
and develop the contemplative practices of the
Mediaeval Egyptian Pietist Movement—a group that flourished in the 13th to
the 15th centuries.
In the mediaeval era,
the Egyptian Pietist Movement’s leaders included R.
Abraham He-Hasid (d.circa 1223), and several members of
the Maimonides dynasty: R.Abraham ben HaRambam (1186–1237), R.David
ben Abraham Maimuni (1222- 1300), R.Obadyah Maimuni (1228–1265),and R.
David ben Joshua Maimuni (1335–c.1414).
They believed that the ascetic and contemplative practices of the Biblical B’nei ha Nevi’im (Schools of the Prophets) had been lost to Judaism but had been preserved in Islamic Sufism—and they sought to restore, renew, and develop those practices in Judaism. Paramount among those practices was Khalwa/Hitbodedut: expressed in solitary retreat and in silent contemplation. Their devoted reinstitution of this particular ritual and meditational practice spread throughout the Levant region and flourished there as part of contemplative Jewish practice for over three hundred years. In later times ( and in various modified formats) it became a key element in the praxis of several other schools of Jewish mysticism during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
According to the Maimuni authors, their restoration of the "forgotten" traditions of isolated solitary retreat and its associated contemplative activities had a very significant and special tachlit:
The Maimuni’s aim was to prepare the Egyptian Hasidic Movement’s members to attain a personal and intimate state of ma'rifa/intuitive gnosis and contemplative ‘nearness to G-d’ that would hasten the return of prophecy to Israel.
Those same spiritual perspectives and
aims are the core principles of our own century’s ‘Tariqa Eliyahu’—The
Mediaeval Egyptian Hasidic movement
is very much our movement too. We can claim this distinction because, at the time
of writing, we are the only Jewish-Sufi Tariqa in existence that aims to renew the Egyptian Hasidic tradition in
a specifically Jewish and observant manner. Both
the Israeli Tariqa Ibraham and R. Shachter-Shalomi's Inayyati-Maimuni
Order are Inter-religious,cultural, and Universalist Sufic
organisations, whereas our Tariqa Eliyahu is interdenominational, but nevertheless
exclusively Jewish in a religious sense.
Thus, although we practice and preach
universal coexistence and work for healing inter-religious dialogue: we are the
only Jewish-Sufi Tariqa that has a stated relationship to Halacha (called
Sharia in the Kifaya) in approaching contemplative deveykut
(intimacy with G-d). Though each
member's denominational allegiance will influence their personal interpretation
of the
halacha, we nevertheless follow
the Egyptian Hasidic
Movement's insistence that
one must walk the "Common Path" of religious observance and obligation before attempting to walk the "Special Path" of Jewish-Sufism.
ABOUT THIS MANUAL
One of the
most famous manuals of instruction for aspirants new to the Sufi Path is
the Kitab Adab al Muridin
(Manual for Novices) of
Abu Al Najib Suhrawardi (1145-1234). The
work has a focus on practice rather than theory or
theosophy, and so we have borrowed both its title and, hopefully, something of
that practical character in
this volume.
In both Suhrawardi's book and in this one, the terms arifun and salikun that we translate as "Novices" might also be translated as "Aspirants"—and the term does not describe the spiritual status or abilities of our applicants for membership.
In Tariqa Eliyahu, for example, many of those who apply to join
us have
already experienced decades of contemplative practice, some with Sufic experience that is already
mature—and some with a wealth of academic
or scholarly knowledge that
many Sufis themselves do not posess. The Judeo-Arabic terms arifun and salikun refer to all of us
for, as the Islamic Sufi tenet reminds
us, we are all "aspiring Sufis" because even one who has attained gnosis would not claim to be
a Sufi who has "arrived".
Our Manual for Novices is a guide for the murids (novices/aspirants] who are
new to Tariqa Eliyahu HaNabi. Its aim is to lay out the adab
(code of practice) of the Order and
also to provide a little guidance
and encouragement to the salikun (seekers) on the Suluk
Al-Khass (Special Path).
We admire the work of the mediaeval Judeo-Sufis, but we exist to develop as well as to renew their work. As the Order's founder and its Murshid (in an administrative sense) I can state that the essence of our Order's specific ethos is actually to be found in Kuntres Maarat HaLev.
It presents a Derech HaTemimut (Simple Path)—and one who walks on it hopes to attain a particularly sufic form of knowledge (ma'rifa/wusul) *[v].
Its claims are the same as that of classical Sufism, namely:
*that such knowledge can lead to some manner of intimate union with the Divine (wusla);
*that such intimacy cannot be attained merely by our own efforts;
*that the gnosis we seek consists in an influx of Divine activity.
Our order's practice attempts to prepare
the way for that state of ma'rifa/wusul
to be possible. In that practice we
are principally concerned with our
Order's very specific types of Khalwa
and Dhikr, both of which may lead
to the development of our capabilities
in deeply receptive contemplation.
In addition to these we also recommend
a particular practice known as Hegyon HaLev, that may expand our members' intuitive ability and open
the door to the Torah of
the Heart.
Therefore this Manual's focus will be on those three practices: Khalwa, Dhikr, and Hegyon HaLev.
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Like all Sufi Orders, we have a unique ethos
and a very distinct praxis but our ultimate
focus is on developing an intimate personal contact
with the Divine—and that tachlit is not
only shared with many other Jewish contemplative practitioners, it is also shared with Islamic Sufis and with mystics
and philosophical contemplatives
in many other traditions.
Consequently, although this Manual is written for the muridin of our Tariqa, we nevertleless hope that much of
what is written here will also be of interest and relevance to all true contemplatives
and seekers in any religion or none.
May G-d grant success to the work of
our hands.
אברהם אהרון-נחמן בן
(Nachman
Davies)
Safed
November 12 2025
[ii] See our essay "SOLITUDE IN JEWISH CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE" for more on this subject
[ii] https://jewishcontemplatives.blogspot.com/
[iii] Fenton. Review of P. Idel, , "Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah",JQR,
LXXXII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 1992. Page 526
[iv] https://www.facebook.com/jewishcontemplatives/ (Though the organisation has around 1500 online followers, we never quite made a minyan of people actually living the life of a Mitkarev as dedicated contemplative Jewish solitaries)
[v] Ma'rifa is the
term most often used in Islamic Sufism. Wusul and wusla are the Arabic
terms most often used by
R.Abraham ben HaRambam.
