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| (Dome in Safed: from a photo by J.Lebowitz) |
“......There are many forms of practice that might be termed “Jewish Sufi Practice” and they all depend on the nature of a practitioner’s view of what constitutes “Sufism” itself. Our particular Jewish Sufi group —Tariqa Eliyahu Ha-Nabi— is not Innayati, Universalist, Synchretic or Secular and it is not founded as an Interfaith group.
Our own specific “path” follows the halakhic practice of the movement led by R.Abraham He-Hasid and Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam....and our aim is to renew and develop that practice in our twenty-first century environment.
Though there is much to be gleaned from the work of R.Obadyah and R.David II Maimuni, we might first look to the Kifaya and the reforms of Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam for our principal definition of Jewish-Sufi practice.In his introduction to the “Treatise of the Pool” Professor Paul B. Fenton gives a beautiful and succint overview of that Jewish Sufi Practice (on pages 13 to 21). A brief list derived from that section of his book might provide us with a useful outline of some essential components of a Jewish Sufi practice. Here is a precis list of what Professor Fenton wrote there:1. Ablution‘stringent laws of ablution before prayer,including the washing of the feet’2. Prostration‘in various parts of the liturgy,which had formerly been been abolished’3. Kneeling‘in other parts of the daily liturgy’4. The spreading of the hands‘at certain supplications the worshipper would stretch forth his hands with upstretched hands’5. Weeping‘advocated... as a special expedient to prayer’6. OrientationIn communal worship: ‘standing in rows, in Muslim fashion, fac[ing] the Holy Ark at all times’7.Vigils and Fasting‘supererogatory supplication,which most often took the form of nocturnal vigils’8. Solitude/seclusion‘periods of voluntary seclusion (khalwa)’ especially the forty day retreat.9. IncubationRabbenu Abraham quotes the practice of Samuel the Prophet who ‘practiced khalwah in the tabernacle until he attained communion with the Divine through prophetic sleep’10. Dhikr (Zhikr)Professor Fenton states that we have no record of communal dhikr in Rabbenu Abraham’s circle as ‘ One can only assume that such a ceremony would have met with severe disapproval from more conservative circles in view of its strictly Islamic character’. He then goes on to suggest that evidence of private dhikr may be adduced from a saying of R. Abraham He-Hassid (Rabbenu Abraham’s Teacher) that ‘One can attain to the spiritual world through the practice of outward and inner holiness, excessive love of God and the delight in his recollection (dhikr) and Holy names.’
Addendum
Our Safed group, however, has elected to develop the practice of communal silent dhikr as its principal weekly practice. We also believe that there IS possible evidence...or at least reasonable conjecture... that the Mediaeval Jewish-Sufis of Egypt may actually have viewed such a practice very favourably. We see this in another passage from the same Rav Abraham HeHasid and from accounts of the Jewish Sufi presence on the Maqattam mountains. You can read about that HERE
To the above list, one might add the (usually temporary) practice of celibacy and the formation of Jewish Sufi Convents (Khanqas), both of which were also supported by R. Obadyah and David II Maimuni.”
©Nachman Davies
(from p42 of The Mitkarevim)