(kever of HaRambam in Tverya circa 1927)
Very recently in March 2022, in conversation with the renowned Israeli field archeologist and historian, Yossi Stepansky,*1 I was so stunned by the information that he shared that I had to sit down. Conveniently, I was passing my favourite felafel restaurant near ‘Shem and Ever’ in Tzfat at that moment, and so I was soon restored. Nevertheless, I am still bursting with excitement over the information that he shared with me.
To cut to the chase:
A recent discovery in the Florentine Scroll (Megilla Firenza Ms. Magl. III, 43) *2 has revealed that the location of the kever of Rabbeinu Abraham ben HaRambam may actually be right next to that of his father in Tverya (Tiberias).
I catch the bus to Tverya specifically to visit the kever of HaRambam almost every month, one of the few excursions I make from my hermitage in Tzfat. The newly discovered possibility that Rabbeinu Abraham is also buried there is an extremely uplifting one, and one which could make the Tverya complex a major site of contemporary Jewish-Sufi pilgrimage and devotion.
The Hilula of Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam, who died on Kislev 18 4998/December 7 1237, falls this year on this coming Monday: December 12 2022
According to a [validated] mediaeval manuscript from the fourteenth century (Megilla Firenza Ms. Magl. III, 43) - he is buried in Tverya next to the grave of HaRambam.
The manuscript in question
displays a clear illustration of the location of the grave of HaRambam
and the nearby grave of a Rabbi described as “Rabbi
Abraham his son” with the text “the author of the Kifaya” ר' אברהם בנו בעל הכיפאת written under it. (the “Kifaya”
being the sefer which was later translated as R. Abraham’s Sefer HaMaspiq.)
My discovery, through Dr. Stepansky, was made because of the publication of a wonderful study of the Firenza scroll by Dr. Rachel Sarfati in an illustrated book: “The Florence Scroll, a 14th century pictorial pilgrimage”.
The following contains transcripts/translations of certain passages from Dr. Sarfati's book.
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The Megilla Firenza is
“a little-known 14th-century scroll whose illustrations and texts trace the journey of its maker, a Jewish Egyptian painter, from Cairo to Lebanon through the land of Israel and its holy sites. Eleven meters long and featuring some 130 places and landmarks, the Florence Scroll (so-called because it is housed in the National Central Library of Florence) is the second oldest extant document – after the 6th-century Madaba map – to offer a detailed and extensive portrayal of the land of Israel.”
The curator of the 2021-2022 Israel Museum exhibition of the scroll was Dr. Rachel Sarfati and she has completed a fully illustrated study of the megilla. Though the existence of the Megilla Firenza was news to me, she has been painstakingly studying it since 2011.
On Pages 106-108 of her new book, “The Florence Scroll,a 14th century pictorial pilgrimage”, Dr. Sarfati states that the Florentine Scroll contains strong evidence that the grave of Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam (1186–1237 C.E.) lies in the near vicinity of the graves of his father and grandfather in Tverya.
In the Scroll’s illustration of that Tverya site, to the left of the kever of the Rambam, we see a tomb with the superscript “Abraham” and the word “Kifaya”. She writes:
The inscription accompanying the illustration of R. Avraham's tombstone [in the Florentine scroll] consists of an abbreviation of the name of the sefer that he wrote in Arabic: Kifayat al-Abadin, (Sufficient for the Servants of God), which surely indicates that this is a reference to [Abraham] the son of the Rambam, who was governor of the Jews of Egypt in the first half of the 13th century.
Dr. Sarfati reminds us that Rabbi Abraham ben HaRambam passed away in 1237,and she concludes that the megilla had to be drawn after that date, suggesting the first decade of the fourteenth century. Significantly, the assumed Tverya tomb of R’ David Maimuni I (died 1300)*4 does not figure in the Megilla Firenza. Dr. Sarfati posits that the reason for the omission might be because she believes that the scroll was written after R’ David HaNagid passed away but probably before his bones were brought to Tiberias for reburial.
It is highly likely that that the Egyptian owner of the Florentine Scroll was himself connected to the ‘Maimonidean’ Fostat Jewish community (though obviously not at the time Rabbenu Abraham was Nagid) and consequently [in my opinion] he would certainly have been aware of the Kifaya.
Furthermore, I wonder if the reason for reference to the Kifaya is because the owner was a Jewish Sufi himself.
It has been suggested that Rabbi David ben Abraham Maimuni had strong reservations about the excesses of certain Cairene Jewish Sufis. If this were so, perhaps the reason a "tomb of R’ David I Maimonides" does not get a mention on the scroll might be because of his somewhat negative attitude to the way the Egyptian Pietist movement was developing during his nagidship.*5
I would also suggest that it is also notable that the tomb of R'Abraham, unlike some of the neighbouring tombs drawn in this section of the scroll, is crowned with the the same kind of prominent canopy attributed to his illustrious father. These factors would amplify the Jewish-Sufi significance of the illustration in the Florentine Scroll.
Though the Kifaya we know today (usually in translation as Rosenblatt’s Highways to Perfection or Wincelberg’s Guide for the Servants of God) is reconstructed from fragments and is far from complete, the sections which have come down to us (so far) are, without doubt, the foundational manual for Jewish-Sufis to this day—a Jewish Kitab Adab al-Muridin as it were.
The mention of the Kifaya on the Megilla Firenza is a clear indicator of its great significance to the creator of the scroll, and may also be evidence of its general fame. As Professor Paul B. Fenton has intimated, though it has been somewhat neglected in recent times Rabbeinu Abraham’s complete and monumental Kifaya was once widely distributed and studied. Professor Fenton writes:
By dint of its sheer volume, this work was probably the most important product of all Judaeo-Arabic literature. In its original form the work consisted of four parts, each divided into ten sections, each of which was again subdivided into ten chapters. Only two parts have come down to us in a more or less complete state, they alone containing 500 pages. Supposing that the remaining chapters were of the same scale, the work must have consisted of about 2,500 pages, i.e. thrice the size of the Mishneh Tôrâh.*6
The section of the megilla showing the graves of the Rambam and R’Abraham *7
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Here are some of the wall plaques that are currently displayed on the site in Tverya (photos 2021) :
This is almost certainly because the existence of the illustration in the Firenza scroll describing his burial location has only just been discovered and is not widely known even now. I myself only heard of it by chance through my archeologist friend Dr. Yossi Stepansky.
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On Monday, with the help of heaven, I intend to visit the grave-site in Tverya and say some prayers there for our Tariqa. May the merits of the tzaddikim shield us, and may the memory of Rabbenu Abraham inspire us to be ever more devoted in our attempts to serve G-d, and arrive at true deveykut. Amen.
©Nachman Davies
Motsei Shabbat 10th December 2022
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