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| Mount Meron |
Most
readers will connect Lag La Omer to the
celebration of the end of a plague in
the days
of Rabbi Akiva, or perhaps to the Hilula of R. Shimon bar Yohai,
whose Meron shrine-complex becomes a
major site of celebratory pilgrimage on
that day each year. But members of
Tariqa Eliyahu— our Jewish Sufi Order dedicated to the renewal of the
Egyptian Hasidic mesorah in our day— might be surprised to learn
that both Meron and Pesach Sheni also have
a very special connection to one
of the movement’s leaders
and authors: Rabbenu David ben Abraham
Maimuni.
oooOooo
R.
Abraham ben Ha Rambam (1186-1237) had
two sons: David (d.1300) and Obadyah (1228-1265).
David became R. Abraham’s successor as
Nagid (the Leader of all the Jews in
Egypt) and wrote Commentaries on
the Torah and Haftarah, and
on Pirkei Avot (in Arabic)—whilst Obadyah devoted all of his time to a
celibate life of contemplation and retreat. Obadyah is most remembered
for his attendance at the Jewish Sufi
retreat centre at Dammuh and for his
spiritual treatise entitled Al-Maqala
al-Hawdiyya (The Treatise of the
Pool).[ii]
The Jewish-Sufi Movement of the Mediaeval Egyptian Hasidim was certainly both
strong and popular for at least three hundred years, but in its early days it was not supported by everyone
in the Cairo Jewish community. Many were suspicious of the movement’s
adoption of Islamic Sufi contemplative practice and the liturgical reforms of
its Maimuni leaders— even though the
group insisted that they were reinstating the lost Jewish contemplative practice of
the biblical prophets, a
tradition they were convinced had been severely neglected in Judaism but which
had been preserved by the Islamic Sufis.
Abraham ben HaRambam and his son David were
not just leaders within the Pietist
Movement, they were both halachic Judges and Community leaders of
the entire Jewish community. In
holding such a highly political and powerful position it is
only to be expected that they would have
encountered both intense rivalry and opposition from competing individuals and community factions. The Maimuni Hasidim therefore prayed their
liturgy and practiced their distinctive
contemplative form of khalwah(hitbodedut) in their
own synagogues and in their own meeting places. It is
true that Abraham Maimuni and
his group wore the
same distinguishing Sufi attire as that worn by the Muslim Sufis—even when they were in public—but
they kept their Special Path and
its practices discreetly private.
David
ben Abraham Maimuni had to contend with much political opposition and at one
point, he was forced to close his own Jewish-Sufi zawwiya and daven in a
“mainstream” synagogue according to its standard minhag and nusach.
Those who opposed him had actually reported him to the Fostat Muslim authorities in order to
suppress both the liturgical reforms initiated by his father Abraham and the Jewish-Sufi practices that were promoted by
David and Obadyah.
Rabbenu
David ben Abraham fled from this persecution to Akko in 1285. He will
surely have brought with him companions
from the Jewish-Sufi group from Fostat, and scholars
have conjectured that the liturgical prostration which was practiced by
some Jews in that coastal city in those days
was initiated by his visiting exiled group.
His
residence in Akko is, quite possibly, perhaps the principal channel through which many of the Egyptian Jewish-Sufi contemplative
traditions found their way into the mystical and ascetic practices of the Galil—The contention is that these practices were absorbed by Yitzhak ben Shmuel of Akko (12th-13thc)
and by Abraham Abul’Afiya (1240-1291)
and his
disciples, to become prominent features of their own thought systems—eventually becoming a
significant part of the new and
revolutionary contemplative systems of the Safed mystics in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries.
While
in the Galil, in 1285 or shortly afterwards, Rabbenu David made a very significant pilgrimage
(ziara) to Meron and that pilgrimage occurred on Pesach Sheini.
To understand its significance we will now set the scene of what happened there.
The Water Ritual of Meron
In
our times the Meron Pilgrimage on Lag La Omer is very much focussed on the person and legend of R.Shimon bar Yohai. That was not always the case.
In the mediaeval era in question, the centre
of the ziara and its festivities was a actually The cave-tomb of Hillel and
his Disciples that is found slightly
to the west of the
current shrine-complex of
the Rashbi. Even more poignantly— the central ritual of
this pilgrimage was not the lighting of a beacon fire but the appearance
of “water” and the filling of water containers.
There
are several accounts of this Water Pilgrimage,
ranging from the account of Petachiah of
Regensburg (in the 12th century) to the Islamic records of Evliya
Çelebi (1611 – 1682)....but they are all in accordance regarding the central statements that (i) the major Meron Jewish Pilgrimage was held at the Cave
of Hillel; (ii) that this event and
the holiday festivities that
followed it were also attended by
Muslims (in peaceful conviviality); (iii) that they involved a water ritual (that was probably
originally a Canaanite custom also performed at Meron); and (iv) that this ceremony was related to intercessions
for a Divine blessing on the local water
supply.
As
is so often the case where such rituals of ancient
provenance are concerned, considerable
hagiographical elaboration and miracle
story-telling has obscured the actual
practices and their development over the centuries. The
reader is directed to the ground-breaking
essay by Prof. Elchanan Reiner entitled “Meron’s Miracles”[i]
for the full story. In some versions of the story, the ceremony produces actual immediate rainfall,
in some a flooding of the local cisterns, in some a mysterious outpouring of great quantities
of springwater that produces so much water that hundreds were able to fill their pitchers on the day itself . (That "day" was sometimes given as Lag LaOmer, sometimes as Pesach
Sheni,sometimes (erroneously) as Sukkot.....but most usually: sometime in this central week of Iyyar)
 |
| (Jews and Muslims celebrating Lag La Omer together 1930's) |
Our
primary concern, in Tariqa Eliyahu, is the part of the event’s history that involves R.
David and our Movement.
The version of the story which follows comes from Professor
Reiner’s study:
“Around 1285, Rabbi David Hanagid,
grandson of Maimonides, employed the cave’s magical properties against his
opponents, who had tried to remove him from the office of nagid(head of the
Jewish community in the Mameluke state):
“Rabbi David Hanagid would pray in the
cave of Rabbi Hillel and Shammai, and cold water would issue. Then he
excommunicated the slanderers. And on that day five hundred slanderers in Egypt
died and two months later, their wives and sons were taken from this world”
(Sefer
Yuhasin by R.Abraham Zakut).
The process of what actually occurred in the
cave-ritual is described —as a miracle—by Petachiah of Regensburg (active
1175-1190):
“And in the lower
Galilee there is a [burial] cave, and inside it is wide and high. On one side is the cave of
Shammai and his disciples, and on the other side, Hillel and his disciples. In
the middle of the cave is a sunken stone, a large stone hollow like a cup,with
a capacity of some forty seah [7.3 litres] and more. And when a truly righteous
person comes there, they see the stone full of beautiful water, and they wash their
hands and pray and ask whatever they
will.
And the
stone is not hollow from below because the water does not come from the
ground, but it will appear if the person is truly righteous. A person who
is not truly righteous will not see the
water. And if even a thousand jars of water will be drawn from the stone, water
will not be lacking. It will be as full as at first, and the water does not
issue [from a spring].”
(emphases
mine)
Whatever
caused R.David to flee from Cairo to Akko, he was recalled
by his community there in 1290. Whether
his oppressors changed their opinions is not known and we can only muse fancifully that any change of heart by his enemies might have
been influenced by his prayers at
Meron. R. David re-shouldered his role
as Nagid, though his experience of
conflict in earlier years had sapped
his vitality, and thenceforward he chose
to share the role
with his son, Abraham. R. David is reputed to be buried alongside R.Abraham his father, at the
kever of the Rambam in Tiverya.[ii]
THE
WATER MIRACLE RENEWED
I
would like to conclude this very brief essay with a
personal reflective comment.
The
Maimuni temperament that inspires our Order does not incline our members to be impressed by talk of
miracles and magical mysteries. Who knows what actually happened in the mind of David HaNagid at Pesach Sheni? Who knows what really went on in Meron to inspire the
miraculous water-appearances that so many mediaeval accounts testify DID
happen at the Cave of Hillel. My belief is
that G-d Alone knows!
But
David’s brother, R. Obadyah, wrote an entire sefer based on the symbol of a
pool of water—He must, surely, have
discussed this pool-symbol many times with his brother in the context of their shared Judeo-Sufic practice.
Following
the example of P.Fenton and T. Block...I would like
to contrast two related passages.
The first is from Al Ghazali (1057-1111), who was
one of
the three Islamic Sufi authors most commonly studied by
the Cairene Hasidim, and the
second is from the Treatise
of the
Pool written by David’s brother Obadyah:
Al
Ghazali writes:
“The
heart is like a pool, and the
senses are like the five
streams by which water enters the
pool from outside. If you want
limpid water to rise from the bottom
of the pool, the way to do it
is to remove all of the
water from it...The paths of
all the streams must be blocked so that the water does not come...So long as the pool is busy with
water that comes from the
outside, water cannot rise up from within. In the same
way,then knowledge that comes from within the heart will not be gained until the heart is
emptied of everything that has
come from the outside.”[iii]
Obadyah
Maimuni writes:
“Imagine a
certain person who, possessing
a very old pool,desireth to cleanse the latter of dirt and restore it...he must occupy himself with its
gradual cleansing until that pool be completely
purified.Only after having ascertained that there remain therein no impurity
can THE LIVING WATERS THAT GO FORTH FROM THE
HOUSE OF GOD flow therein...The foregoing is
an allegory alluding to the
purification, cleansing and
purging of the heart, the correction of its defects and
failings and its being emptied
of all but the Most High. He who
accomplisheth this will comprehend invaluable notions which were hitherto
hidden from him, deriving therefrom that which none else can acquire (even)
after much time and with plenteous
knowledge.” [iv]
In
the Petachiah version of the Meron
ritual it is emphasised that the water
that fills the stone, after the Tzaddik has prayed, appears
(i) only to a righteous person; and (ii) does not come from an underground spring or natural source.
Remembering
the above quoted passage in the Treatise of the Pool might permit the interpretation
that the “water” of the Meron miracle was a symbolic rather than a
physical effluent—an approximation—a reflection of a contemplative event that was actually taking place in
the heart of the one
praying in the cave of Hillel.
It seems to me that the water-miracle story might be a fragmented memory of a sufi-type teaching-tale that lies behind the legend. With this perspective the reason the water in the Cave of Hillel is only produced and seen by the true gnostic— and the reason it bears no connection to a natural spring—might be because it signifies a visionary experience rather than a physical one.
The
reason the prayer of the visionary is the prelude to the granting of the tzaddik’s wishes... is
because what is being described, or hinted at, is the visionary’s contemplative contact with The
Real.
The process therefore represents the gift of prophecy
whereby G-d makes the will of the
illuminated-one His Will.
But
is it “water” that the gnostic sees?
Rabbenu
Obadyah echoes Al Ghazali’s warning about distinguishing illusion from reality. He stresses the importance of
developing discernment in knowing
what is distraction or illusion and what is True.
So often in the early stages of our development as contemplatives we think we might be divinely inspired when in fact we are being deluded by our ego. Similarly, we might experience what seems to be ecstasy when in fact it is little more than hormonal or cerebral excitement. Experienced contemplatives recognise that these experiences are like treats or sweets given to children ....like the honeyed alphabet of the cheder.. but soon we learn that we have to grow up.
R.
Obadyah writes:
“Be however extremely mindful that no residue remain in the pool and beware that no impurity seep into the water that floweth therein...for any (impurity) remaining there will be restored to thee by the imaginative faculty when thou sleepest or when thou awakest or at times of solitary devotion (khalwa)...Thou wilt think it an object from without, whereas it is part of the dregs left in the pool”.
He
continues:
“The rabbis have warned us against this (error) in the account of the four who entered Paradise ‘Rabbi Aqiba said unto thee ‘upon reaching the marble stoned floor, do not utter ‘Water, water’. [v]
oooOooo
Pesach
Sheni is seen as “a second chance” to
celebrate the Pesach redemption. It is, for us, an opportunity to see if we
have really and truly
left the pursuing army of Pharaoh
behind us.
Maybe
on Pesach Sheni—we are being invited not
to cross the Sea of Reeds— but to cross a different stretch of “water” — and to separate the dregs that cloud the pool from the true and emerging Living Waters.
Pesach
Sheni and Lag La Omer Sameach
Nachman
Davies
Safed
Erev
Pesach Sheni 11th May 2025
NOTES
[1] Sefardim refer to the thirty third day of the Omer count as Lag La Omer. Ashkenazim prefer Lag b’Omer. At the time of writing it falls on Thursday night /Friday (May 15-16)
[ii] Obadyah b. Abraham b.Moses Maimonides, The Treatise of the Pool (al-Maqâla al-Hawdiyya): translated by Paul Fenton;The Octagon Press;London (1981)
[iv] Dr Rachel Sarfati’s groundbreaking research on the Florence Scroll has effectively confirmed the burial of R. Abraham ben HaRambam next to the Rambam in Tverya (see our 2022 essay HERE), but the burial of R. David ben Abraham at that site is questioned by many. The epigraphic plaque commemorating R. David’s burial at the Rambam's kever is considered by Dr Y. Stepansky (and many others) to be “probably a forgery”. On this see Dr Y. Stepanski: “Fifteenth to Seventeenth-Century CE Hebrew Epitaphs from the Jewish Cemetery at Ẓefat (Safed)..... and.... Hillel M. 2022. Hazon Tavrimon: Forged Documents Produced by the Toledano Brothers of Tiberias. Jerusalem (Hebrew).
[v] Quoted in Chittick,W. Sufism: A short introduction p.143; One World Publishers; Oxford (2000)
[vi] The Treatise of the Pool, P. Fenton p91 (emphases mine)
[vii]
The Treatise of the Pool, P.Fenton p92 (emphases mine)