Commentary
Here is an extract from the chapter on Zhikr from Tariqa Eliyahu's "Manual for Novices".
"There is also a level of attainment/Divine blessing that
we might call a “shiviti consciousness”
that can take place anywhere and anytime. Indeed, it is this state of constant recollection that is our Tariqa’s ideal.
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 zhikr-hazkarah when he writes:
“Do not speak without first thinking,
and do not cease from the practice of the remembrance (zhikr) of G-d.” *1
In our focus on this higher form of silent zhikr— physical movement becomes irrelevant and we follow the Jewish-Sufi mesorah that insists: silent zhikr 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 zhikr rather well.
Speaking of the Schools of the Prophets while engaged in vocal zhikr, 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.” *2
In the same passage, R. Hayim
Vital underscores how the deepest form of contemplation that follows this vocal
preparation 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. *3
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 rungs on our Tariqa’s Ladder of Invocation
During the silent zhikr 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 zhikr 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 Zhikr of Silence."
Nachman Davies
Safed
October 24 2025
*1 P. Fenton, "Deux traités de Mystique Juive", p300
*2 and *3: P. Fenton, "Solitary Meditation in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism",
p290