In 2025 I came across certain texts written by Jewish-Sufi
members of the mediaeval Egyptian Hasidic movement. I
quickly realised with some excitement that they coincided and amplified the
opinions I had expressed in 2011 and
this short essay is an update to
that original 2011 essay that will incorporate those specifically Jewish-Sufi
insights.
The heart is our intuitive
intellect. The soul is our very life-force. The Torah of the Heart
is eternally given and when we receive it intentionally, it produces a
connecting link between our intellect and our life-force. Our tangible
experiences and our spiritual perceptions are thus bound up with our essential
soul root, and from there, bound up with our G-d.
When we open up this channel we deepen
our relationship with the Supernal Torah, because our obedience to the commands
of the Torah would be incomplete if love and true internalisation were absent.
G-d speaks to all of us through
the Torah She-bi’chtav (Written Torah) and
the Torah She-ba’al Peh (Oral Torah). He also
speaks to us in our own prayers and in our own private study and meditation.
When we read the scriptures with pauses for meditation or when we meditate in
silent prayer, we are hoping to access the Torah of the Heart.
We know how and when we are called to
action as a nation and as individuals through the words of the Written and Oral
Torah—but we each receive that Torah according to our own abilities and
character, and for this reason we also need to receive and digest those
‘words’ personally in the Cave of the Heart, alone with our G-d.
Speaking of the text of the Torah, R.
Avraham Joshua Heschel writes:
“In the hands of many
peoples it becomes a book; in the life of Israel it remained a voice, a Torah
within the heart. (Isaiah 51:7)” [1]
oooOooo
As you will see later in this essay,
the mediaeval Jewish-Sufis of the Egyptian Hasidic movement suggest that this Torah
of the
Heart is actually the third
major element of the Torah that was/is
transmitted at Sinai. Alongside the Oral
Torah and the Written Torah, some of its
authors posit what one might call a Contemplative Torah that is accessed through meditation.
Something of this
notion is also to be found
in the Kabbalistic strain of
Jewish mysticism that developed in Safed and
which later fed into the European
Hasidic movement. Before considering the mediaeval Jewish-Sufi perspective we
might mention some parallel ideas from those later schools of Jewish Mysticism.
The Zohar[2] is forcefully
explicit:
“The stories of the Torah
are its outer garments and whoever looks upon those garments as being the Torah
itself, woe to that man...Referring to this, David said, Open my eye that I may
behold wondrous things out of your Torah (Tehillim 119:18), for that which is under
the garments is the real Torah.
The commandments of the
Torah are called the “body” of the Torah... The fools of the world look on
nothing save the garment... The wise, who worship the Most High King, those who
stood at Mount Sinai, look only at the soul, It is the true Torah. In
the world-to-come, they will look at the soul of the soul of the Torah.”[3]
The Zohar also tells us that
each one of souls of Kehal Yisrael has “their own letter” in
the Torah.[4] Interestingly,
the Talmud Yerushalmi posits that this refers to
letters in the primordial Torah written in black and white fire. [5]
The Arizal concurs with this view and adds that by contemplative activity one
can actually access the way one’s soul root is linked to that letter/spiritual
particle in the Supernal Torah in order to set up a channel of blessing on all
worlds.[6]
The Baal Shem Tov suggests that the
Torah can be fractally or microcosmically presented,[7] and many sources
emphasise that the Torah we see is not the whole story.[8] In Kedushat
Levi, R. Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reminds us that:
“In fact, the entire Torah
is G-d’s name. It originally contained combinations of letters and secret
mysteries that ‘no eye has uncovered’ (Yoav 28:7). In its descent to our lowly
world, the Torah must become clothed in a material garment.”[9]
The Kotzker Rebbe [10] tells us that the words
of the Sh'ma are “laid on the surface of the heart” so that they may
sink into those hearts which are truly receptive later on:
“And these words which I
command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart.” The verse does not say:
“in thy heart.” For there are times when the heart is shut. But the words lie
upon the heart, and when the heart opens in holy hours, they sink deep down
into it. [11]
This implies that the ‘words’ are only
received when they are reflected upon and internalised personally—we may
observe the letter of the Law, but we have not received it until we go beyond
that letter to access its soul. This is done most especially in silent
contemplative prayer.
I am reminded of a parallel example of
this pre-condition for authenticity in the tale of the Baal Shem Tov’s
encounter with the righteous and learned R.Dov Baer of Mezeritch. After asking
the latter to recite holy words of Torah, the Baal Shem Tov declared Dov Baer’s
recitation to be “correct” but without “true knowledge” because there was “no
soul” in what he knew. [12]
oooOooo
Commenting on the Torah of the Heart
on the Jewish Contemplatives website in 2011 I wrote:
" I can remember when reel to reel
tape-recorders and cassette players were a miraculous novelty. I can remember
the invention of the internet and the shock of realising (so comparatively
recently) that we have wireless and satellite infotech connections of such
power and speed that the entire Tanach, Talmud Bavli, Zohar and Shulchan
Aruch can be transferred onto disk drive or pen drive and printed or
viewed in any synagogue or home with sufficient resources to possess the
equipment with which to open and view the files.
Only a few years ago, our
world did not have the wonderful treasury of Sefaria.org, an ever growing
(and free) online resource of Torah texts for all. These developments in human
knowledge and capability have thus attained that which previous generations had
thought to be impossible or mere fantasy.
We can watch and
listen in amazement as many centuries of Torah commentary and study are
transferred from PC to PC, from personal email to personal email, and from
smartphone to pen drive—in seconds. And by the time you read this most of those
miraculous inventions will almost certainly be superseded. Even as I write,
there are forms of bio-implanted data that are being developed and perfected,
and I suspect it will be years rather than decades before they are commonplace
human accessories.
Living in such an era, the
traditional Jewish concepts concerning the transmission and the receiving of
the Torah do not seem at all fanciful. Living in these times, we can easily
comprehend the possibility that Moshe Rabbeinu may have received the ‘entire’
Torah in several intense download instalments,[13] and credibly— in less
than a second. How much of this may have reached his conscious awareness, or
how much of it he would have understood personally at the time of the
revelation is, I think, another matter.
I have no
difficulty in imagining the truth concealed in the tale that we each knew that
same Torah in the womb—and that an angel tapped us at birth so that we should
forget its Light in order to spend all our lives looking for it.[14] I also have no difficulty
in considering that it is possible that, in one moment, our G-d can infuse our
brain or soul with his pure word in a way that is currently beyond our
comprehension—But not beyond our receptive capability, and not beyond our experience.
The Sfas Emes[15] writes:
The essence of the Torah is
G-d’s pure light shining to us through its Hebrew letters. They are spread
throughout the universe, and the Jewish people are assigned to find them.[16]
We all stood at
Sinai. We all heard the Voice. The Words of the Living God have been laid upon
our hearts, and they are a form of data which our intuitive hearts can access.
The data which forms
the ‘daat’ I am referring to here is a bit like having the Talmud and
the Tanach on our soul’s hard drive. Some of that data has been
opened and viewed, but much of it may lie unopened in the background.
There may be thousands of ‘words’ we have yet to read, or yet to understand—but
they are there—and we can choose to ‘click on them’ to open their ‘folders’ if
we want to.
One might even say
that just knowing that they are there inside us is an act of spiritual
knowledge even though we may not realise it on an explicitly conscious level.
The Torah which we had seen and known in the womb (and before) was not erased. It
remains in our soul’s storage system for us to discover anew—letter by letter,
word by word, line by line.
In Psalm 12 we read that:
Imrot HaShem
amarot tehorot kesef
ba-alil
la’aretz
m’zukak
shivatayim
“The words of HaShem are pure words,like pure silver,
Clear to the
world, refined seven times.”
Some commentators
read ba-alil la-aretz as “in an earthly furnace”.
The Words of
the Living G-d are pure.
Too pure for
us.
They are, as
it were, the derivational root of our words
Or the
thoughts before and behind our thoughts.
The “pure
words” of G-d are like refined silver.
In them there
is no dross or clouding.
The only
“earthly furnace” which can receive them at all
Is the
crucible of our hearts.
And in that furnace
they are not purified,
For they lack
nothing and are perfect.
In the furnace
of our hearts what happens
Is that our
understanding of them is made possible...
They are made
“clear to all the world”
-Our World.
Not by the work of explanation, analysis, or philosophy,
But by the
three fires
Of Inspiration, of
Deveykut, and of Spiritual Intimacy,
In which those
“pure words” may be transmuted
Into earthly thoughts and
actions.
The first is entirely the work of G-d;
The second is our own cry for contact with G-d or our response to His
call;
The third is the activity arising from the union of our will
with the will of G-d.
These three "fires" are not necessarily consecutive,
Nor do they always arise in that order-
-for a spark from one may ignite the others,
and they may just as easily burn simultaneously.
(From a Divine perspective they are all one anyway).
The “silver” flows down like a spiraling river
From the world where it had been pure
And goes through “seven” (many) changes
Before it can be comprehended in any way by us.
The process of refinement is (as it were) being reversed.
So that the pure word can be borne by man.
oooOooo
We may be the type
of people who need to discuss our lives with G-d frequently as though He were
at our side. We may be the type of people who prefer to use the texts of
prayers written by other people when we want to get closer to Him. We may be the
kind of people who prefer to discuss His Words in the company of other humans.
Or we may be the kind of people who can’t bear to do much of any of these
activities, yet find we meet Him most intimately in acts of compassion and
charity, in the ordinary events of an apparently secular life. All of these can
be the way one hears and reads the Torah of the Heart.
But for the Contemplative
Jew?
Well — we are those who
need, more than anything, simply to turn the receiver on and let G-d broadcast to us. We may not hear what He
is saying in a way that is clear, but we can sense that, by being thoroughly
attentive, we are doing what we were created to do. Standing or sitting or
walking in contemplative prayer; praying the liturgy; performing ritual
mitzvot—in our small way, we are attempting to
both study and practice the Torah of the Heart.
When we
lay tefillin, the Pure Words of the Supernal Torah are transmuted,
laid-up, and stored in the file-system of our heart and soul. The ritual is
like a daily program update that renews and refreshes our communication with
our G-d. Perhaps as ‘signs’, tefillin can speak to us more
clearly than words. Perhaps these signs are closer to the Pure Words of G-d
Himself than we realise. Perhaps they are laid-up (stored) in our heart and
soul because it is only there—beyond the limitations of our intellect— that we
can hold all of His Torah.
The Torah of
the Heart is the medium whereby the Supernal Torah is revealed to the
individual soul. The task of the contemplative is to make this explicit by
intentionally running to receive it daily."
I believe
it to be highly significant that the Egyptian Hasidim
viewed the contemplative reception
of the
Torah of the Heart to be as important as the
reception of the Laws and Statutes of
the Written and Oral Torah. R. Obadyah ben Avraham Maimuni calls it the Torah
al-haqiqiyya[17] —the real and true
essence of the Torah.
In the
following section we will now consider some specifically Jewish-Sufi insights into the
significance of the Torah of
the Heart/
Torah
al-haqiqiyya that are all related
to the three day retreat
undertaken at Sinai by the entire Jewish
community.
oooOooo
THE COMMUNAL RETREAT AT SINAI
The Divine Revelation at Sinai was made to Moses but
also—in some form— to each and everyone present. It is an
event which describes the universal and shared experience
of prophecy (intimate communication with the Divine) that is
the aim of all Jewish-Sufi
contemplative strivings.
More than this, it is also a part
of the entire Jewish Nation’s journey to
the time when a form of prophecy will return
to all Israel — at a time when the people of all nations
“ will be filled with the knowledge of G-d as
the waters cover the sea.” [18]
The Egyptian Pietists believed that the path to such
prophetic restoration was Khalwa (solitary retreat and
contemplation). The form of Khalwa
that they (and all Sufis) promoted was
predominantly an act performed in solitude,by an individual, often
involving intense seclusion away from society of any kind.
Despite this, it seems to me that one of the forms of Khalwa they
had in mind was a communal re-presentation (an anamnesis-zikarah)
of the unveiling (kashf) that all Israel experienced at Sinai.
In a recent essay[19], I have expressed the view that
certain Jewish-Sufi texts indicate that the
Egyptian Haidim regarded the retreat
period before the giving of
the Torah to be (i) an essential element of the Sinai Revelation
that had become neglected and, as
it were, forgotten but which they hoped
to recreate; and (ii) that this element
may well have been the combined
practice of some form of congregational khalwa-hitbodedut
that involved dhikr-hazkarah. This theory is the grounding for our
Tariqa's insistence that the Cairene passages concerned denote a special
form of isolation/contemplation that is unique within Jewish Mystical thought
precisely because it is performed as a group.
The crucial phrase that is repeatedly
used in Jewish-Sufi texts of the
period is "hakhanah v'kedushah", a term which
describes (i) the "preparation and
sanctification" of the biblical
three day retreat and possibly (ii)
an arcane ritual-meditational practice that was taught by R.Avraham HeHasid
and other leaders
of the movement. This observation was first made by Professor
Paul Fenton. A suggestion that this was
possibly a form of dhikr involving
the repetition of Divine Names
and mantras has also been noted by several other scholars.
The two principal
texts which support these refer to
the scriptural account of the
community preparation/retreat before the
giving of the Torah, R. Abraham HeHasid (d.c.1223)[20] writes:
[T]he first
verse alludes to the proximity of Revelation and to the unveiling of the
external and internal sight and their illumination (basira qalbiyya).
The second verse alludes to the prescription of the Laws and ordinances.
Therefore keep
these two sublime principles and forever observe them. The
first is the state of vision and revelation. Recall the "preparation
and sanctification" [hakhanah we-qedushah]
which I have indicated to you, which is the path that leads to Him and
the details of which I have informed you, as well as the purifications
which I have imparted to you, so that you may be elevated to this spiritual
state.
Bequeath
and teach them to your descendants so that they will be continuously
transmitted within your midst and thus the practices of this path
shall be handed down from your forebears to your descendants. If each
generation attains to the state of vision, then they will witness to the
authenticity of the Torah which they possess and how it was revealed and
accepted by their ancestors. Thus each generation shall inherit this
Torah from Sinai and its appropriate spiritual state.[21]
In a footnote Professor Fenton quotes a related
passage, but this time from R.Abraham ben Ha Rambam (1186-1237):
"The
Revelation took place in order to familiarise you with the ways and means of
Prophecy, so that the perfect ones among your descendants (i.e. the Jewish
Sufis) may attain thereby that which you have attained. (Ex. xx.20). [22]
In his examination of one
of the fragments by R. Abraham He Hasid, Professor Fenton writes:
Rabbi Abraham
is of the opinion that in the days that preceded Revelation, Moses imparted to
the Israelites an esoteric doctrine whereby they might attain to prophecy.
Details of this doctrine were not disclosed by Scripture, on account of their
subtlety, but are alluded to in the "sanctification" that the
Israelites underwent. Elsewhere, Abraham Maimonides intimates that this
external and internal purification consisted in "inward
contemplation" (khalwa batina).[23]
Thus, the preparation for Revelation is clearly presented as a communal
khalwa retreat.
One way of
interpreting the text from Abraham
He Hasid is to underline his insistence that khalwa,
signifying in the interiorisation
of the
Supernal Torah during contemplation is a crucial part of the Sinaitical legacy that
must be preserved and imparted
throughout the generations.
R.Avraham ben HaRambam distinguishes
three levels of Torah study: the reflective, the meditative, and the
contemplative. The progressive ascending order presented in that path is no accident, and he suggests that the contemplative way is
the one followed by an 'Intimate Servant of G-d' who finds “bliss in his Maker
as His sublime lights enter him” as he begins to perceive the “profound bonds
with G-d that are generated by the intellect and the Torah”.[24] For
him, the Torah is relationship as well as law.
We are
used to hearing of the
significance of the minyan when
considering the efficacy of community tefilla. But the notion that khalwa-hitbodedut can be a communal and
congregational event is a unique
element that is (I believe) to be found only in the
Jewish-Sufi system. I
believe it is derived from Abraham
HeHasid's interpretation of the communal
retreat at Sinai.
In classical Islamic Sufism, the term khalwat dar anjuman describes
the state of shiviti consciousness and
absorption into the contemplation of the Divine that
persists even when the devotee is amongst a crowd. It usually denotes
a high state of individual interior detachment from
the created world and its creatures. It
is almost exclusively presented as an activity in a single individual's consciousness.
We might give a
specifically Jewish inflection to the concept of khalwat
dar anjuman by relating it to the Sinai
experience :
We can be alone but simultaneously united
with the other seekers in a silent meditative congregation: All of
us together, yet each of us alone — with both
the individual and the community engaged in communal
preparation for an intimate meeting with
G-d Himself. Just as at Sinai.
This idea
is the generative source
of Tariqa Eliyahu's weekly Silent
Meditation meetings which consist of congregational khalwa-hitbodedut
and dhikr-hazkarah. They are
a deliberate re-enactment of the hakhanah v'kedushah of Sinai.
Whether you
are a member of
our Tariqa or simply a
contemplative Jew reading this essay, as we approach the Festival of
Shavuot, we hope you will join
us as a solitary meditator united
with us in spirit during
this special week of "preparation".
Nachman Davies
Safed
May 17th 2026
[3] Abraham ibn Abi’l-Rabi’ was known as Abraham HeHasid (the term “Hasid”signifying “Sufi”in his time and location). The fact that the son of Moses Maimonides (Abraham ben HaRambam) was also known as “Abraham Ha Hasid” caused some confusion in previous centuries over authorial identities, confusion that has since been resolved.
[4] Fenton P: Some Judaeo-Arabic Fragments by Rabbi Abraham he-Ḥasīd, the Jewish Sufi, in JSS 26 (1981), page 66
[5] Fenton P: Some Judaeo-Arabic Fragments… page 66
[6] Fenton. P: Some Judaeo-Arabic Fragments …, page 57
[7] ‘Sefer HaMaspik’ Chapter 1, Rav.Avraham ben HaRambam, trans R' Yaakov Wincelberg in ‘The Guide to Serving G-d’ page 13,( Feldheim,Jerusalem/New York,2008)
[8] Abraham Joshua Heschel in A Philosophy of Judaism p275; (Farrar Straus and Giroux,New York,1955)
[9] I rarely quote the Zohar or other texts favuored by the Safed School but the selection of texts that I quote in this section of the essay are included here because they bear a remarkable resemblance to certain passages in R.Obadyah Maimuni's Treatise of the Pool and R. David ben Joshua's Murshid. (Remarkable because neither they nor the Jewish-Sufi movement generally make any significant mention of the Zohar or similar kabbalistic texts from before or after the mediaeval era.)
[10] Zohar 3:152a
[11] Zohar Chadash, Shir HaShirim 74d
[12] Talmud Yerushalmi, Shekalim 6:1, Midrash Tanchuma (Bereshit 1)
[13] This idea is expounded at length by the Shelah (R. Isaiah Horowitz 1555-1630) in Shnei Luchos HaBris.
[14] Ben Poras Yosef 23b states that the entire Torah is included in every single word. Other sources cite the Baal Shem Tov as saying that the entire Torah is present in a single one of its letters.
[15] Notably Tikkunei Zohar 21b. R. Chaim Vital (1543-1620) conceptualises the facets of the Torah as “PaRDeS” (pshat-remez-drush-sod).
[16] In Kedushas Levi: Parashas Beshallach. The idea is also to be found in the Zohar at Zohar II:87a, and III:98b as well as in the Ramban’s “Introduction” to his Torah Commentary.
[17] R.Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787-1859)
[18] ‘Tales of the Hasidim’ vol 2, Martin Buber, trans. Olga Marx, page 278, ( Schocken Books Inc,New York, 1949)
[19] See ‘Tales of the Hasidim’ vol 1, Martin Buber, trans. Olga Marx, page 99, (Schocken Books Inc, New York, 1949)
[20] See Gittin 60a-b. see also Berachot 21b
[21] in Midrash Nidda 30b
[22] R. Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger (1847-1905)
[23] Translated by Moshe A.Braun in ‘The Sfas Emes’, page 70 (Jason Aronson inc, Northvale, 1998)
[24] Fenton, P: The Treatise of the Pool: Al-Maqala al-Hawdiyya. London,
Octagon Press, 1981. Page 10