Ototenu: Yehuda Al-Harizi's Words Renewed

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Dhikr: The Remembrance of G-d

Introduction

   Each “school” of mysticism or spirituality has its  own particular “path”— usually derived from the  actual experiences of  its founders and leading members, and  almost always  rooted in what they consider to be an  ancient tradition. This  is  as true of the Jews who formed our Pietist movement in Mediaeval Cairo,  as it is  of the Safed Kabbalists, the  Christian Desert Fathers, Carmelites,  and Carthusians— or of the Sufis  of Islam.

    That Juan de la Cruz,  Rabbenu David ben Joshua Maimuni, Ibn Arabi, and Rumi  should share the same (or very similar)  spiritual experiences should  not be surprising— as each of them was trying to meet the  same G-d seen through different lenses.  The  source of their similar experiences  was not so much  an ancestral or tribal culture or a monolithic mesorah, but their personal experience of contact with the  Divine: the  True Teacher: whatever language, text, or method  might  be  used as  a medium of communication and  instruction.

   Some  founders of these “schools” leant heavily on traditional texts  and methods, others made their connection to ancient practice rather more symbolic; being perhaps  less afraid of innovation, they might take a basic traditional principle and then develop it using their creative (and sometimes inspired) imagination.

  Whatever the  ratio of adherence to tradition’s known details in relation to  such  “re-imagining” and “renewal”: each Kabbalistic School, Sufi Tariqa, or Christian monastic Order has its own distinct focus and  methods—an ethos and  a set of principles and  practices which it encourages its members to use and  promote as a way to develop their own truly personal and individual journey.  Tariqa Eliyahu is no exception to this general rule.

   The Egyptian Hasidim of the  mediaeval era were the   first flowering of a fully-fledged  “movement” in  Jewish-Sufism. (The sufi-derived work of Ibn Paquda gained great popularity but it never produced a “movement”.)  Like our  Cairene forebears in  the movement, our Tariqa seeks  to “reimagine”  the elements of spiritual practice that may have  been elements in the  curriculum (as it  were) of the biblical  Bnei haNevi’im (the Sons of  the Prophets). 

  The use of our imagination in forming our “path” is necessary because the historical evidence of that biblical curriculum is minimal.

  We can, however, be certain when identifying the  two main elements in the path of the Bnei haNevi’im:

KHALWA (solitude/retreats/contemplation)

 and 

SEMA (Music/chanting).

SEMA (music and  chanting) is given a secondary and preparatory role in our Tariqa. Music was undoubtedly of great significance to the Sons of the  Prophets and  also to the  mediaeval Egyptian pietists and we have many mentions  of   such “Sufic” musical performance in the  Maimuni texts.*1

 Such music was designed to induce ecstatic experience,expanded consciousness, and various levels of prophetic inspiration.  In our meetings  we begin with a short period of mantra chanting (sometimes with instruments  and  movement) but, for our “sober” tariqa, music or chanting is almost always featured  as a comparitively brief introduction to a  much longer period of silent worship and  contemplation).

   Instead, we have chosen to make KHALWA  our  principal focus  and practice: taking its various stages and  forms from the  categories given by Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam  in the Kifaya—namely:

(i) Extended Retreat:  in full isolated seclusion;

(ii) Periodic Retreat: involving short term residence and incubation in shrines, synagogues, or meditation cells;

(iii) Domestic Retreat: where the term refers to  solitary  contemplation and supererogatory devotions performed at home as vigils or during other times of the day;

 (iv) Interior Retreat: the development of a ‘shiviti consciousness’ of the  Divine  Presence at times of private  devotion or (ultimately) at all times and in all situations (khalwat dar anjuman/khalwa batina). 

To these we have  added a  ‘new ’ practice derived from the  writings  of R.Abraham He-Hasid:^*2

(v) Communal Retreat:  the practice of  regular meetings for silent contemplation as a Tariqa congregation.   Such communal khalwa is practiced  at our weekly meetings in Safed and is based on priciples related  to the three-day  “preparation and sanctification” of the  Jewish nation at Sinai. Thus,in a very real sense, we regard it as being a renewed practice rather than  a wholly innovatory one.

   But there is  a form of Sufic practice that involves both Khalwa-meditation and Sema-music and  chanting  simultaneously. Furthermore, it  is performed both by the individual on retreat and  by the community when it meets  as a congregation— This practice  is known as  DHIKR, a term variously translated as “Invocation”  or “Remembrance”.

 What follows is  a brief exposition of the  way our Tariqa understands this  term.  It is not a comprehensive  study or a scholarly academic essay— rather it is intended as an introductory text,written for the  benefit of new members: some  of whom may have had a limited experience or knowledge of Sufi practice before attending our meetings. 

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What is Islamic-Sufi  Dhikr?

  The term has several nuances in Islamic Sufism. It can mean the recitation of  Divine Names/ Attributes; the  repetition of any  mantra-phrase as an act of worship, ritual concentration or trance inducement; the repetitive chanting of a short text practiced to  remove  all focus on oneself,on sensation, or on rationation—all  in the attempt to  focus on G-d Alone.  In these ways: one hopes to make some  kind of ‘anamnesis’ of the Ineffable One, immanent somehow— in/through the contemplative action of one’s soul/heart.

  Many Islamic-Sufi tariqas perform set dhikr mantras vocally,often in combination with movements of the upper body, and  often over long periods of intense performance.  Some dance or sway.  Others recite  Divine Names or  religious phrases silently and without movement; sometimes using  beads to count repetitions  and  cycles.

   The term can also refer to the silent and attentive act of focussing on such Names or Phrases (through visualisation and/or mental audition) ceaselessly.*³

It is this state of intimate relationship/union with the Divine in every moment that is also  the aim of Jewish-Sufi practice: Rabbenu Abraham Maimuni refers  to it as wusul (arrival/attainment/gnosis)

  In his  Shaarei Tzedek, an anonymous Abulafian [thought by some  to be R. Shem Tob Ibn Gaon] described the dhikr method of the  Sufis  that he  observed in Palestine in 1295 as follows:

“They chant the  Name of G-d ( Allāh,as it is  in the the language of Ishmael)...when they pronounce  these letters they direct their thought completely away from every possible ‘natural form’, and  even away from the letters of the name “Allāh” themselves  ... They are  carried off into  a trance without  realising how, [which is  remarkable] since no  Kabbalah has been transmitted to them. They refer to this removal of  all forms and  images from the  soul: Effacement. (mahw)” *⁴

   The author there regards the  sufic method as being “vulgar”, and makes the  point that there are higher forms of Hazkarah— and then  proceeds to outline  the  linguistic methods of his teacher, R. Abraham Abu-l’Afia (1240-1291).   The author regards “the permutations and combinations of letters and  the mysticism of numbers” to be  a higher form of dhikr than mantra style dhikr.  As Jewish-Sufis we might  well disagree with him. *⁵

   We are  fortunate that we have an entire manuscript on the  subject of  Islamic-Sufi  dhikr from the  pen of Ibn Atā Allāh al-Iskandari (1259-1309).  Al-Iskandari was a follower of the Shadhili path,*⁶ —and so we can assume that  he will be  referring to the  Shadhili dhikr practice common at the time  our movement was flourishing in his  part of Egypt.

 A few selected passages from his Miftah al Falah (The Key to Salvation)*⁷ can  thus shed some  welcome  light on (i) Islamic dhikr practice in mediaeval Egypt;and (ii) what we can therefore  assume  to be the actual  dhikr practice that the Jewish Egyptian Pietists were observing and  copying:

“Remembrance  may be  with the tongue,with the  heart, or with the  members of the  body”  Miftah al Falah p46

Quoting Al-Ghazali,he writes: “Dhikr is an inner reality in which the  Invoked takes possession of the  heart while the invoker is effaced and  vanishes.” Miftah al Falah p47

“Dhikr is  like a fire that neither stays nor spreads.  When it enters a  House it says “It is I-there is  noone  else but Me” Miftah al Falah p48

“When you invoke God Most High, all who hear you invoke with you,because you invoke with your tongue,then with your heart,then with your soul,then with your spirit, then with your intellect,then with your innermost self.....When you invoke with your heart, the universe and  all of God’s worlds therein invoke with your heart...When you invoke  with your innermost Self..the invocation is united with the  Essence.” Miftah al Falah p51

What is Jewish-Sufi  Dhikr?

Not surprisingly, given the cross-culturally shared nature of advanced spiritual experience—and of Divine inspiration itself— almost all of the Islamic-Sufic principles mentioned  above would  also apply in venerable Jewish practice.  This practice is  referred to in Midrash Shir HaShirim and Midrash Otiot Rabbi Akiva.  The concept of the  99 Beautiful Names of G-d recited during Islamic dhikr may thus  be strongly  related  to the Judaic  “70 Names of G-d”  and  quite possibly, in a sense, derived from them. 

 The recitation of Divine  Names is  also a  key element in Hekhalot mysticism, and its sixth century practioners actually used the  term ‘Hazkir’ when describing the recitation of such Names.

R. Aryeh Kaplan cites a Merkavah text from Hekhalot Rabbatai as follows:

“The  text presents  a mystical ‘name’ of God, which is  actually a  rather long phrase consisting of a number of mystical words or names. The  instruction says that this phrase must be repeated 120 times, again and  again.” *⁸

Though Ibn Pequda describes such invocation of Divine  Names in his Hidāya *⁹ (where he  uses the  exact  word ‘dhikr’ —the principal reference that we have to such a practice in the extant literature of the  Egyptian Jewish Pietists comes from Rabbenu Abraham HeHasid who writes:

“The spiritual world can be reached through the  practice of external and internal piety, passionate  love of G-d, and  delight in the  invocation of His Holy Names” *¹⁰

Nevertheless we can divine similar   hints  concerning the practice in a few other places.    Referring to fragmentary texts concerning  Jewish Pietist vigils,  R. Russ-Fishbane writes that these fragments:

“...mention the constant remembrance or mentioning (dhikr) of God. Obadiah cited the verse from Isaiah 62:6: “... take no rest, all you who mention the Lord” (... ha-mazkirim et ha-shem al domi lakhem). See also ENA NS 10 (laminated 46), 1, verso, ll. 3–5, published by P. Fenton, “A Pietist Letter from the Genizah,” HAR 9 (1985), 162. Another key source is the composite text published by Fenton, “A Mystical Treatise on Prayer,” 156, in which meditation on divine majesty and the remembrance of His name (dhikr ismihi) leads to love that brings one to spiritual union (al-tauhị̄d ‘alā al-haq̣īqah).” *¹¹

   It therefore seems incontestable that the Pietists practiced mantra hazkarah privately.  But there is  no evidence (as yet!) that they held congregational dhikr events such as ours in Tariqa Eliyahu.

  The  scholars  have frequently pointed out that the lack of evidence  may have  been because of (a) reticence  in publishing matters  that deal with any spiritual practice “using” Holy Names (even though such use was never theurgic magic but always a method of contemplative concentration (khalwa); or (b)because of a concern that the exposure of such a  “sufi”  practice might  induce alarm from the  more fanatically conservative members of  the general Jewish comunity, bent on witch-hunting for  traces of supposed avodah zara; or (c) because the outrage of  those who vehemently   opposed the  Maimuni nagidim’s Jewish-Sufi reforms in toto for purely political reasons might result in  religious  and  civil censure and punishment. 

   We can, however be certain that the Cairene Pietists will have observed Sufi sema  and dhikr rituals  closely: both in shared retreats at the  Muqattam Mountains and in Fostat generally, as it was a densely populated  city of multi-storey buildings with countless open windows.  The  air would  have  been full of  the sounds of Islamic-Sufis engaged in vocal dhikr, and there is incontestable  evidence that there was also an Islamic-Sufi zawiyya in the Jewish Quarter of Cairo itself during Rabbenu Abraham’s nagidship.

 

  In his detailed and panoramic essay: Sufis and Jews in Mamluk Egypt,  Professor Paul Fenton lists many of the Islamic-Sufi exemplars whose presence in Cairo must have had a significant role in the development of the Jewish Pietist movement in Ayyubid and Mamluk times. He mentions (for example) the poet ‘Umar Ibn al-Farid (d. 1235), Abu l-Ḥasan al-Shadhili (1196-1258) Ahmad al-Badawi (1199-1276), Abu l-Abbās al-Mursī (1219–1287), and Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari (1259-1309). Furthermore the existence of numerous manuscripts  by these authors in the  Cairo Geniza ( a receptacle for  honoured texts) indicates the  respect and  value that the Jews placed on these sufic texts.  That they studied them is thus evidential.  We already know  from the works of the  Maimuni family that they quoted and paraphrased them extensively in their own writings.*¹²

 

Dhikr Mantras

“Let whosoever desires the benefits of dhikr follow the  established texts.”

Al Iskandari*¹³

    We do not know which specific texts or Divine Names might have  been used by the Egyptian Pietists in their  devotions and retreats, but in our Tariqa we have collected certain biblical or prayer-book texts that lend  themselves to choral or private recitation as mantras.

   These include:  Ad-nai melech, Ad-nai malach, Adonai yimloch l’olam va’ed; Ani l’dodi v’dodi li; Ein Kel-heinu; Ana Ad-nai hoshiana; and Ribono Shel Olam. In our meetings  we have  a special litany of mantras and  a formula for their use. Prominence in that litany is given to the  Elijan Mantra ( Ad-nai Hu Ha Elokim) but we also recite mantras that focus on the Divine Name “Hu” and some  of its variations. In Islamic-Sufi rites the name “Hu” is  often performed as a breathing exercise and  as a method whereby the practitioner can cease thinking and start encountering, as it were.

  In Chapter Four of the Miftāh al Falāh, Al-Iskandari  tells us  that the  two most commonly used and  most praiseworthy Sufi mantra texts  are (i) the  Name  of God (Allāh)  and (ii) the statement “There is  no G-d but God”  (lā ilāha illa ‘llāh) so one can assume that in the thirteenth century these will have been the dhikr phrases  with which the  Cairene Jewish-Sufis  will have  been most familiar. It is most unlikely that they will have used this precise name and formula, but highly likely that they will have adapted the Sufi method and form of meditation connected to them. 

  The second of those above-mentioned forms is  the  first line of the  Shahada, and our “Elijan Mantra” with which we end our Tariqa’s Vocal Dhikr  litany —(Ad-nai Hu Ha Elo-kim, sometimes: Ad-nai Hu, Ad-nai Hu, Ad-nai Hu, Ha Elo-kim)—is a Hebrew partner to that Shahada text.

Our  “Elijan Mantra”  also contains the  Hebrew word “Hu” (He) which is both a Jewish and an Islamic Divine  Name — a serendipitous connection that we explored at length  in the previous essay Jewish Sufi Dhikr for  Yom Kippur. (https://jewishsufis.blogspot.com/2023/09/jewish-sufi-dhikr-for-yom-kippur.html)

  The arabic term Hu (He), sometimes appearing in the form Huwa or Hua,  has always been a Divine  Name of the  greatest significance in  Islamic-Sufi dhikr practice. In Judaism, the capitalised hebrew word Hu (He) has been regarded as a Divine Name  since Talmudic times (at the  very least). In Shabbat 104a we read:

ה"ו - זה שמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא

Heh vav: That is the principal name of the Holy One, Blessed be He.

 

  It is because of the great significance of the  “sufic” Name   “Hu/Huwa” that we have  made a Judeo-Arabic phrase by Yehuda al-Harizi (1165-1225)  the signature dhikr mantra of our Safed group.   We will share  more on that shortly, b’ezrat HaShem, in a forthcoming essay.

The  Dhikr of Simplicity

In Vocal Dhikr one frequently  encounters a process of progressive simplification from longer phrases,through a “personal” Name  to the  more abstract “He”— a process which  may be reflected in the format of the litany performed during congregational Dhikr.  But such a progression is equally significant with regard to a salik’s contemplative meditations in private.  Indeed, Al-Iskandari actually suggests that once one  has approached  a trance like  state,one  may use sounds rather than letters or words.  He writes:

“He is  subject  to whatever  comes over him among the  sum total of the  divine mysteries. Hence there  might flow from his  tongue Allāh,Allāh,Allāh or Hu,Hu,Hu, or lā  lā lā lā or a a a a a, or āh āh āh āh, or a sound  without  any letter or noise. His behaviour, therefore is  to submit to the  inspiration.   After the  passing of the  inspiration he  should  be  very quiet.

These are  the  rules of conduct for the one  who needs to invoke  with the  tongue. As for the  one  who invokes with the  heart,he is  in no need of these rules. *¹⁴

Al-Ghazali (1057-1111) made a similar comment about the  process of simplification  from texts to single  words, and  from forms to essence, in his Ihya ulum ad-din:

He will endeavour to fix his thought on nought else but the word Allāh. Then, after having settled in his retreat, he will continuously repeat the word Allāh, concentrating to such a degree that he ceases to pronounce the word which will henceforth flow upon his tongue (...) Then the word's form, its letters and its writing will be absorbed into his mind, only the meaning remaining (...) *¹⁵

This progressive simplification of mantras used in dhikr and  the  notion of liberation from texts,forms, and  names are of great importance in our own Tariqa and  it is to a brief account of our own practice that we will now turn.

The Practice of  Dhikr/Hazkarah in Tariqa Eliyahu

  You will remember that the  term dhikr refers to remembering or to the invocation of the  Divine. In the Islamic texts  the various forms of “invocation” are listed in several categories and subcategories.  We also have  a ladder of progression on this path which might be outlined, in ascending order (whether performed in a congregational or a solitary setting) as follows:

 

Our Tariqa’s   “Ladder of  Invocation”

(i) The vocal recitation of  Sacred texts or Divine Names;

(ii)The silent recitation of Sacred texts or Divine Names;

(iii)The silent contemplation of the  Divine;

(iv)The total surrender to the  Divine in receptive and  attentive contemplation.   

 

 The third and  fourth rungs on this  ladder take  place in our period of silent dhikr—most often during solitary retreat or devotions (khalwa)— though there is  no reason to doubt that the wusul/encounter that  they represent  may also be possible during  our communal khalwa.

There is also a level of attainment/Divine  blessing that  we might  call a “shiviti consciousness” that can take  place anywhere and  anytime.

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 dhikr-hazkarah when  he  writes:

“Do not speak without first thinking, and do not cease from the practice of the remembrance (dhikr) of G-d.” *¹⁶

  In Tariqa Eliyahu’s meetings, though we make  use of  some movement, postures,and elements  of breath-control in our short VOCAL dhikr:  in our SILENT dhikr we do not specify any motions, breathing exercises, or postures, or indeed any methodology at all. In our usual meetings, we balance fifteen minutes of vocal recitation with thirty to forty of silent free contemplation. 

  In our focus on this  higher form of silent dhikr— physical movement becomes irrelevant and we follow the  Jewish-Sufi mesorah that insists: silent dhikr 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 dhikr rather well.

  Speaking of the Schools of the  Prophets while  engaged in vocal dhikr,  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. *17 

  In the  same passage, R. Hayim Vital underscores how the deepest form of contemplation that follows this vocal preparation (correlating to our third and  fourth rungs) 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. *¹⁸

 

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 rung on our Tariqa’s   Ladder of Invocation.

 

THE DHIKR OF SILENCE

   During the silent dhikr 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  dhikr 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  Dhikr of Silence.

   This  fourth rung on our Ladder refers to the process and  method that forms  the core of the Kuntres Maarat HaLev, a booklet written  in 2005 before I had studied anything related to Sufic contemplation techniques and  Dhikr.In retropect,I can now  see it was describing and promoting the  very same dislocation from thought and  forms during meditation that Al-Iskandari  (and possibly Hayim Vital) described and  promoted. 

The relevant passage is as follows:

         

In order to meet G-d in private contemplation,
we really only need to do one simple thing: 
We need to make some time 

 to be with Him Alone

and give Him our undivided and loving attention.

Contemplative Prayer is giving G-d a chance to speak to us/do something to us.

It is not about us, it’s about Him. 

 הרפו ודעו כי־אנכי אלקים

   — BE STILL and  KNOW  that I AM G-D—
(Psalm 46)
 
The method is simply:
Stand or sit in His Presence;
Make space inside yourself for Him to act;
Then listen with focus to whatever He may have to say to you,
personally and individually.

     

The  Cave of the  Heart-Kuntres Maarat HaLev page 31

 

In recent weeks I discovered a beautiful  passage which describes what lies beyond even that process of receptive audition, a passage  that describes how the contemplative may  ultimately enter that state I refer to as the  Dhikr of Silence:

“What has been created disappears, and  the only true subject,the  everlasting God,is as He had been and  will be. This is  the  goal of dhikr, as formulated by Junayd;centuries later the  Naqshbandiyya would  teach that the  end of dhikr without  words is contemplation (mushāhada), in which the  subject and object are  eventually,indiscernable. “True dhikr is that you forget your dhikr”,says Shibli. Since even the  word or thought  “Oh God!” implies the consciousness of subject and object, the  last mystery of recollection is  complete silence.” *¹⁹

The  very same  state is   described by R. David ben Joshua Maimuni (1335-1414) in his Murshid:

...during the final station, the soul sinks so deeply into love that it is no longer aware either of itself or of its love. Indeed, when the lover reaches the stage where he declares: ‘I am my beloved and my beloved is I’, he loses awareness of his own self due to the contemplation of the object of his love, which occupies him to such an extent that he perceives nothing except [that which he perceives] through his Beloved.” *²⁰

  Once again, this demonstrates a shared contemplative  experience in both the  Jewish and the  Islamic streams  of Sufi thought.

 

 

©Nachman Davies

August 27^th  2024

Safed

 

NOTES

*1  R.Abraham ben HaRambam  writes in the  Kifaya:

 “In order to attain inner solitude that leads to communion [with God] (al-khalwah al-bātinah al-mu’asṣilah ̣), the prophets and their followers used musical instruments and melodies, seeking to arouse the appetitive faculty toward [God], may He be exalted, and to empty the mind of anything but Him.”   (Rosenblatt, II: p384)   

We should take  note  of the  way in which the  former musical activity is here presented as  a prelude to the  activity of receptive  contemplation: this is  also reflected in the  format of our Safed Group’s meetings.

*2   Rav Abraham HeḤasid (Abraham ibn Abi’l-Rabi ) d.circa 1223, teacher and  colleague  of R. Abraham ben HaRambam (1186-1237).

*3 Our term  shiviti consciousness refers to a popular meditational text that may appear at the top of a siddur page: or on a calligraphic plaque  just above Psalm 67 in the form of a menorah.  The text reads: “I will set HASHEM  before me always.” (Psalm 16:8).  Some take the shiviti concept it illustrates literally and attempt to hold the letters of the Tetragrammaton in their minds, others regard it as a purely ethical statement. Some others regard  it as a description of the contemplative practice of maintaining  a more-or-less constant awareness of the Presence of  G-d.

*4 Shaarey Tzedek (Jerusalem ms 8o 148 59b) quoted in Scholem G, Major trends in Jewish Mysticism, Shocken, 2011. p147 

*5  Consequently we have placed  vocal and  silent  mantra recitation in the  primary position during vocal  dhikr with regard to methodology (though our principal contemplative method will always  be  receptive silence.)  The Abulafian  methods of Haskarah are similar to Sufic practice when it  comes to choreography and  breathing  control, but they are very closely bound  to letters and often to writing. Traditional Sufi practice also makes use of  letters—including the  visualisation of Divine  Names— but it aims to go beyond them both, in a somewhat less intellectual fashion, through the  repetition of simple mantras: bypassing both cerebral language-focus  and even (as it were) the  Names themselves.    To me personally: an intuitive  and somewhat visceral approach seems  to resonate with the tambourine tapping,dancing, and chanting of the  biblical Bnei Neviím more than with an image  of them  sitting down with a pen and  paper to meditate.

R. Abu-l’Afia’s  methods may frequently differ from ours in form and detail, but they also have  much in common, and  they share  the  same ultimate aim  as those of the Jewish-Sufis: namely the  attainment of  some profound  form of union with the  Divine through the  development of  prophetic skills.....  Therefore: our Tariqa members may well find  the Abulafian methods to be  a supportive  adjunct in their personal contemplative  practice.

*6  Abu l-Hasan al-Shadhili (1196-1258)—one of the  greatest  Sufi Shaykhs in Egypt— was known to have discussions with the Jews of Cairo. Though his official lodge was in  Alexandria, he had  a Jewish optician in Cairo and  it seems  extremely likely to me that he might  have met Rabbenu Abraham (in his capacity as Leader of the  Jewish community there)  or  other  members of his circle.

*7 Ibn Iskandari trans. M.A.Koury Danner, The Key to Salvation (Miftah al Falah), Islamic Texts  Society,Indiana, 1996)

*8 A.Kaplan ,”Jewish Meditation”,Schocken Books, New York,1985, p 56   The mention of counting might suggest the  use of  knot or bead chains reminiscent  of Hesychast eremitic usage and also of the  Muslim tasbih.   Once  again, cross-cultural sharing amongst contemplatives in  different traditions is a highly likely possibility.

 In another fascinating and  related comment,this time on the  use of mantra techniques by the  Safed Kabbalists, R. Kaplan writes:

 “In sixteenth century Safed,for example,there is  mention of  a technique known as gerushin,which appears to consist in repeating a biblical verse over  and  over as a sort of mantra.   Besides bringing the  meditator into a  higher state of consciousness,the  purpose of the  technique was to provide him with deeper insight into the  verse itself.  As he repeated the  verse  it would  eventually appear as if the  verse itself were telling the initiate  its  meaning. Rather than studying or analysing the verse, the  meditator would then be communing with it.” (op cit. p56).

   This would  mean that gerushin was not only comparable  to Dhikr recitation—but also that it resembled our own technique  known   as  “Hegyon HaLev”.   One also wonders if the  practice may have a Sufic origin as we know the Safed Kabbalists at that time  were living in a  city and region  full of  Sufi practitioners. 

*9  Ibn Pequda, Kitāb al-Hidāyah ilā Farā’id ̣ al-Qulūb, ed. Y. Qafiḥ (Jerusalem: Yad Mahari Qafih, 1991), p 423 ̣ –4,

*10   P.Fenton, Some Judaeo-Arabic Fragments by Rabbi Abraham he-Haṣīd, the Jewish Sufi, JSS 26 (1981), p50

*11  E.Russ- Fishbane, Judaism,Sufism,and  the  Pietists  of Medieval Egypt, OUP, 2015, Page 105

*12  see our essay at:

https://jewishsufis.blogspot.com/2023/01/islamic-and-jewish-sufis-in-mediaeval.html

*13  Al Iskandari, The Key to Salvation (Miftah al Falah),  p73

*14 Al Iskandari,The Key to Salvation (Miftah al Falah),  p 72.

*15 P. Fenton, Solitary Meditation in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism in the Light of a Recent Archeological Discovery, ME 1 (1995) p283

* 16 P. Fenton, Deux traités de Mystique juive, p300

*17 P. Fenton, Solitary Meditation in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism, p290

*18 P. Fenton, Solitary Meditation in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism, p290

*19 A.Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam,University of North Carolina Press,Chapel Hill,1975

*20  P. Fenton, Deux traités de Mystique juive;Lagrasse: Éditions Verdier; 1987. p.288

 

 

 

Introducing the Jewish-Sufi Group of Safed

 

 

TARIQA ELIYAHU HA NABI

Tariqa Eliyahu is a  global  Jewish-Sufi group for religious Jews who wish to renew and develop the  contemplative practices of the Mediaeval Egyptian Hasidic Movement—a group  that flourished in the 13th to the  15th centuries. 

In the  mediaeval era, the  Egyptian Hasidic Movement’s  leaders included R. Abraham He-Hasid (d.circa 1223), and several members of the  Maimonides dynasty [R.Abraham ben HaRambam (1186–1237 ), R.David ben Abraham Maimuni (1222- 1300), R.Obadya Maimuni (1228–1265), and  R. David ben Joshua  Maimuni (1335–c.1414 )].

R.David ben Abraham Maimuni actually visited Meron and both he and R.Abraham ben HaRambam  are  buried next to Maimonides in Tiverya. 

With such strong leadership, the  movement became  extremely popular, and it spread from Cairo throughout Palestine  and  Syria—flourishing  for over three hundred years.

Though  much of its literary output was in handwritten  Arabic (and  thus largely  lost to us save  in Genizah fragments)  its legacy impacted the contemplative practices of  those Galil hasidim who were to develop Safed’s mystical brotherhoods in the  sixteenth century.  The Egyptian Pietists were not focused on the cosmology and theosophy of the  sefirotic kabbalah that became  Safed’s  most popular mystical system— but instead, they were almost totally concerned with devotional and ascetic contemplative  practice.  

Most remarkably, They were Jews, but they quoted Islamic texts (including sections  from the  Quran and Hadith), and openly borrowed the  ritual and contemplative manuals and poetic  texts of  the Islamic  sufis whose devotion they admired.

WHY DID THEY DO THIS?

They did  it  because they believed those contemplative texts had preserved something that was originally Jewish.

Specifically: They did  it  because they believed that the  ascetic and contemplative practices of the Biblical B’nei Nevi’im  (Schools of the  Prophets) had been lost to Judaism but had been preserved in Islamic Sufism—and they sought to restore, renew, and develop those practices in Judaism. 

 Their aim was to prepare the Movement’s members  to attain a personal and intimate state of   marifah/intuitive gnosis and  contemplative “nearness to G-d” that would hasten the  return of prophecy to Israel.

Those same spiritual perspectives and aims—and  that same respect for  the texts and practices of Islamic Sufism— are the  core principles of  our own century’s “Tariqa Eliyahu”... and they are also essential features  of our newly formed group in Safed. 

You can read  much more  about the history, aims, and practices  of our global Tariqa on our website HERE

 

THE SAFED JEWISH SUFI GROUP

In June 2024, Tariqa Eliyahu inaugurated a local branch in Tzfat (Safed) in Northern Israel.    This group meets weekly in the Old City for an hour of  contemplative prayer (Silent Dhikr/Hazkara) in a  Jewish-Sufi mode.

 

REGULAR MEETINGS

The main element of our meetings  is  the practice of  SILENT DHIKR  (silent congregational contemplation).  We do not offer “guided meditations”, we do not teach or learn “meditation”.  We do not offer courses of study on religious or contemplative  matters. We do not present  what we do as a form of “therapy” or “self improvement”.

Such practices are attractive and  have  their place in one’s spiritual development— but they can also  distract from our simple attentiveness to the  Divine  Voice. And  that receptive attentiveness to the “still small voice” is  the Heart of  our Elijan Tariqa.

In classic Sufic tradition, and in reference to the musical practice of the Bnei Nevi’im—meetings  begin with a very short vocal Dhikr unit (mantra recitation) and (on special occasions) a brief Sohbet lesson or discussion.  At the  start of the  meeting this  might also assist the members to transition from their busy world and interior noise to the calm and receptive  mode of the silent Dhikr/Hazkara that follows. For that, we simply sit together in silent contemplation for  between  thirty minutes to an hour....and leave  in silence.  Anyone who wishes to leave before the  end of the  silent dhikr period  may do so.

At our meetings we do not discuss or describe our personal and individual  contemplative experiences or practices with the group—they are matters  to remain secret or shared only with one’s own spiritual director.  At our meetings  we simply perform the Tariqa´s specific Vocal Dhikr together (in unison) and  then maintain a period of  congregational silence.

What one does during that silence is left completely to the individual. Discretely and without causing disturbance to the  others, one may sit, kneel, stand,or prostrate at will. 

We wish to  make our Group’s   meditational process to be  something that is experienced privately  in the hearts of the members—an educational process whose direction and form is left entirely up to G-d who is our  true Teacher and Master.  

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From what you  have  just read, you  will now appreciate  that we are  not a group of “New Age” hippies, nor are we culture-based "sufi-jews".  We are religious Jewish-Sufis of the  School of Abraham ben HaRambam. But the Safed Jewish-Sufi Group has its own distinct adab (format and character) because attendance at our meetings is open to anyone who receives  our invitation to attend.

Though  our core members are religious observant Jews, and  though the   texts we use paraliturgically  are Jewish (Classical Hebrew or Judeo-Arabic)—the Safed group also welcomes participants  — from  all religions  and none—who respect that core ethos  even if they do not follow it themselves.

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SO WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

 

*Opportunities for Torah study and meditational courses and events  are legion  and readily available in  Tzfat already.   Our function supplements rather than replicates them.

 

*For some  people who are not intellectually or academically inclined, or who are uncomfortable with long verbal synagogue services, it may actually provide a non-liturgical but  much needed way to meet G-d in a community setting.  Being a paraliturgical event with no formal services, it also enables the full egalitarian participation of  both men and  women in one shared practice.

 

*Individual Khalwa (retreat) in solitary hitbodedut at one’s home or at a secluded location is  always  going to be  the ideal Jewish-Sufi practice, as is stressed especially in the  Kifaya of R.Abraham ben HaRambam and the  Murshid of R.David ben Joshua— but reclusive or calm environments are not available to many who live in crowded areas; whose shuls are busy sociable places;  or whose domestic and  business situation does not provide much space or time  in which to develop this  form  of  solitary prayer.  Our meeting environment  and practice might  provide them with this.

 

*Others who are maybe beginning the practice of contemplative  prayer might find  extended retreat or lengthy contemplative silence difficult to manage—and  for  them our practice might offer a gentle introduction to receptive meditative prayer with the  added support and  discipline of  a contemplative community.

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Our weekly regular meetings are held each Wednesday in the  late afternoon— though some  special events  will be  held on Sundays.  If you are visiting Tzfat  and  would  like  to attend, please contact us   using the contact-form on the  sidebar.

   For  the summer months we have  agreed to set the  following simple format for  our weekly Wednesday  meetings:

 

(some  weeks:  the  meetings  begin with ten minutes of business or explanation)

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We  hope to bring together local contemplatives (and would-be contemplatives) from all streams  of Judaism and of  Israeli society: streams whose members can so often be shockingly antagonistic,dismissive,or intolerant  of  one another.

In these times of denominational,sectarian, racial, and political turmoil in Israel (and  globally) it is  hoped that by keeping shared contemplative silence, all religious, sectarian, racial,or political differences may be shelved (however briefly) by the commonly shared  desire  to be personally attentive  to the ‘Voice of  G-d’ within all of us.

 

Let Light dawn in the  world,in our days,

for we wait and  work for  Your Salvation

 

May HaShem grant success to the  work of our hands.

 

Nachman Davies

Safed

May 29 2024 (reposting: July 28 2024)

 

The Communal Khalwa (Hitbodedut) of Sinai

The Divine Revelation of Sinai is unique among recorded instances of prophetic experience because it was a revelation simultaneously received by each and every man,woman, and child present— and not solely by a community’s charismatic Leader and Prophet.

  The prophetic status and capability of Moses was incontestably unique, but even he  wished that all Israel might be prophets,  and  to some  degree we all can be and  will be—if we seek G-d with all our hearts in receptive contemplation.

  Various scholars   have expounded their  views on the differing levels of prophecy that may have  been experienced by the Prophet Moses and by the rest of the Israelite community.[1]  Many of them opine that it was only the initial ‘words’ of that revelation that were ‘heard’ by the entire community.

    Nevertheless, all agree that each and every Israelite  received something inspirational during this  unique group-prophetic event—each in accordance with their own individual capability, perspective, and levels of understanding.

   Exactly how and  what happened might  be imagined—and it is beyond the reach of any pragmatic science or academic research to know such things factually anyway— but the overriding significance of Sinai remains:  It is the recorded statement that all the people were united in a  shared prophetic event of such momentous power that it created a religion that has survived to the  present  day.

But there is  more.

The  Sinai event is  not  just  something momentous  that happened in the  past.  It can be experienced anew in our own times — and maybe  we are  actually obliged to make that happen.

With the  aid of some Jewish-Sufi genizah texts, this  short essay hopes to show  you why that is  so.

 

Why am I writing  this essay now?

  In 2022 I inaugurated TariqaEliyahu HaNabi —an online, predominantly anglophone, Jewish-Sufi confraternity with the  aim of studying, renewing, and developing  the special path (suluk al- khass) of  the Jewish Sufis of the Egyptian Pietist movement.[2] 

Its special focus and area of activity was the  development of contemplative gnosis through ascetic practices which they believed were derived  from those of the   biblical Bnei HaNevi’im (Schools of the  Prophets). They held that these practices had been lost to Judaism  but preserved by the  Sufi movement of Islam.  It was their aim to reclaim and restore these contemplative  practices to Judaism [3]— in order to prepare  for  the return of prophetic ability to Israel.  This  is also   the  stated aim and practice of  our Tariqa Eliyahu.

  Although it has a fundamentally Orthodox perspective/adab, the  members of Tariqa Eliyahu actually  come from many Jewish denominations and streams of thought, and  they   include Modern Orthodox, Masorti, and  Reform members; Ashkenazi, Sefardi, and Mizrahi members; Mekubalim, Haredi Chasidim, Progressive Neo-Hasidim,  and Maimonidean  Rationalists.     At the moment,  all our members are  Jewish but some  of them have  also received Islamic-Sufi or Universalist-Sufi initiation before joining our Tariqa.

   Quite unexpectedly (and  as the  group’s Administrator) during the  Omer period I felt it was time to “act locally and  geophysically” as well as “think globally and  online”— and thus  I began the process of forming a local group in Safed.  I began  to gauge local interest for  this project last week and, with the  aid  of a friend or two—we are hoping to inaugurate this  Safed Jewish-Sufi group  in the week before Shavuot.

   There are very specific reasons  for  that pre-Shavuot date which  I  hope will become  clear as you read on. This brief  blogpost is intended to serve as outline preparatory or follow-up reading for those Tzfatim who have expressed an interest in attending our first meeting.

 

Khalwa-Hitbodedut

The mediaeval Jewish-Sufis of the Maimuni dynasty and the Egyptian Pietist   group that they led—all wrote in Arabic, often in Judeo-Arabic which uses Hebrew characters.    In their seminal writings  the  Arabic (and Sufic) term “khalwa” referred variously to (i) concentrated meditation itself; (ii) ascetic  and physical isolation techniques,both short-term and  long term; (ii) the  contemplative practice of solitude generally— whether it is practiced through solitary periods of meditation or through  solitude in the  crowd (khalwat dar anjuman).

 In mediaeval times, the Arabic term khalwa was usually  translated by the  hebrew word hitbodedut  which— in those pre-Breslover days— denoted (i) solitude itself; (ii) reclusion from society; and  (iii) concentrated silent contemplation with all of the Sufic inflexions of the Arabic term readily understood and  appreciated by the  Jewish Pietists.

   Unquestionably (in both Jewish  and  Islamic Sufism) Khalwa is  a term that is most often used with a focus on the individual in solitude or engaged in an interior process of personal meditation.  Some Islamic Sufi orders  practice periods  of silent meditation communally whilst performing zhikr (mantra recitation), [4]  though  for many such groups the term khalwa is used exclusively in reference to the individual process of seclusion. 

    In imitation of Moses and Elijah, the  Jewish-Sufis of mediaeval Egypt  practiced periodic or extended retreats alongside Muslim Sufis in the  Maqqatam mountains outside Cairo.  In imitation of the  Prophet Muhammad, the  Sufis had developed a particularly isolated form of solitary retreat for extended periods (often forty days long, an interesting fact which links that practice to the  Mosaic retreats on Sinai). These isolation retreats were often practiced in extremely confined dark spaces [5] as an intense form  of contemplative practice designed to induce semi-prophetic experiences.

  It is  quite  clear from  the extant writings of the  Maimuni dynasty (and from the  numerous  anonymously written fragments from other Egyptian Pietist authors) that solitary retreat and extended retreat was perhaps the most important and characteristic practice  of the Jewish-Sufi Movement.  It is  clear that they were usually envisaging an individual contemplative  and  ascetic practice performed in as deep a form of reclusion as was deemed individually appropriate:  But did they ever practice such meditation congregationally?    I believe  we have  the hint to a possibly affirmative  answer to that question— in the  writings of Rabbenu Abraham He-Hasid.[6]

The Communal Retreat before 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.” [7]

The Egyptian Pietists believed that the path to such prophetic restoration was Khalwa (solitary retreat and contemplation) Might it be that the one of the forms of Khalwa they had in mind was  a communal re-presentation (an anamnesis-zikarah) of that experience at Sinai?

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 The Judeo-Sufic Texts

In his  1981 paper Some Judaeo-Arabic Fragments by Rabbi Abraham he-Ḥasīd, the Jewish Sufi, Professor Paul Fenton identified,translated, and commented on a group of fragments authored by anonymous mediaeval Jewish Sufis and (most especially) by Rabbenu Abraham HeḤasid (Abraham ibn Abi’l-Rabi’ d.circa 1223).

The texts  contain  Biblical commentaries  that place an original and inspiring Jewish-Sufi interpretation on the  Three-day retreat before Sinai.

   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). [8]

For me, the  key expression for our discussion here is “hakhanah we-qedushah” which Professor Fenton translates as “preparation and sanctification”.  The phrase refers specifically to the  three day period of preparation before the Sinai Revelation.

Here is R. Abraham’s HeHasid’s  phrase in its  context (emphases mine) :

EXTRACT ONE

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. [9]

Meditative Observations: [10]

In Extract ONE  we read  “Recall the "preparation and sanctification" [hakhanah we-qedushah] which I have indicated to you, which is the path that leads to Him”   Might we take  the term “Recall”  literally and liberally and  regard it as an invitation to make  the Prophetic experience  of Sinai actually present (in congregational re-enactment) ?   Might the “path” be taken as a reference to the process of Judeo-Sufic suluk/tariq generally, or  is R. Abraham hinting that the  path of khalwa is some undisclosably-secret and  esoteric practice or  method of prayer that he was transmitting privately to his immediate disciples.  Both possibilities may also be derived from the continuation of this passage cited  below in Extract Five.

 

EXTRACT TWO

A  term that mirrors hakhanah we-qedushah appears later in another fragment (from an anonymous Pietist author) as follows:

"The testimony of the Lord is sure" alludes to the Ten Commandments inscribed on the Tables of Testimony. They are qualified as "sure", since they were imparted to the Israelites' souls through Revelation (kashf), ecstatic vision (mukashafa) and internal illumination (basira  batina) in the highest degree of certainty (yaqin) and the most elevated type of faith(iman),of which there is no higher. Furthermore, the truthfulness [of these commandments] was experienced through a spiritual state and procedure - that is, the procedure of sanctification and preparation" (qedushah we-hakhanah) alluded to in the verse (Ex. xix.10-11) "And they shall be ready... and you shall sanctify them" — and through the unveiling of mysteries, as well as the outpourings of supernal wisdom and inspiration that result from this spiritual state without one's knowing whence or how they derive.  Therefore, they are described as "making wise the simple", for through them he who has attained this state shall become wise. [11] 

 

Meditative Observations:

In EXTRACT TWO  we read “Furthermore, the truthfulness [of these commandments] was experienced through a spiritual state and procedure - that is, the procedure of sanctification and preparation" (qedushah we-hakhanab)”   The author describes the retreat before Sinai as both a “state” and (even more significantly) “a procedure”.   It seems  clear that the  former refers to the  attainment of a state (hal)  or station (maqamat) immediately experienced  before the  reception of the influx that produces  attainment/gnosis/prophecy.  Might the  second  term (“procedure”) indicate  a specific practice of khalwa (as receptive  contemplative  prayer) that was transmitted privately without  any human intermediary as well as by instruction from the Prophet Moses?  Something that was to be deliberately taught in the  Sufi circle  but also experienced privately during the intimacy of silent contemplation.    Again, Extract FIVE  below might hold  the  key — but there is  also a clue  to be  found  in Extract Three which we will now  consider: 

 

EXTRACT  THREE

This third fragment by another anonymous  author from the circle of  R. Abraham HeHasid states (emphases mine) :

"The first chapter in the fundamentals of this Path is (Deut. iv.35) 'Unto thee it was shewed' " Moses here means that this Path, that is the Path of Revelation (kashf), provides knowledge of God and His Oneness, not by manner of induction nor rational enquiry [nazar] into His works and deeds  but through and from God Himself. For the heart's eye perceives that which the [sensual] eye cannot see, nor reason grasp, nor demonstration prove. This is the deeper meaning (yudaq) of the following verse "out of the heavens He made thee to hear His voice that He might instruct thee. His Revelation to thee and thy Path to Him are not those of other nations, but they stem from within thyself towards Him." This is an allusion to the "preparation and sanctification" at Sinai through which thou heardst His voice from the Heavens. [12]

Meditative Observations:

This EXTRACT THREE testifies to the  prevailing Jewish Sufic view that it is dhawq (intuitive knowledge) that trumps all  forms of spiritual seeking and mystical knowledge. But it also traces  a kind of “root” to that practice in the   retreat before Sinai. Most significantly, it stresses that the  True Teacher is G-d Himself and  that His revelation comes to the individual in prayer as well as through the textual and legal revelations  of the  Oral and Written Torah.  One sees this with the  “Eye of the  Heart” and the bakhanah we-qedushah that prepares one  for this—With this reading we might see the  process as the  kind  of training in receptive contemplation I described in  Kuntres Maarat Ha Lev.[13]

 If so, then  we are discussing a specific   preparation for  direct input from the  Divine experienced in meditation. This is a view that is expressed in several  passages from another section from the  fragments under discussion here.  R.Abraham HeHasid  writes:

 

EXTRACT  FOUR (selections)

"And I will make them hear my words that they may learn to fear Me. "To make hear" alludes to the state of unveiling and spiritual illumination (mushahadda)...

Therefore man arrives at this state by means of the heart's vision, illumination and purification...

"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him". (Ps. cxlvii.11) "The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him." For the latter know God through God Himself ...

 For His holy ones see with an internal vision and perceive truth according to its reality. Their grasp of the Most High is intuitive (dawqiyya) and intimate. [14]

By now, I hope the  reader will appreciate the enormous debt we owe to Professor Fenton for translating and  sharing this collection of fragments in one  single collection for  us to reflect on.  

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THE TRANSMISSION OF “THE PATH”

  We now come  to a brief examination of the  most significant section of R.Abraham HeHasid’s message  to us  as latter-day  Jewish-Sufis in Tariqa Eliyahu—and even more crucially— to every single Jew who wants  to be  part of  the  restoration of  Israel’s prophetic intimacy with G-d.

I quote  the text  here as Extract FIVE in R.Elisha Russ-Fishbane’s translation.  Rabbi Abraham HeHasid writes (emphases mine):

 

EXTRACT FIVE

The first meaning grasped by spiritual intuition is the proximity of revelation and the unveiling of outer and inner visions and illumination. The second [verse refers] to the giving of the statutes and laws...

Preserve both of these noble doctrines and practice them, the first of which is the  state of unveiling and revelation through... preparation and  sanctification........ the path of divine attainment which I have explained to you for your benefit and the purifications which I have entrusted to you, by which you may ascend to that state

So bequeath and teach them to your descendants so that they will be an inheritance that will never be severed, such that your descendants will transmit the wayfaring path (tariq al-suluk) received from their ancestors... [15]

Paul Fenton renders  this  passage  as follows:

[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

In footnote Paul Fenton quotes a related passage,but this  time   from R.Abraham ben Ha Rambam:

"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) [16]

Meditative Observations

 It is apparent that both these passages  are talking about  the ”preparation” for transmission of something  that was received at Sinai.     By stressing that there are  TWO aspects of the  Sinai Revelation both of which are to be preserved  and actively transmitted it also seems (to me) to indicate the  hidden agenda of  implying   that the   path of  the bnei ha nevi’im  had been neglected in Jewish practice. 

   I believe  this imbalance in  common Jewish observance  to be  as present today as it was in the   view of the  Egyptian Pietists  of  the mediaeval period.

In Kuntres Maarat HaLev,  I wrote:

Israel’s response at Sinai was, and is: “We will do and we will hear.”  That is most often interpreted with the meaning: Israel hears G-d’s voice by observing the commandments—that the practical action of observing the mitzvot  leads to spiritual understanding. That is most certainly true. But a complementary interpretation occurs to me.

I’m absolutely certain that there are no accidents:

It surely must be of primary significancethat the first commandment in the principal text of Judaism,is Sh’ma!— Listen! —

Judaism has been focussed for centuries on ‘doing’.  But the time is coming when the significance of ‘listening’ will grow in importance. [17]

 

To expand  this  somewhat:

We have Halacha and  Liturgy in abundance....

We study the Written and Oral Torah assiduously....

But in our day:

Where is our religion’s  contemporary practice of Khalwah-Hitbodedut?

 Where is  our contemplative  Hakhanah we-Qedushah ?

These are  questions  we should  all be  asking, not  just in the  Omer lead-up to the  commemoration of  the Sinai Revelation at Shavuot.....but every day and  right now.

 

Should Communal and  Congregational

Khalwah-Hitbodedut,

be restored in Jewish Practice?

*

  I think The Mediaeval Egyptian Pietists quoted above

  would support my answer in the  passionate affirmative...

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A suggestion for Shavuot

  Perhaps the  most immediately apparent  form of  practice to renew and  commemorate the Three Day  Sinai prophetic-preparation period would  be  for Jewish Sufis to engage in an annual  three day retreat immediately before the  festival of Shavuot.

Perhaps  this might  be  an annual community gathering at a retreat centre.

Perhaps it might  be a private practice that Tariqa members could pursue in their  own locations or at a retreat environment of their  choice.

Perhaps the Mediaeval Jewish Sufis may have  actually practiced something  resembling the Sinai retreat like this  already whilst up in the Maqqatam mountains?

 Nevertheless,  because of its connection with Shavuot, it would  seem to me  that a community gathering of Tariqa members Three days  before Shavuot  might  be  a most poignant way to commemorate and  renew the  first Sinai retreat.  It could  then  culminate in some  form of congregational contemplative  event such as a  silent zhikr meeting before or after Shacharit on Shavuot day.

 The fragmentary texts we have reflected on here could  even be the inspirational generator for the  establishment of  an initiatory  or periodic   Formal Khalwa  for individual Tariqa Eliyahu members — a full- on three day individual  isolation retreat in the  manner of an Islamic -Sufic Khalwa in a confined space.

ooo0ooo

But Sinai is not merely a event  that resides in  historical memory—to be  commemorated  only at  Shavuot.  It is  not an event that is recalled only when we are in a synagogue during the  reading of the  Torah.  It also resides in the  memory of each individual Jew and  it  is  recalled every time  an individual hears  the call to attention that is  expressed in the  Sh’ma. 

The mediaeval texts   just quoted refer to the  Torah of the  Heart as well as to the  Torah of Jewish Law and Liturgy. To use R. Obadyah Maimuni’s expression from his Maqala Al Hawardiyya [18]—  It  is the Torah al-haqiqiyya —the real and true essence of the Torah—that the Jewish-Sufi is striving to receive in contemplative prayer. 

The  Voice  which goes out from Sinai  does so every day [19] and  at every moment.

 Our task, our nisayon/training   is to become  aware of that—by sudden or by gradual intuitive  illumination— and  actually listen to it: To be attentive  to that Voice, in some sense, just as we did  at Sinai.  

In  Kuntres Maarat HaLev I put it like  this:

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.

ooo0ooo

 

CONCLUSION

   After years of practicing  and writing about solitary khalwa in reclusion and physical isolation, it is only now, in 2024, that I have considered that  khalwa could (and should) be a communal and congregational practice as well .  Both forms might hasten the day when prophecy returns to Israel as of old. 

  The Sufic 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. 

  In recent  days, I remembered the periods of communal silent and totally undirected meditation that I had engaged in daily as a Carmelite  monk. (long before my conversion to Judaism in 1992).  I remembered also the  clean simplicity of Quaker meetings.   Both these events  made communal silence in deep contemplation the regular form of their meetings—for  the  Carmelites who spent  the majority of their time  alone in their cells they were a daily event:  an hour every morning and  an hour every evening.

   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.

   Spurred on by the above fragments from R.Abraham ben HeHasid and his circle—and inspired by the convergence of my ruminations with the proximate festival of Shavuot............ we have scheduled the first meeting of Tariqa Eliyahu’s Jewish-Sufi Group in Safed to be convened in the days immediately before Shavuot.

Its principal practice on that day?

Silent  congregational contemplation....

no guided meditations,no chatter, no preoccupation with systems or liturgies or performances— just silent shared  hakhanah we-qedushah.

As we read in the Zohar:

“The acts of G-d are eternal and continue for ever.

 Every day the  one  who is  worthy receives the Torah standing at Sinai.

He hears the Torah from the mouth of the Lord as Israel did….

Every Jew is  able to attain that level, the level of standing at Sinai.”  [20]  

 

©Nachman Davies

Safed May 27 2024

 

[1] See the  detailed analysis of Jewish Sufi  theories on what was received,who received it,and the  personal variation in  its reception in  Lobel.D, Moses and Abraham Maimonides Encountering the Divine, Academic Studies Press,2021, Massachusetts—especially Chapter 6.

[2] The Egyptian Pietists were an Oriental/Middle-Eastern Ḥasidic movement centred  on Egypt and later spreading  to the Palestinian and  Syrian region, believed to have been in existence at the time of the Rambam (who was not part of the  movement).

  His son and successor (Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam (1186–1237)  was taught  by the movement’s prolific author and leader, Rav Abraham HeHasid (Abraham ibn Abi’l-Rabi) d.circa 1223.  

Subsequently, R. Abraham ben HaRambam  became one of  the  movement’s authors,leaders,  and dynamic defenders himself, as did  other members of the Maimuni family such as R. Obadyah Maimuni (1228–1265)  and R.David ben Joshua Maimuni (1335–c.1414).  

[3] They believed that these practices were originally Jewish—and  several scholars  make  a convincing  case that they were— but it is also possible that the  Egyptian Pietists were actually being i predominantly innovative,but wished to prevent accusations  of heresy.

[4] Zhikr recitation comes in many forms: vocal or  silent; involving movement and gesture or  performed  statically; sitting or kneeling/prostrated; and often  focussed on Divine Names or short mantra phrases.  The  term also refers to a constant remembrance of the  Divine: as such it bears  a close resemblance to the  Jewish idea of a “shiviti conciousness”  practiced at all times.

[5] The Archeologist Dr. Yossi Stepansky discovered a Sufi Khalwa cell of this  type on Mt Canaan in Safed, which has led to scholarly observation  that the practice was clearly familiar to the  Safed Kabbalists  who may have  been inspired (as were the  Egyptian Pietiests  before them)  to develop such (originally Jewish/Christian) practices in a Sufi manner.

[6] 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.

[7] Joel 3:1

[8] Fenton. P:  Some Judaeo-Arabic Fragments by Rabbi Abraham he-Ḥasīd, the Jewish Sufi, in  JSS 26 (1981), page 57

[9] Fenton P: Some Judeo-Arabic Fragments,  page 66 

[10] These are merely my own  Hegyon HaLev reflections for the reader’s own contemplation, not academic theories about linguistic textual interpretation.

[11] Fenton P: Some Judeo-Arabic Fragments,  page 71

[12] Fenton, P:  Some Judeo-Arabic Fragments,  page 71

[13] Davies, N: “The Cave of the  Heart-Kuntres Maarat HaLev”,KDP Amazon, Safed, 2022 (page 48)

[14] Fenton P:  Some   Judeo-Arabic Fragments,  page 66 &67

[15] Russ-Fishbane E:  Judaism Sufism and  the Pietists of Mediaeval Egypt, OUP, Oxford, (page229)

[16] Fenton P: Some Judeo-Arabic Fragments,  page 66

[17] Davies, N: “The Cave of the  Heart-Kuntres Maarat HaLev”, KDP Amazon, Safed, 2022 (page 57)

[18]  Fenton, P: The Treatise of the Pool: Al-Maqala al-Hawdiyya. London, Octagon Press, 1981.  Page 108

[19] See also Pirkei Avot 6:2

[20] ZOHAR I:90a