.jpg) |
| Carmelite Hermits at the Spring of Elijah on Mount Carmel |
Experiments in Jewish Contemplative Community
Although I was living a solitary lifestyle in the Cave-house in Spain, and although I was making constant intentions that my prayers were for all creation and in union with all Israel, I felt that the kind of dedicated Jewish contemplative lifestyle I was attempting to live ought to be shared and promoted. This was the motivation for spending part of my day writing and engaging in a sort of eremitical outreach online—hoping to find like-minded Jews and form virtual but real community. For several decades I have been running this Jewish Contemplatives website to further this process of outreach.
The Jewish Contemplatives website has always had a dual focus.
Firstly it was created (in
2004) to encourage the practice of solitary meditation and prayer for
all Jews. Secondly it was created
to promote intentional solitary contemplative lifestyles (for
the very small number of observant Jews who felt called to an exceptional lifestyle of extended retreat).
In that
group were included all those who were trying to convert situations of unintentional isolation
or loneliness into an opportunity for constructive prayer—generated by their
desire to make a spiritual contribution to the communal life
of Kehal Yisrael.
But behind all those intentions there was
a greater purpose.
There
is a Jewish tradition that the experience of prophecy (intimate and
receptive communication with the Divine) had been experienced not only by the
biblical prophets, but by every single man, woman, and child who stood at
Sinai. Furthermore, our Sages claimed that there would come a time
when this awareness of the Divine—described as ruach ha kodesh and
various levels of inspirational prophecy—would be restored to Israel and indeed
to all human kind:
“when the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of
the Glory of G-d,
as the waters cover the sea-bed.”
Habakuk 2:14
In a heartfelt
attempt to further this process, in 2005 I wrote
Kuntres Ma’arat Ha-Lev/The Cave of the Heart
which presents a method of contemplative prayer that was conceived as a method of prophetic
training in receptive contemplation.
 |
| Cave of the Heart Frontispiece |
This was followed
by several articles on this website with the same ‘prophetic’ aim, including
one on general Receptive Intuition and
one on a method of intuitive lectio divina called Hegyon Ha-Lev.
In 2007—and principally to attract like-minded practitioners with a view
to forming an online community— I published an short essay entitled Jewish
Hermits in the Desert which I later expanded and issued online in 2012 as Solitude in Jewish Contemplative Practice. In that essay I listed the positive examples set by (i)
certain biblical prophets; (ii) classical era tzadikim who had also been
Jewish solitaries; and (iii) communities like
the Therapeutai who had practiced a communal form of eremitism in
Egyptian monasteries for both male and
female practitioners. I have been
working on a longer publication on the
subject ever since. As with The Song of Caedmon, I may well never
complete the task.
Community building is not my main purpose in
life and I am not very good at it (as you
will see shortly)— the practice
of contemplative prayer and encouraging other solitary contemplatives is my task—but in
order to do the latter I attempted to get the ‘contemplative
community’ ball rolling even though I am aware I lack the leadership skills to take it to
its goal.
In 2008, and with
the assistance of Christine Gilbert (an academic scholar of
Judaism and a lifelong contemplative practitioner), I
inaugurated an online Community
of Jewish Contemplatives aimed specifically at individuals already
practicing an intentional contemplative lifestyle. For this group I ran a website that was not
open to the general public, and for which I wrote weekly Hegyon HaLev commentaries on the Parsha for several years.
But we
never made a minyan—with only seven members in total and only three of us living as full
time solitaries—and so after a
few years I transferred the idea to form a Jewish Contemplatives Facebook Group promoting the original
concepts. The private Community group had been aimed at a tiny minority of Jews
geared to intensely eremitic practice, but the Facebook Group version
was inclusive of all Jews with a personal contemplative practice—a much larger
(and ever growing) catchment group globally.
This was
(initially) more successful (in some ways) but although
the group has around 1,400 members, they are mainly there to support
rather than participate. These days it
is merely a repository for new articles from this Jewish
Contemplatives website.
oo0oo
To describe the third experiment in forming community I
need to jump ahead in time with you
for a moment.
By 2014
I had almost exhausted my private funds and was forced to sell the hermitage in
Salobreña and become a rental tenant. I
relocated to live as part of the vibrant and highly supportive (Spanish
Moroccan) Jewish Community of Torremolinos, where I studied and worshipped. As
mentioned earlier in A Hermit’s Tale, though I had converted to
Progressive Judaism in 1992, I completed an Orthodox conversion in Madrid in
2016— but that is another story for another
time. After making aliyah in 2019, I returned to the intentionally solitary life in Safed in
Israel.
 |
| My former hermitage in Safed 2020-2023 |
In November 2021,
when I was living in deep retreat in that log cabin hermitage in Safed, I
began the third attempt to form a contemplative community by creating a new Jewish-Sufi Tariqa:
Derech
Eliyahu Ha-Nabi (The Way/Path of Elijah
the Prophet).
This group,
as I envisaged it, would have two aims:
(i) to renew and develop the
contemplative practices of a group known as the mediaeval Egyptian Pietists;
and (ii) to join in active participatory and fraternal community with other
Jewish-Sufi contemplatives—both full time solitaries and also
others for whom meditation was a central practice.
At its
heart was the promotion of the
practice of prophetic-receptive
prayer—in an explicitly Sufic manner but from within Judaism.
But the roots of that new community project began
much earlier and date from the very beginning of the period when I was still living in the
cave-hermitage in Spain—in many ways it began even earlier than that— and in this chapter I will now turn to describe
how my encounter with Sufism led to the
formation of that third community experiment.
oo0oo
 |
| Niche and Light in the Spanish Hermitage 2000-2014 |
Up until
2005 the only book I had read on Sufism was Idris Shah’s The
Way of the Sufis [1] (a anthology of short quotations from Classical sources that I treasure to
this day). I remember having seen some photographs somewhere of a Sufi retreat cell in my early youth, a
tiny lattice-fronted cubicle at the back
of a mosque where adepts were sequestered
during forty-day retreats—and I remember being excited by the photographs and by the concept— but I had no
idea of the context at the time.
Apart from that,
and a rather bizarre adolescent dream encounter when I was fifteen [2]
— I had no conscious connection whatsoever with Sufis or Sufism, and my
first contact with Islamic Sufis arose later during the years
I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia.
As readers may remember from PartTwo of this autobiographical sketch—I was a gamelan student taught by teachers (like Pak Rudhatin Brongtodiningrat) who believed that this kind of musical performance was a device to develop rasa (a kind of spiritual intuition that the Sufis call dhawq). Pak Rudhatin’s Jogja kraton-style gamelan teaching was closely related in its methods and intention to kebatinan (the Javanese ‘science’ of ‘inner’ spirituality and mysticism). The Jakartan Gamelan groups with whom I played were also composed of devout Muslims with a strong connection to the Sufi traditions believed to have been brought to Java by the Wali Songgo.
I was well aware of this musical form’s connection with Java’s Sufi past and enjoyed the feeling that, by studying under Pak Rudhatin’s guidance, I was attaching myself to that tradition.
Nobody mentioned Sufism: but the music and our performances were supercharged with it.
There was a common saying that “the gendhing
(the piece being performed) is greater than those
playing it” and this frequently
generated a feeling of being “a willing drop in the ocean being carried along by the
current” in the players. It
literally felt like a metaphor
for fana.
It was
during my years as a gamelan musician in Java in the 1980’s that I first developed the form of
receptive prayer and intuitive practices that were to be described
in Kuntres Maarat Ha Lev/The
Cave of the Heart. I do not
think this contemporaneous connection was mere coincidence. In some way
the former musical experience had opened
the way for the latter spiritual one to arise.
Nevertheless, at that time I had not read any classical
Islamic-Sufi texts and I was totally unaware that there had been Jews—from (at
least) the time of Ibn Pequda onwards— who had read (and
admired) those texts and assimilated and adapted their contents
into Jewish spiritual practice.
My
lack of awareness was about to be
transformed by a dramatic new discovery, and this is
how it happened:
Shortly
after I had written The Cave of
the Heart in 2005, Christine
Gilbert sent me an extract from an academic paper that she thought
might interest me.
It was a study by Professor Paul B. Fenton,[3] the leading academic commentator and translator of the Judeo-Arabic manuscripts of the mediaeval Jewish-Sufi Movement (many of which he discovered and identified himself). The paper was about the son of Maimonides[4]— Rabbi Abraham Maimuni (1186–1237) and the development of an ascetic and contemplative group that he led in Fustat near present day Cairo:—a group now known as the Egyptian Pietists or the Egyptian Hasidim. [5]
I was stunned by the discovery of this group’s existence and began a slow but persistent study of Rabbi Abraham’s Kifaya [6] (in an English translation by Rosenblatt and later by that of R. Wincelberg). This led to further reading on the Jewish-Sufi mode of ascetic practice,mystical theology, and contemplative prayer in the writings of Rabbi Obadyah Maimuni (1228–1265) and other Egyptian Pietists.
I
am not an academic and I am a
very slow learner. This week I read that seminal essay of Professor
Fenton’s again and realised that almost
everything I was to learn was to be found there, it had simply taken decades for me to
gain some real understanding of the meanings of the concepts(especially the Arabic ones) that I had first read
there.
Rabbi Abraham’s
pioneering concepts and principles for the Jewish-Sufi community (outlined
HERE) were developed in the books and fragmentary manuscripts that were penned by
the later members of the Maimuni family and by other Egyptian Hasidim
from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. Many such fragments are still being discovered and identified in
the Cairo Genizah collection as well as other private collections globally.
 |
| Ottoman Sufis |
Q: So what were the
Egyptian Pietist principles and
practices that had inspired me so dramatically?
A:
— I had been avidly formulating and promoting ideas about (i) the
value and practice of solitary
retreat (both partial and long-term) and
(ii) the creation of Jewish eremitical communities—but up until
this point in time (around 2005) I had thought that such ideas had only been
the concern of fringe minorities or exceptional individuals.
The Egyptian Judeo-Sufi movement was no minority fringe endeavour: it
had been large, popular, and influential
for over three centuries throughout Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. It had been promoted by members of the Maimuni family, strong Jewish Community
leaders politically and in religion, who were controversial and opposed by some—
but revered and followed by many.
When I discovered that
this group expressed praise for (i) dedicated celibacy;(ii) intense solitary
retreat (khalwa) and meditative prayer;(iii) the formation of convents (kanqah) for resident
monastic sufis and visiting Jewish-Sufi
practitioners—it felt as though I had come
home. And it was a home within Judaism.
— As someone who was actually living an intentionally dedicated solitary life at
the time of this
discovery, I was particularly
excited by the discovery of their high
regard for extended solitary retreat or hitbodedut/khalwa.
The penultimate chapter of Rabbi Abraham’s Kifaya promotes hitbodedut (solitary
seclusion) in three distinctly Sufic
forms:
* a personal practice of regular solitary meditation;
* an ascetic practice of deeply secluded retreat (resembling the extended khalwa [7] of the Islamic Sufis which is often performed in an enclosed cell for days or weeks;
* the practice of ‘solitude whilst in a crowd’ which the Sufis call “khalwat dar anjuman’’ and which is closely related to the maintenance of a shiviti/dhikr consciousness.
— Those of you who have read my book, The Cave of the Heart, will also understand how excited I must have been when I discovered the great importance which the Egyptian Jewish-Sufis attached to the development of prophetic ability. The higher stations of the spiritual journey—the Maqamat [8]—of their contemplative system were focussed on that intensely.Indeed there was a tradition in the Maimuni family that the return of prophecy was an imminent event. But then— it always is— for according to our Sages (in Sanhedrin 98a:16-18) its restoration is dependent upon our being prepared to listen.
Ultimately we are destined to become a nation of prophets. If that is to become an imminent reality, there has to be somebody listening. The parallel development of contemplative lifestyles and contemplative prayer in the life of all Jews might go some way towards making sure that those ‘listeners’ are in place.
The old, or isolated, or disadvantaged, and those forgotten on the fringes of community are frequently the very Jewish souls who have the spiritual credentials in hard-won authenticity and in wholehearted ‘searching for G-d’ which might qualify them to develop the prophetic spirit anew.
The isolated, the elderly, and the infirm are also often the ones with the time to focus on the prayerful task of drawing down the light and the strength of Heaven with intensity and perseverance.
Can we afford to neglect their contemplative potential any longer?” [9]
It is my belief that the ‘coming of Eliyahu haNavi’ in the days before the start of the Messianic era refers to the re-emergence of the spirit of that prophet in the souls of those contemplatives who are being truly attentive and receptive in their prayer.
It would seem that R’ Yitzhak ben Shmuel of Akko (13th -14th century) also believed this:
“So ponder and envision with your mind, that the evil inclination... will be turned on its head... and because of this the number of recluses (mitbodedim) and ascetic hermits (perushim) will increase so that, before the end of the six thousand year period, the physical and animal aspects of mankind will cease to exist in this world.” [10]
It is time for us to ‘listen’ in contemplative prayer because it is only by paying attention in receptive contemplation that we can become the prophets, or Sons of the Prophets that we are all destined to be.” [11]
—Furthermore, in the Kifaya, I also found
specific contemplative activities geared to promote the kind of communal and inclusive affiliation at
all levels that I had been attempting to generate through my Jewish
Contemplatives websites.
—In their private
individual worship and in their congregational liturgy (in their own small
houses of prayer) the Jewish Sufis under Rabbi Abraham’s tutelage practiced
choreographed postures (e.g. kneeling, prostration, and the lifting up of the hands ) and silent acts of meditative
devotion that were designed to increase the more spiritual and reflective
moments in the recitation of the daily services. His motivation was to increase
decorum and focus in ritual Jewish
worship.
—The Egyptian
Pietist Community included family
members and singles of both genders in their communal worship and private
spiritual practices, yet at heart they
were an elitist group.
They spoke of a ‘suluk al khas’ —a special way for the minority
of Jews attracted to a particularly intense form of ascetic and contemplative
practice.
—They also insisted that before one embarked on this ‘special path’ one had to be meticulous in the practice of the
‘common path’ of the Halakha: the loving
observance of the commandments of written and oral Jewish Law. To me, as an observant Orthodox Jew, this was most significant. Any attempt to renew
the contemplative practice of the Egyptian Hasidim would need to take
account of this too.
oo0oo
The Essenes and the Therapeutai
communities of Philo and the Desert
Fathers of Christianity had also been based in the very same part of Egypt as the later Egyptian
Pietists, and we know that
members of the Jewish Sufi movement were
close observers and imitators of
their local Islamic-Sufi
contemplatives [12] —the cross fertilisation of ascetic and contemplative practices is demonstrable.
Whether or not the Sufi practices—that were
so admired by the later Maimunis
and their circle—were originally Islamic or originally
Biblical and Jewish—or even partially derived from later Hesychastic
Christian elaboration —is debatable. I will leave that debate to the academics, but simply declare that in matters of spirituality and
mystical practice,each religion’s most intensely contemplative practitioners
are in unanimous accord with each other where the essentials of the
contemplative/ascetic path are
concerned.
Theologians
and Philosophers like to argue and thrash out points of
intellectual understanding, but those whose seek the intimate knowledge
that comes from inspiration and intuition in solitary
contemplation: so often have a shared
and more
universalist perspective.
For Sufis—That Gnosis is not
fully attained through argument, or through academic study, or even through
private and profound intellectual reasoning. For Sufis: it comes from the kind of knowledge of The Real
which is infused as an act of grace by G-d Alone into the soul of one who is devotedly engaged in receptive
contemplative prayer.
To quote a Pietist text by Rabbi David
ben Joshua Maimuni and written in his own hand:
Beware lest you learn from its words that
philosophy or wisdom is derived from the Peripatetics or any other. Nay! I
have in mind rather the adepts of spiritual training (riyada), who have
discovered in their solitary devotions (khalwat) (that which leads) from
the couch unto the Throne. They have certain knowledge and are not
niggardly with it but instruct in the wayfaring of the path that leads to God.
Your knowledge of that is knowledge indeed, and all other knowledge deriving
from the famous philosophers is false.[13]
To return to more autobiographical matters for a moment:
As mentioned earlier in this chapter: My study of the Egyptian Pietists—and my solitary practice—was interrupted in 2014 while I focussed on general halakhic and liturgical study in preparation for the Madrid conversion. Having relocated to Safed in 2019—and assisted (as it were) by the quarantines necessitated by the Coronavirus epidemic—I returned to intentionally solitary practice.
 |
| Khalwa cell in my first Safed Hermitage (2019) |
In 2021 I encountered some kind
of sea change in my daily contemplative activity: Out of the blue, I began to feel a strong intuition that I needed to practice silent
repetitive mantra meditation (using short scriptural phrases in hebrew) [15]. I had been aware of such a practice since reading Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s books in my thirties, but
had never felt strongly attracted to it until this time.
As a monk I had used a rosary daily in my
youth, and I had owned an Islamic tasbih [16]
for years but only used it a few times a year—principally in periods of illness
or very intense spiritual aridity. But
this time round, using it as an aid to silent mantra repetition, it simply became
the regular core of my daily
meditation sessions.
Providentially, shortly after beginning the
practice, I returned to my studies of the
Egyptian Pietists and, in passing (for the
very first time) discovered detailed descriptions of the
Islamic-Sufi practice known as zhikr or dhikr. (a term which has a similar root to the hebrew word zachor). Since that
day I have been almost exclusively focussed on that practice in private meditation. Readers might
be interested to read a little more about that HERE.
Providence then arranged a special boost to
my endeavours:
At my Safed
hermitage in November 2021—I was blessed to
have a two hour meeting with Professor Fenton himself who enlightened me
still further. Before that meeting I had studied the writings of Rabbi Abraham
Maimuni and Rabbi Obadyah Maimuni but
had never actually seen anything
written by Rabbi David ben Joshua Maimuni (1335–c.1414) .
Up until that point, his name had been one of several
on my list of Egyptian Pietist
authors. When Professor Fenton showed me
some of Rabbi David’s actual texts
I was electrified by them. It felt like
a tangible encounter with Rabbi David
himself and it sent me whirling into a
metaphysical stratosphere (as it were!)
—an encounter from which I have barely
recovered.
Rabbi David’s ideas seemed to speak to me most profoundly and personally. In Rabbi David’s Al Murshid [17] I believe I had found my tailor-made Guide on the Sufi Path. I hope and pray that Professor Fenton and other gifted academics will translate and publish much more of this Nagid’s prolific output.[18]
(i) "We aim to study, renew, and develop the contemplative practice of the Mediaeval Egyptian Pietists."
(ii) "Our principal goal is the development of devekut: an intimate relationship with G-d."
Q: Why
is the group known as Tariqa ELIYAHU ?
A: The
Egyptian Pietists believed
that the contemplative traditions of the
Biblical prophets and the Sons of the Prophets—the disciples of Elijah and
Elisha— had been lost to Judaism but had been maintained in Islamic-Sufism.
Our group’s
description as Tariqa Eliyahu HaNabi (The Path/Way of Elijah the Prophet)
was therefore not a casual one. As a former Carmelite monk who had been ritually clothed in the mantle of Elijah[19]—
I was delighted in very recent years to
discover the ritual of clothing in a khirqa at a ceremony marking
the start of one’s novitiate in a Sufi
order
In the Kifaya—and in reference to
the mantle of Eliyahu Ha Nabi in Melachim
II:2, Rabbi Abraham ben HaRambam (who dressed in the manner of the
Islamic Sufis) writes:
He [Elijah] threw his mantle over him
[Elisha] ...It was an allusion that Elisha
should emulate him in his
clothing, his style,and the rest of his
behavior...You know that,due to our sins,the Sufis have copied this custom from our early
chasidim: the elder covers an aspirant
with his tattered garment when the
aspirant wishes to embark on the
way of the elder and progress in
it....In recent times the custom has
disappeared [from us], or nearly so. Yet we copy their customs by wearing a baqir
and the like. [20]
Furthermore, at
that time I also discovered the
connection between (i) the Jewish archetypal concept of Eliyahu the prophet as a guiding process on the path to mystical enlightenment (gilui
Eliyahu) and (ii) the similarly archetypal
concept of Al Khidr in Islamic-Sufi mysticism. Consequently—from
several significant angles—My “choice”
of Elijah as the root of the new group’s spiritual ancestry (silsila) seemed predetermined.
The Islamic-Sufi Orders often attach
great importance to a chain of transmission (silsila) that they trace
through previous Sufi Shaykhs to
the Prophet of Islam.
Ours is a Jewish
Tariqa and our silsila is a
purely spiritual/Uwaysi one—traced through the Biblical Schools of the
Prophets to its root in Elijah the prophet. In the
Murshid, Rabbi David ben Joshua Maimuni describes Elijah as “The Master of Mystics and Sovereign of Ascetics”. [21]
Q: Is Tariqa Eliyahu a "Maimonidean" group?
A:
Tariqa Eliyahu might be described as a Maimuni group but it is not a Maimonidean group. Several of the Egyptian Pietist Movement’s members and leading authors were the Rambam’s close relatives or later descendents but in their writings and practices they often diverged from what might be termed "Rambanist" attitudes. Nevertheless, the movement's members will have followed the Rambam's halachic rulings and they certainly respected his intellectual eminence.
Furthermore there is much in HaRambam's philosophical approach that displays a somewhat Sufic temperament. When his writings address prophecy and contemplation they are surely a valuable adjunct to our own Sufic approach—but, it must be stated—our Tariqa is not devoted to the development or promotion of HaRambam’s ethos/adab but to that of the Jewish Sufis.
Like Ibn Pequda, HaRambam promoted a via media of balanced and moderate ascetic practice. The Egyptian Pietists promoted a “special” suluk al Khas that went beyond the letter of “common” Jewish practice. [22]
Whether Maimonidean thought is Sufic, whether HaRambam could be described as being a Sufi, and the extent to which his Maimuni descendents can be described as Maimonidean are all matters of complex enquiry and debate amongst academics. I prefer we leave that debate to the academic scholars.
Furthermore, though later Maimuni family
members are extremely significant to us: it is not the personal charisma of the Maimuni dynasty that should motivate us so
much as the Egyptian Pietist movement's practice of the renewed prophetic and contemplative tradition of the B'nei Neviim: A process and
a system that they believed had been preserved and then restored/transmitted to them
through their encounter with Islamic-Sufism.
To this day: one of the most popular manuals of Jewish Spiritual practice is the Hidayah ila Fara’id al Qulub [23] of Bahya Ibn Pequda and it is a clearly Judeo Sufic text based on Islamic structures. Many historians and academics claim that Islamic Sufi mysticism had a profound influence on the development of Abulafia’s ecstatic-prophetic Kabbalah; on the development of the hitbodedut and hitbonenut systems of the Safed Schools of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero and Rabbi Yitzhak Luria; and in the meditation practices of the European Hasidic movement of the Baal Shem Tov.
In this, the twenty-first century, our aim in Tariqa Eliyahu is to renew and develop
the contemplative practices of
the Egyptian Pietist Movement.
Like the members of that Mediaeval movement—we
are keen to learn what the Islamic-Sufi
path can teach us in our own Jewish Contemplative journey.
oo0oo
Tariqa Eliyahu, my third project in Jewish Contemplative Community is still very new. At the moment, the Tariqa has a small online presence through its private Group on Facebook, and its associated public website.
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 Ashkenazi, Sefardi, and Mizrahi members; Mekubalim, Haredi
Chasidim, and Progressive Neo-Hasidim (with
a few of my die-hard Maimonidean Rationalist friends there as somewhat critical observers!) All our members are Jewish but some of them had
also received Islamic-Sufi or Universalist-Sufi initiation before
joining our Tariqa.
Our Tariqa
members are united in the admiration
they feel for the Egyptian Pietists’
approach to contemplative prayer and
their deep respect for the
Islamic Sufi Path and its Arabic
literature.
At the moment our group is an online Tariqa—but I hope that a small Jewish-Sufi group might one day be formed here in Safed to meet regularly— say once a week— in communal silent dhikr and in the performance of the liturgy according to the directions given by Rabbenu Abraham Maimuni.
I
envisage a brief egalitarian Arbit
incorporating prostration in the Amidah—
followed by an hour of silent dhikr as an ideal model for this. No refreshments, no chat, no socialising, no
“guided” meditation, no (regular) lectures or speeches—just prayer. An alternative paraliturgical model might be a short vocal
dhikr session (using a simple unison recitation of a hebrew
mantra-phrase) followed by a much longer silent dhikr session. But we
shall see.
In the meantime:
I would like to encourage more
(i) Jewish-Sufi practitioners and
(ii) Jewish meditators of like-mind
to join us online as active contributors
to the development of our community practice.
Hopefully this “Sufi” chapter of A Hermit’s Tale may encourage that.
You can find
out more about our path HERE (Jewish
Sufis Website) or HERE (Jewish Sufis Facebook Group)
©Nachman Davies
Safed March 19th
2024
[1] Idries Shah, The Way of the Sufi, Octagon Press,London,1968
[3] "Abraham Maimonides (1186-1237): Founding a Mystical Dynasty" by Paul B. Fenton, Chapter 3 in Moshe Idel’s Jewish Mystical Leaders and leadership in the 13thcentury,Jason Aronson inc. ,1998
[4] Rabbi Moshe Maimuni, known as Maimonides or HaRambam, was not (as far as we know) a member of the Cairo Jewish-Sufi community (which was already in existence long before his son’s nagidship).
[5] In Egypt, during the mediaeval era when this group was formed, the term Hasid was synonymous with “Jewish-Sufi”and its leading members were often identified by the appellation HaHasid.
[6]
Kifaya (Kitab Kifayat al-‘ābidīn) — known in Hebrew
translations as HaMaspik L'Ovdei Hashem and in
English translations as The Guide to Serving God (Wincelberg)
or Highways to Perfection (Rosenblatt).
[7] Rabbi Abraham uses this exact arabic term in his Judeo-Arabic writings , a fact which surely underlines the connection. Furthermore, we know that members of his family and circle practiced khalwa in the Islamic Sufi manner when they visited the shrine at Dammuh. On this see my essay Mediaeval Islamic and Jewish Sufis in Cairo .
[9] Nachman Davies, The Cave of the Heart/Kuntres Maarat HaLev(A treatise on Jewish Contemplative Prayer), page 56, KDP publications,2022
[10] Isaac
of Akko, Meirat Einayim ed. H. Erlanger, Jerusalem 1975 pp. 307-8 (pericope
nissabim.)
[11] Nachman
Davies, The Cave of the Heart/Kuntres
Maarat HaLev(A treatise on Jewish Contemplative
Prayer), page 59, KDP publications,2022
[13]
Paul B.Fenton: An Epistle on Esoteric Matters by David II Maimonides from
the Geniza, in Pesher Nahum,
(Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilisation Number 66), University of
Chicago,Illinois. (emphasis mine)
[14]
There are many interfaith Jewish/Islamic groups that have practiced a Sufi sema—notably
the Israeli group Tariqa Abraham—
a communal Sufic recital of music and texts that may often become ecstatic...but to my knowledge a practice of shared silent
zhikr/meditation is rare. Music
and dance were a huge part of the practices of the B'nei Neviim (and music as a prophetic
adjunct was praised by Rabbi David ben
Joshua himself)..but my own wish would
be to see more sober Sufic — and silent— contemplative events.
[15] For example: “Adonai melech,Adonai malach, Adonai yimloch l’olam va’ed” or “Adonai Hu Ha Elohim”
[16]
A tasbih or misbaha is a ( 33 or 99 unit) string of beads used
to recite Divine Attributes and assist zhikr meditation. Some have expressed the opinion that counting the tzitzit
knots and threads on the Tallit
may have been the origin of the practice.
[17] Rabbi
David ben Yehoshua Maimuni: “Al-Murshid ila al-tafarrud wa-al-murfid ila al-tagarrud,”(The Guide to Solitude and Aid to Detachment”
[18] Paul B. Fenton, The Literary Legacy of David ben Joshua, Last of the Maimonidean Nĕgīdim, Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 75, no. 1 (July 1984): 1-56
[19] The Christian monastic Order of Carmelites was founded on Mt. Carmel at the start of the thirteenth century, but there was a tradition that there had been a direct link with previous Jewish hermits living there since the time of the B'nei neviim. Near the ruins of the original Carmelite monastery at the seaside base of the mountain, there is a ‘Cave of Elijah’ which is a place of worship frequented by Jews, Moslems, Druze, and Christians to the present day. The original Carmelite mantle was brown and cream striped, but later became an undyed white woolen cloak-like garment. It was always regarded as being symbolic of the mantle of Elijah, passed on to his disciple Elisha (Melachim II:2).
[20]
Abraham ben HaRambam , Kifaya, translated in Y.Wincelberg,The Guide to Serving God, page
370,Feldheim,Jerusalem 2008
[21] Fenton, P. Deux traités de mystique juive;Lagrasse: Éditions Verdier; 1987.(p269)
[22]
