Elul: Ani l'Dodi v'Dodi Li

(A post shared from our sister website "Jewish Sufis")


The phrase “Ani l'Dodi v’Dodi Li” displays an acronymic reference to the Month of Elul.

   In this  month of Elul—perhaps the  most ‘Sufi’ of Jewish months because of its history as a time  of retreat and meditation — the phrase offers us a springboard for contemplative reflection, and also presents us with a  potential recitation mantra for our private dhikr.

The imaginative possibility that this biblical text from the Song of Songs might refer to the  Sufi concepts of fana and baqa  was apparent to our Jewish-Sufi forebears. Furthermore, they  chose to emphasise such a reading of its hidden meaning within their unique system of Jewish mysticism. 

R.Abraham Ibn Abi'l-Rabi (d c.1223)—also known  as Abraham He-Hasid—was the  teacher and  colleague of R. Abraham ben HaRambam (1186-1237) and he made a clear reference to these two Sufic concepts in his Commentary on Shir HaShirim

In a fragment discovered and  translated by Prof. Paul Fenton, Rabbenu Abraham He-Hasid connects  the phrase to the aspirant’s need for  a mentor and guide (Shaykh/Murshid).   The essential nature of this  system of transmission and guidance was later stressed by both R. Abraham ben Ha Rambam (in the Kifaya) and R. Obadya Maimuni (1228-1265)  in his Hawdiyya.

Most significantly, for us  here in Tariqa Eliyahu haNabi, R. Abraham He-Hasid also connects this pattern of transmission and guidance to the Bnei Neviím: the biblical “Schools of the Prophets”  that so inspired Rabbenu Abraham ben Ha Rambam and his circle.

Rabbenu Abraham He-Hasid writes:

 

“The Sage (Solomon) at times refers to this vision and communion as "bride" and at others as "love", whereas the seeker (qasid) of this "bride" and "love" is called "beloved", as it is said

 "My beloved is mine... as an apple among the trees of the orchard, so is my beloved among the young men". (Cant, ii.3)

The plural is here mentioned as an allusion to those who choose a master in their quest for the goal, these are (2 Kings vi.i and elsewhere) "the disciples of the prophets." *1

 

It was the intention of the  Mediaeval Cairene Pietists  to revive the esoteric practices of the BneiNevi’im that they considered to have been temporarily lost to Judaism— yet fortuitously preserved by the Islamic Sufis. These practices were understood to be a path that led to spiritual maturity, human perfection, and the potential attainment of prophecy. Our Tariqa Eliyahu seeks to renew this specific Jewish-Sufi Path. 

ooOoo

 The Ani l'Dodi quotation appears in connection with the concepts of the fana (annihilation) that leads to baqa (intimate union with the  Divine) in the  writings of R.David ben Joshua  Maimuni (1335-c1414)

Here the  debt to Islamic Sufism is explicit— both linguistically and philosophically—and  his writings indicate precisely how enthusiastically the concepts of fana and  baqa had been adopted by the Jewish-Sufis of his era.  Following his example,we regard them with the  same enthusiasm in our own Tariqa's spiritual practice.

   In an unattributed (but possibly autographic) commentary on Shir HaShirim ( from a manuscript that is nevertheless most certainly in R. David ben Joshua’s  own handwriting) we read:

“I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine” (Cant. 6:3). We have already explained earlier (fol. 8b, Cant. 2:15) that whenever thou turnest to the love of an object and desirest all that that object desires, then it is as though [that object] had become thyself and thou hast become it, insofar as thou possessest it and thou art enslaved unto it. To be sure, thine annihilation (fana) within it is a mighty witness and indication that he belongs to thee and thou belongest to him.” *2

 

In  the Murshid, R. David ben Joshua Maimuni  writes:

“...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.”  *3

 

Paraphrasing  Mansour Al-Hallaj*4 — R. David Ben Joshua declares:

 

אנא מן אהוי ומן אהוי אנא

“I am my Beloved and my Beloved is I

...Oh Goal of my desire, in You I am freed from my Self.

You brought  me  so close to You

that it seemed as though You were I "  *5

 

©Nachman Davies

Safed

Elul 1 2023

Revised Sept 16 2024

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*1    Fenton, P“A Mystical Commentary on the Song of Songs in the Hand of David Maimonides II,” (p.49) in Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo-Arabic Culture, ed. B. Hary and H. Ben-Shammai (Leiden: Brill, 2006)

*2   Fenton,P ibid. p 42

*3  translated from: Fenton, PDeux traités de mystique juive;Lagrasse: Éditions Verdier; 1987. (p.288-289)

*4     Mansour Al-Hallaj (c.858-922): a Persian Islamic Sufi saint and martyr who was a proponent of the concept that  annihilation of the  ego could lead to true unio mystica.  He was tortured  and  then executed  for stating this belief.

 *5    translated from  Fenton. P. Deux traites, p289