Our human
understanding can never comprehend G-d, though we can meet and (in
some sense) know Him in contemplation, experience, and by His gift.
In his commentary on Bereishit, Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam (1186-1237) writes:
"And
G-d saw all that He had made and behold it was very Good"
With
some creations such as the sun and moon, the heavens and the earth and most
animals and plants:one can readily appreciate the wisdom of their existence and
their benefits to us.
With
others, such as scorpions, snakes, lions,bears and crocodiles... the
wisdom,benefit, and purpose is hidden,and one might even assume that their
existence is evil.
But
we should not attempt to declare what is good and evil in G-d's creations
relying on our own understanding and intellect. For we should remember that our
understanding and intellect are limited: and there are understandings and
secrets that we can never fathom.
oooOooo
Fully understanding the paradoxes and often distressing elements and appearances of His creation is utterly beyond us. For the Sufi: certainty is forever inaccessible, and the most we can hope to reach is the state of "Perplexity" (Hayrah)....knowing that we know nothing.
One may,and should, use one's reason and imagination with all one's strength but ultimately
(according to the Egyptian Pietists)
these pathways to knowledge need to be
transformed and completed by intuition (dhawq) and a kind of experienced
contemplative knowledge that is infused
(or withheld) by G-d Himself.
Some strains
of mysticism have a tendency to
focus on cosmological Theology: either
trying to fathom the "secrets"
of creation or the
nature of the G-d Himself. They seek a kind of knowledge that is absorbingly intellectual
and satisfies the human need to have mysteries
explained and categorised.
Some (and even
some specifically Jewish mystics) study
and practice a kind of mapped-out
theurgy that attempts to produce almost
magical results, albeit for praiseworthy
motives.
But in
Islamic Sufism and in the Jewish Sufism of the Maimunis and the Egyptian Pietists the focus is
very much on the souls relationship
with G-d. The knowledge (gnosis/ma'rifa)
that the Sufis seek is
not an attempt to pin-down
or explain the Divine….but to clear a path in the mind and
heart to encounter Him there. It
concerns an intimate experience of "meeting"
Him in contemplation (khalwa).
It isn’t telling G-d things only He can know
so much as listening to the Divine Voice in our receptive contemplative prayer,
in our encounters with the
"angels" that are sent
to us "at all times, evening,morning, and noon" by Providence, whether they are in
the form of events, people we meet, or texts we stumble
across in prayer and study.
Nachman Davies
Safed
September 24 2026
