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."
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 in the attempted spiritual ascent, 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.
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. They seek a kind of knowledge that is absorbingly
intellectual and satisfies the human need to have mysteries explained and categorised.
Our
religion's most popular forms of Jewish Mysticism are derived from the
esoteric works of the proto-kabbalah and in the complex systems of
the Cordoveran and Lurianic kabbalah of Safed.
But they are
not the only mystical path in Judaism's united diversity: In
the writings of the Rambam and
of the Jewish-Sufis of the Maimuni circle, there is no
mention of the Sefer Yetzirah or even of the Sefirot as they were
later to be understood in Safedian
kabbalah. This is not accidental but reflects a significant difference
between the Judeo-Sufic path and
that of many later forms of
Jewish mysticism.
The Egyptian Hasidim of the Maimonidean circle provide us with an Alternative option in authentic Jewish mysticism — a Path (Derech/Tariq) that is resolutely focussed on a simple and streamlined contemplative and ascetic praxis rather than on metaphysical dogma, language manipulation, or intricate systems of cosmic-theology.
It is
true that there is a
developed Suhrawardi-type ishraqi thread that runs through the writings of the
Jewish Sufis, and both the Rambam and
his son developed a mystical
philosophy concerning the Created Light and Divine communication. But the Judeo-Sufi descendants of the
Rambam and their circle were resolutely focused on contemplative and devotional practice.
In both
Islamic Sufism and in the Jewish Sufism of the Egyptian Pietists,
the focus is very much on the soul's contemplative relationship with
G-d. It is this very specific, plain-and-simple focus that we hope to develop in our
present day Tariqa Eliyahu.
The knowledge
(gnosis/ma'rifa) that 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 solitude and contemplation (khalwa).
It isn’t telling G-d things only He can know, or seeking to explain or manipulate His mysteries, so much as attempting to listen 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.
And
in that attentive contemplative
listening we may, in some manner, come
to see that G-d creates both darkness and light according to his own
mysterious but providential purposes. Free of duality, and distributed according to a Will that is far removed from human particularism or the preferential concepts that humans might employ.
That intuitive
and somewhat wooly form of understanding/knowledge promotes humble
"perplexity" as a route that can lead to a true form of unitive
gnosis (wusla)—a meeting with an incomprehensible but ever-present G-d.
Nachman Davies
Safed
October 1st 2026
