Hymn of the Majestic

Aaron Henne: Welcome to The Dybbukast. I'm Aaron Henne, artistic director of theatre dybbuk.

I want to thank all of our listeners who have joined us for the last four seasons. The Dybbukast was started as a pandemic project, and, through producing it, we've learned so much about the intersection of art and scholarship, which has continued to influence our theatrical productions. As we shift our focus back to in-person presentations, we will no longer be offering formal seasons of The Dybbukast. However, we are excited to continue to share with you recordings of our illuminated lectures – live presentations which were inspired by The Dybbukast format – as they are available.

In that spirit, this episode was recorded as a live presentation on July 11, 2024 at The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles and was edited for the podcast by Julie Lockhart and Gregory Scharpen.

Titled "Hymn of the Majestic," the illuminated lecture you will hear features Alan Niku as he seeks to answer these questions: How did Jews in Persia participate in Sufism before and after the appearance of Kabbalah? Is Sufism a fundamentally Islamic form of mysticism? And what Sufi influences are still tangible in the practices of Persian Jews today?

Actors Julie Lockhart and Jonathan CK Williams read poetry that brings the topics discussed vividly to life, while musician Oliver Hakim accompanies the presentation.

And Now: “Hymn of The Majestic”

We hear audience applause followed by music. We then hear Alan Niku read a poem in Judeo-Persian.

Actors 1 and 2: A Hymn for Glory to the Sublime One

Actor 1: From the light of your one-ness unto me you have breathed

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 2: You stretched my height like that of a cedar

Actor 1: You are our merciful Khan, we are servants

In your threshold, we are helpless

Actor 2: All favor and benefaction comes from you

The illusion of the Self must likewise be from you

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 1: You are the Sultan and the Benevolent One, ageless

You are the Worshiped One, ancient and undying

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 2: You are the Light of the Stars/Planets, the Sun, and the Moon

You are the Refuge for the oppressed of the world

Actor 1: You are the Knower of the manifest and the hidden

You are existence and non-existence, the house and its pillars

Actor 2: You are that King, without peer or comparison

You are that Artisan without partner or collaborator

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 1: O Shāhin, depart from these stanzas of the ego

Mixed in wine other than the wine that is obedience to God

Actor 2: Don’t drive us from your threshold into humiliation

Actor 1: May I know you, may I call out to you in companionship

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Alan Niku: From the early days of Judaism, the religious practice of the devoted has included an inner dimension and an outer dimension. The outer dimension describes the laws and traditions: what you do. What’s allowed. What’s forbidden. And the inner dimension, just as important, is how it’s supposed to feel. What you’re supposed to intend when doing the external.

This inner dimension often came in two forms:

Actor 1: 1) Mysticism. The direct experience of the divine.

Actor 2: 2) Esotericism. The magical elements of a religion.

Alan: Today, most knowledge of Jewish mysticism is about Kabbalah, especially the form popularized in Medieval Spain and later in Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire, still practiced by most streams of Judaism today, and even popularized among non-Jews. This form is called Lurianic Kabbalah; it’s about 500 years old. If you’ve ever been to a Friday Night Kabbalat Shabbat service, where Jews sing Psalms and liturgical poems like Lekha Dodi to welcome the day of rest, these are part of the Lurianic style of Kabbalah, popularized by Rabbi Isaac Luria in the 16th century Ottoman Empire.

Since Jews have lived in Persia for thousands of years, what did they do before Lurianic Kabbalah? Were they mystical? We know that the Muslims of the region were deeply entrenched in Islamic mysticism, known as Sufism. Did Jews have anything like that before Kabbalah came over from Spain and to the Ottoman Empire, and eventually into Persia?

We know that the Jews of Iran, over many centuries in the Persian, Greek, Parthian, Sassanian, and Muslim empires developed a lot of esoterica: lots of medieval magic, amulets, and so on, among Iranian Jews in all eras. These are often written in Aramaic or Persian (these ones are in Persian)—spells for cursing enemies using a cat and some water, and early Kabbalistic word combinations, or spells that will help a traveling man find out what his wife is doing back home.

Actor 2: “For an enemy, take some water and wash the face of a cat. While washing, say this spell…and finally, spill some of that water upon the leg of that enemy.”

Actor 1: “For someone in wait who wants to know what his wife is doing, write down these names, and put them under his own head while sleeping…”

Alan: But the notion of mysticism, that direct experience of God as a religious practice, also appears in primary sources regarding the Persian Jews.

Actor 2: “The notion of mysticism differs from that of religion in that it does not designate a faith and a practice oriented towards the expectation of an afterlife, but the search for an experience of the divine lived in this life.”

Alan: So what? Mysticism. The idea that God is not separate from us but that we can become one with God. Did Jews have this? From the beginning of Islam we find reciprocal influence between Islam and Judaism, particularly Sufism and Judaism. This influence happens directly but also through middlemen like mainstream Islam and Kabbalah. These influences go in all directions, with Judaism, Islam, Sufism, Kabbalah, and other philosophies and religions all mixing together in fascinating ways.

What is Sufism, the mysticism of the Islamic World? Sufism started soon after Islam, but really took off after the Muslims took over Persia. This type of mysticism has parallels and connections with Neo-Platonism (which is the mysticism of ancient Greek religion), Kabbalah, Buddhism, and Hinduism – they’re all about finding the infinite nature of the universe that we can become One with, and not be separate from. While some of those religions are polytheistic, Sufism is strictly monotheistic. As can be seen in this poem by Hafez:

Actor 1: “Wayfarer Wayfarer,

Your whole mind and body have been tied

To the foot of the Divine Elephant

With a thousand golden chains. Now, begin to rain intelligence and compassion

Upon all your tender, wounded cells

And realize the profound absurdity

Of thinking

That you can ever go Anywhere

Or do Anything

Without God’s will.”

Alan: In addition to existing within the boundaries of traditional Islam, Sufi practices included music, poetry, and a strong tradition of asceticism. Sufi orders became popular in the Middle East and Central Asia, and at some point also in Islamic Spain and North Africa.

The history and practices of the Sufis have many parallels with mainstream Judaism, and a lot of these actually have Jewish origins:

Not wearing shoes during prayer, prostration before God, zekr,

Actor 1: the repetitive recitation and remembrance of God’s holy names,

Alan: intellectual dynasties, and paraliturgical poetry – these are all Jewish in origin, and crucial in Sufism. As scholar Paul Fention expressed:

Actor 2: “Upon catching sight today in the synagogues of Safed or Jerusalem of the white-clad, bearded kabbalists, engrossed in their meditations, one is unavoidably struck by the similarity in appearance with the swaying, white-capped Sufis performing the zekr ritual. In point of fact, the similarity is not only external; of all forms of mysticism, perhaps an unsuspected and yet remarkable parallelism exists between Islamic and Jewish mysticism.”

Alan: Islam started in Mecca and Medina. One of the first places it spread was the now-fallen Persian Empire – the same region where the Talmud had just been compiled, just over a hundred years earlier. We can look at the Talmud and see some parallels with early Sufism. From the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sota:

Actor 1: Torah study leads to care in the performance of mitzvot, which leads to cleanliness of the soul, which leads to purity and the elimination of all base desires, which leads to piety, which leads to holiness, which leads to the Divine Spirit.

Alan: It’s about how doing the external things in a religion leads to the internal experience of God. We can see the same thing in Sufism. There are the external parts, which lead to the internal parts, and it follows the same path laid out in the Babylonian Talmud – coincidence, perhaps, or it could be an influence, as we know that the early Sufis and the Talmudic Jews did live in the same places and did interact. Scholars like Mohamed Chtatou have noted:

Actor 2: “the school of Baghdad (nineth-tenth century) had to exhibit a very rich milieu of spiritual personalities who, in truth, have given the taṣawwuf (Sufism) the quintessence of its experience.”

Alan: And according to Mireille Loubet:

Actor 1: “It is indeed interesting to note that at that time a certain number of Jews in the Baghdad diaspora were fervent supporters of rabbinic piety, hasidut, and that some of them, known as hasidim, had turned to asceticism, and a way of life that emphasized humility, purity, and trust in God, in order to recover the original spirit of Judaism. The same dispositions also characterized the approach of the first Sufis reported in the Muslim milieu of Baghdad and with whom the ‘pious’ Jews had contacts, as is suggested by some ancient texts reflecting the familiarity of the Jews with Sufism, by the indifferent use, in their writings, of the Arabic terms sufi-tasawwuf and Hebrew hasid-hasidut (Sufi-sufism, pious-pietism).”

Alan: In the early Islamic era, in the 7 and 800s, Jewish Revolutionaries Abu Isa and Yudghan incorporated some form of non-Kabbalistic mysticism into their teachers. In 981, the funeral of a great Sufi leader in Shiraz, a very Jewish city, was attended by Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The Sufis were revered by people of all religions—not just Muslims.

In the 11 and 1200s, Sufi Muslim poets like Attar, Sadi, Rumi, and so on, flourished. Their poems are written in Hebrew letters in manuscripts until the modern day, and were part of the Jewish canon before Kabbalah even made it to Iran.

Of course, Sufism is not monolithic, and there are anti-Jewish sentiments to be found even in some of the works of Attar and Rumi. But generally Sufis were more accessible to Jews than the more conservative establishment. Sufi masters were known to wear Jewish clothing items as a sign of humility.

There is even the story of a mystic trying to declare his humility by paying the religious tax, called the  jizya, instead of or even to the Jews – shows the proximity Sufis may have had to Jews that others might not have had.

At the same time, the famed Spanish poets, from ibn Gabirol to Abraham ben Ezra, from authors of Yedid Nefesh to Lekha Dodi, were heavily influenced by Sufi thought, which was in turn influenced by Jewish Mysticism. Thus we get thoroughly Jewish poems such as those written by Abraham ben Ezra, who traveled from Spain at least as far East as Baghdad, that are just as mystical as those of their Muslim counterparts in Persia:

Actor 2: My longing, My God, is for You

My desire and love is for You

My heart and innards are Yours

My soul and breath are Yours

My arms and legs are Yours

My character is from You

My bones and blood are Yours

My skin and my body

My eyes and thoughts are Yours

My shape and my form

My spirit and strength are Yours

My trust and my hope is You

My heart, blood, and fat are Yours

Like the sheep I sacrifice, my offering

To You, the One with no second

My only soul will acknowledge You

Yours is kingship, majesty Yours

My praise befits You

Help in troubled times comes from You

Be my help in the time of my trouble

My hope when I tremble is to You

When I sigh like a woman giving birth

I hope to You, heal my fractures

My pain and my wounds

I long, without quieting, for You

Until You illuminate my darkness

Eternity is Yours, I trust in You

My strength is You

I call to You, I cling to You

Until I return to my land

While I still live I am Yours

And even after my death…

Alan: We sing that song on Yom Kippur. In the 10 and 1100s, in Zaragoza, Spain, Bayha ibn Paquda wrote the first Sufi manual in Muslim Spain, and he wrote it in Judeo-Arabic, because he was a Jew. He called for an internal dimension that was as important as the external dimension.

From 1186-1237, Abraham ben Maimonides lived in Egypt, and was an explicit Sufi. He brought together the rationalism of his father, the Rambam, with the mysticism of ibn Paquda. He introduced ritual changes in choreography, solitude, zekr,

Actor 1: the repetitive recitation and remembrance of God's holy names

Alan: and found sources for these seemingly Islamic rituals in the Tanakh. He wasn’t taking these ideas from the Muslims around him, though it looked like it. He was hearkening back to something that had been lost by the Jews, but was preserved by the Sufis.

In the 1200s, Abraham Abulafia, described an entire tradition and system of Jewish Meditation. Nimet Seker notes:

Actor 1: “The esoteric teachings of the Spanish cabbalists around Rabbi Abraham Abulafia exhibit considerable similarities to the rituals of Muslims mystics: complicated songs, controlled breathing techniques and typical head movements. These were all practices which did not exist in the Kabbalah before the Middle Ages. Abulafia introduced into Judaism the ecstatic aspects of the Sufi zekr rituals, in which the name of God is repeated so often that one reaches a trance-like state.”

Alan: Soon, the poems of the Spanish Jews made their way throughout the Mediterranean, and some became popular even in Persia. Such is the case of Et Dodim Kala, Hayyim ben Sahel’s piyyut influenced by Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, a romantic love poem interpreted as being about the love between God and Israel – a mystical idea present in Kabbalah and Sufism. In the 16 or 1700s, this was translated into Judeo-Persian by Amina, one of the great Jewish poets of Kashan (which is a city in Iran), and a comparison of the Hebrew and the Judeo-Persian shows us how this interpretation, influenced by centuries of Sufi thought, displays themes and vocabulary from Sufi poets. So the Hebrew is:

We hear Alan read in Hebrew.

Actor 2: It is a time for lovers, come to my garden.

The vine has flowered into pomegranates.

The autumn rain has passed.

Arise, my companion, the desire of man.

Alan: The Judeo-Persian, which is the second paragraph that’s in Hebrew letters, says:

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 1: It is time to confer, come to my garden.

My fiery pomegranate has flowered, come my excellent one.

Winter has passed, we are relieved from sorrow.

Arise, my beloved, the appendage to my branch.

Actor 2: It is a time for lovers, come to my garden.

Actor 1: It is time to confer, come to my garden.

Actor 2: The vine has flowered into pomegranates.

Actor 1: My fiery pomegranate has flowered, come my excellent one.

Actor 2: The autumn rain has passed.

Actor 1: Winter has passed, we are relieved from sorrow.

Actor 2: Arise, my companion, the desire of man.

Actor 1: Arise, my beloved, the appendage to my branch.

Alan: He refers to his lover as being an appendage to his branch – not separate from him, but part of the same thing, bridging the separation the poet feels from other people, and in parallel, the separation that the devotee feels from God. There is no “closer,” because we are already part of God, and that everything is part of the same thing. The Persian translator is reading more Sufi themes into this than the original.

In the following century, we see a poem by Rabbi Siman Tov Melamed, where he goes through the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, each time doing a repetitive chorus with one word changing, thematically related to the source, which is the same piyyut, Et Dodim Kala. The changing words, things like Barukh,

Actor 1: The Blessed One

Alan: Vatiq,

Actor 2: The Steadfast One

Alan: Rahum,

Actor 1: The Merciful One

Alan: Hanun

Actor 2: The Compassionate One

Alan: These are all names of God in Judaism – he’s repeating short choruses in order to become closer to God, and this is zekr

Actor 1: The repetitive recitation and remembrance of God’s holy names.

Alan: Siman-Tov Melamed, an explicit Sufi Jewish Rabbi, was writing Jewish zekr rituals, with a call and response.

We’ll get back to Siman-Tov Melamed later. But the question is: do we have Sufi writings from before the 17 and 1800s? In fact, there are vivid Sufi-like descriptions written by the greatest epic poet of the Persian Jews, Shahin-i Shirazi, who, in the 12 and 1300s, wrote massive versifications of the Torah. In his Musa-nameh, he describes Moshe’s discovery of the burning bush, and we see a mystical explanation of his experience of becoming one with God, even experiencing ego death. Here is a translation by Vera Maureen:

Actor 1: “O Moses, Moses,

Remove your sandals quickly as you move;

This is a chosen spot; do not come

So flustered, beside yourself!

Know that the flames you saw from far away

Are nothing but pure light.”

As God’s voice

Was absorbed by his soul’s ears, Moses replied:

“Here I am,” then lost all consciousness of self.

When by the command of Time’s Creator

‘Emrān’s son removed his sandals,

He was addressed again:...

Alan: Later, Shahin describes the intoxication that Moshe felt while communing with God. Intoxication in the divine is a theme throughout Sufi poetry:

Actor 1: A portion of the night, until the smile of dawn,

The prophet spent communing with the Lord.

That night He spoke with him tumultuously,

One to one, till dawn. Intoxicated,

By the night he had spent, the prophet headed

Toward the sage Jethro…

Alan: Shahin also uses vivid imagery and the terminology of ego loss to describe Moshe’s experiences with the divine:

Actor 1: Upon the way,

Intense desire for union with the Friend

Burned within him. Then, of a sudden,

He saw the world flooded in light:

Fire fell upon mountain and stone;

Heavy mountains were toppled.

Heaven and earth, mountain and desert,

All trembled by the Judge’s command;

The entire world was filled with endless light,

Which every moment increased. Then suddenly,

Kalim glanced up from the path, beheld

The Majesty and took leave of his senses.

That pure man turned entirely into spirit;

Being beside himself, he rent the garment

Of his soul. A cry arose from the lover

Now that he suddenly beheld his Beloved enter

Alan: In the centuries after Shahin, a poet named Emrani, who was born in Isfahan in 1454, took up the mantle of Judeo-Persian epic poetry. When he died in Kashan sometime after 1536, he left behind a son named Jalal-al-Din Sar Shalom. Sar Shalom is a Hebrew name meaning

Actor 2: “Prince of Peace”

Alan: and there are Persian Rabbis with that name as far back as the 1100s. But Jalal-al-Din is the first name of Rumi, the religious Sufi Muslim mystical poet. This religious Jewish poet, Emrani, who was well-versed in Tanakh,

Actor 1: The Torah, the prophets, and the writings

Alan: Mishna,

Actor 2: A collection of oral traditions

Alan: and the many teachings of Judaism throughout the ages, gave his son a Talmudic name and a Sufi name, all together. Emrani himself was buried near Hafez, Saadi, and Shahin. As Nimet Seker wrote,

Actor 1: “The famous Kabbalistic school of Safed in Galilee also seems to have been influenced by Sufism. During the sixteenth century, when the Kabbalist Isaac Luria was active, Safed was also a flourishing centre of Muslim mysticism… [T]he Kabbalists held spiritual concerts

Alan: (baqashot)

Actor 1: at which mystical verses were sung, as did the Mevlevi dervishes. Spiritual brotherhoods were established around a saint, and here too there was the practice of hitbodedut

Alan: Spiritual solitude

Actor 1: and zekr

Alan: The repetitive recitation of God’s holy names

Actor 1: (in Hebrew hazkarah).

Alan: As Kabbalah and Messianic fervor made their way into Persia, we meet the fascinating figure of Sarmad Kashani – a wandering naked homosexual Sufi Jewish Rabbi dervish poet apostate.

Sarmad was a Jewish Rabbi in the city of Kashan, just a generation before Amina. Living in a time of widespread persecution and forced conversion of Jews to conservative Shi’a Islam, Sarmad himself at some point became a Shi’a cleric. He studied with and was friends with various of the Erfan thinkers of Iran, including the students of Mulla Sadra, who brought him closer to mysticism. Later he became a Sufi, traveled to India, fell in love with a Hindu boy who was singing in a sort of zekr ritual, and renounced all his possessions and his clothes as an expression of his closeness with God. He and his lover, Abhay Chand, wandered the world, learning about religions and even producing the first known translation of the Torah into Standard Persian. In Delhi, after rising the ranks of Prince Dara Shikoh of the Mughal Empire, Sarmad was beheaded by Dara Shikoh’s brother, Aurangzeb, for his refusal to submit to the conservative interpretation of Islam. Sarmad’s many poems display Islamic, mystical, Jewish, and atheistic themes.

Actor 2: Separation for a moment from my beloved? Impossible.

Unanimity in conversation? Impossible.

He is an ocean, my heart is a goblet, nonsense!

For the goblet to contain the ocean? Impossible.

We hear a change in the music.

Actor 2: His home is confined not only to the temple and mosque.

The earth and the sky are equally His abode.

The entire universe is madly in love with His myth

But the wise one loves only Him.

We hear a change in the music.

Actor 2: O Soul, beloved Soul, how ignorant you are!

In the cage of the body you dwell for a few moments.

If you ascend to the heaven and become the sun

You will still remain a particle not worth the counting.

Alan: A year after Sarmad Kashani’s execution in India, the Jews of his hometown of Kashan were saved from their forced conversion by local Sufis Mohsen Fayz Kashani and the grandson of Mulla Sadra – both of whom had been friends with Sarmad.

Ok, so we know about some of the poets, but what might some of these poems sound like in a devotional context? A common type of Jewish singing throughout Jewish cultures can be demonstrated with a song called “Mi Pi El” – this is a Hebrew song that’s very old. Each verse is sung improvisationally by whoever is leading, and everyone comes together for the chorus: “Mipiel mipiel yitbarakh Israel”.

We hear Oliver Hakim play a little of the song.

Alan: In the late 15 or early 1600s, David bar Ma’amin of Esfahan wrote a version of this common song, with verses in Judeo-Persian. But instead of the heading calling it “Shira” or something else in Hebrew, it is called “Qaval”. What is Qaval music referring to?

Actor 1: Qawwali Music: Sufi devotional singing that originated in the Indian Subcontinent in the 1200s.

Alan: Qawwalis tend to begin gently and build steadily to a very high energy level in order to induce hypnotic states both among the musicians and within the audience. They use repetition, short choruses with improvisational verses, and vocal acrobatics to illustrate the devotional Sufi lyrical content. A little bit later we’re going to hear a little bit of that. But before that, here’s an example of how the Persian Jews might turn typical Jewish songs into Qawwali type repetitions:

Alan: So there’s a song called “Tzur Mishelo Akhalnu,” which is a classic Shabbat song. In many Jewish cultures this is sung - you may have heard it if you’ve gone to a Friday night Jewish event. And the traditional last stanza of this song goes like this:

We hear Alan read in Hebrew.

Actors 1 and 2: The Temple will be built, the city of Zion will be filled,

Actor 2: And there we will sing a new song and an exaltation will rise,

Actor 1: The Merciful One, the Holy One, will be blessed and exalted,

Actors 1 and 2: On a full glass of wine as a blessing to God

Alan: Nice. But there is a traditional Persian version that expands that last stanza to something far more complex, as you can see here. And it sounds a little bit like this:

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian. We then hear Actors 1 and 2 overlapping with Alan.

Actors 1 and 2: The temple will be built and the city of Zion will be filled

Actor 2: The temple will be filled and the city of Zion will be decorated

Actor 1: The temple will be decorated and the city of Zion will be built

Actor 2: The temple will be built and the city of Zion will grow

Actor 1: The temple will grow and the city of Zion will be fertilized

Actor 2: The temple will be fertilized and the city of Zion will be glorified

Actor 1: The temple will be glorified and the city of Zion will be eternalized

Actor 2: The temple will be eternalized and the city of Zion will be orchestrated

Actor 1: The temple will be orchestrated and the City of Zion will be compassionate

Actor 2: The temple will be compassionate and the city of Zion will be purified

Actor 1: The temple will be purified and the city of Zion will be straightened

Actor 2: The temple will be straightened and the city of Zion will prosper

Actor 1: The temple will prosper and the city of Zion will learn

Actor 2: The temple will learn and the city of Zion will be filled

Actor 1: The temple will be filled and the city of Zion will be comforted

Actor 2: The temple will be comforted and the city of Zion will be supported

Actor 1: The temple will be supported and the city of Zion will be adorned

Actor 2: The temple will be adorned and the city of Zion will be glorified

Actor 1: The temple will be glorified and the city of Zion will be justified

Actor 2: The temple will be justified and the city of Zion will be brought near

Actor 1: The temple will be brought near and the city of Zion will have mercy

Actor 2: The temple will have mercy and the city of Zion will be complete

Actor 1: The temple will be complete and the city of Zion will rise

Actor 2: The temple will rise and the city of Zion will be filled

Actor 1: The temple will be filled and the city of Zion will be built and prepared

Actor 2: And there we will sing a new song and there an exaltation will rise,

Actor 1: The Merciful One, the Holy One, will be blessed and exalted,

Actor 2: On a full glass of wine and an abundant table,

Actors 1 and 2: as a blessing to God

Alan: In the 1700s, Siman-Tov Melamed, a student of the Kabbalist from Yazd, Molla Oursharga, became the Rabbi of the holy city of Mashhad in the Northeast of Iran. He was a Persian, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic poet, polemicist, and philosopher with a deep knowledge of Jewish sources. He was also a deeply mystical, explicit follower of Sufism, with highly Messianic content in his poems. His masterpiece is called Hayat-ol-Ruh

Actor 1: (Life of the Soul)

Alan: a massive mystical and philosophical treatise commenting on the 13 principles of Maimonides, which describes the philosophical implications of God’s infinite nature, and the works of Bahya ibn Paquda, the great mystic from Spain. His book uses terminology perhaps surprising to a contemporary reader – most notably the word Taleban, which really means

Actor 2: “seekers of knowledge”

Alan: and describes the Sufi devotee. Here’s an example from Hayat-ol-Ruh.

Alan reads in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 2: The greatest scholars declare “He is nothing but Him”, it is appropriate

Actor 1: The lesser scholars say “Praise Him”, it is valiant

Alan: Siman-Tov Melamed makes use of a beautiful piece of wordplay here.

Actor 2: “He is nothing but Him”

Alan: quotes the Arabic phrase, “Hu la ila hu”, a reference to the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith that is also accepted by Jews and related to the Jewish declarations of faith.

Actor 1: “Praise Him”

Alan: refers to the common Hebrew phrase from Psalms, “Halleluhu”. Hu la ila hu. Halleluhu. Two phrases, linked through language, religion, culture, and theology.

Centuries later, another Jewish musical figure, Debbie Friedman, who doubtless never heard of Siman-Tov Melamed nor read his Judeo-Persian treatises, noticed that same similarity, and used the common process of contrafacta to adapt an Islamic Qawwali song called “Alla Hoo” which is by Nusrat Fateh-Ali Khan, a great singer from Pakistan. She adapted it to a similar sounding Hebrew phrase, “Hallelu”. Her tune is nearly identical to Khan’s, and it’s now a popular one throughout several Jewish denominations, especially in the United States. So we’re going to listen to a couple examples. First we’re gonna hear the Nusrat Fateh-Ali Khan version– so this is the Islamic one and this is a singer from Pakistan, probably the greatest singer of all time.

We hear a recording of the song play.

Alan: It goes on a lot longer than that. And because I mentioned vocal acrobatics earlier, I want to play another clip from later in the same song where they really express their devotion and love for God with some really cool vocals.

We hear a recording of the song play.

Alan: Ok this is getting into a bit of a tangent, but that’s ok. Now I’m going to play a clip from VBS, which is Valley Beth Shalom here in LA, and they did a tribute concert to Debbie Friedman. And so- just so you can hear her tune and how it’s basically the same tune, but with “Hallelu”:

We hear a recording of the song play.

Alan: We had some people in the audience singing along. Alright. But now we’re going back to Iran where, like Abraham ben Maimonides in the 1100s, Siman-Tov Melamed wrote about how the Sufism he was practicing was originally Jewish before it became Muslim. He was also careful to remain explicitly Jewish despite his Sufi ways, and he participated in forced disputations against Shi’as and apostate Jews throughout his life in Mashhad. Some people were opposed to this form of mysticism perpetuating itself in Judaism and wrote polemics against it, especially as it often served as a bridge for Jews to eventually fully convert to Islam. But Siman-Tov Melamed seems never to have budged from his pro-Sufi stance, even writing poems with lines like:

Actor 2: Godly and radiant like roses,

The Sufis are, the Sufis,

Whose carnal soul is dead,

Doused their desires, the Sufis.

Clad in threads, drinking dregs, with their eyes closed and their ears silenced by His absence are the Sufis

Their hospices are spacious castles, their tables, gardens, and rose beds. Wounded by separation are the hearts of the Sufis

God’s love is their beloved, God’s affection their decoration,

And that which veils Him from the Sufis

Alan: Soon after the death of Siman-Tov Melamed, the Jewish community in Mashhad was famously subjected to the Allahdad, a pogrom that ended with the forced conversion of the community to Islam. Many truly converted, but a large group secretly practiced as Jews for the next century, and are still a strong community in the diaspora today.

Actor 2: Nothing Came Before God

Actor 1: It has no accomplice nor comrade nor colleague

Actor 2: It is Itself existence, It is the Master, It is the Living

The existence of Its essence is hidden, even from Itself

Actor 1: It is, It will be, It was

It has not been diminished, and It will not be added to

Actor 2: It is the Judge, the Opener and the Witness

It is One, without peer, It is Unity

Actor 1: It is without pair, without partner, without companion

It is worthy by Itself

Actor 2: It is Existence and the Extractor to existence

Actor 1: The passion for Its worship burns from the soul and heart

We hear the music conclude.

Alan: But times have changed since modernity and influence from other Jewish and non-Jewish groups made inroads into the Persian Jewish community. The autobiography of Yedidia Shofet, Chief Rabbi of the Persian Jews in the 20th century, references religious Jews who were part of Muslim Sufi orders, but they are few and far between. The mainstreaming of Persian Jews after leaving Iran has led to cultural practices being either forgotten, not noticed, or associated with cultural Persian-ness. The music of Iran, the poetry culture, the mysticism – these are seen as being part of Persian culture, and not of Jewish culture. When young Persian Jews today want to return to their heritage, they often become Orthodox Jews in the European style, often even wearing the garb of the Hasidic Jews of Eastern Europe, adopting their ways of studying and thinking, and their dress, their pronunciations, and their memories. In America, the aesthetic connection between Persian Jews and their Sufi past has been diluted and disconnected. And yet, there is still no theological problem between Judaism and Islam, especially not the Sufi form, and the Sufi form of Judaism remains an integral part of the heritage of the Jews of Iran, whether they know it or not. As David Steinberg wrote,

Actor 2: ‘’As Islam developed it became, by far, the major religion closest to Judaism. The most obvious common feature is the statement of the absolute unity of God which Muslims repeat five times each day, and Jews at least twice. Probably the only major Islamic belief that Judaism would find unpalatable would be the recognition of Muhammad as the last and greatest of the prophets.’’

Alan: Christianity and Greek culture existed in opposition to Judaism, but Arab, Israelite, and Persian culture were relatively similar and developed alongside each other. Musical traditions have continued into many forms of Judaism: baqqashot

Actor 1: penitential prayers

Alan: niggunim

Actor 2: wordless tunes

Alan: piyyutim

Actor 1: liturgical poetry

Alan: and ecstatic prayer, and the use of Persian as a devotional language persists among Persian, Afghan, and Bukharian Jews, though it dwindles with each passing year. Today, the layout of Sephardic synagogues resembles Sufi circles, with devotees typically moving from side to side during prayer, instead of the back and forth associated with Ashkenazi Jews.

Actor 1: Ashkenazi Jews are, in modern parlance, considered to be those Jewish people whose ancestry and practices are most often associated with Central and Eastern Europe.

Alan: In case you didn’t know. But Ashkenazi Judaism is itself influenced by the Sufis! Kabbalah may have come to the East from Spain, but the ideas of debequt

Actor 2: cleaving to God

Alan: ego-loss, hitbodedut, and so on, were already prevalent in Persia and the Ottoman Empire when Kabbalah arrived. Up in Eastern Europe, the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, famously kept Bahya ibn Paquda’s Sufi treatise at his bedside, and studied it daily.

Hasidic practices are influenced by the same Sufism that took hold in Spain, Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia, and was itself influenced by earlier Judaism.

As there is growing interest in Sufism (and Buddhism, and so on) in the West, questions arise:

Actor 2: How removed from the Middle East can you be, culturally, before it starts to just become generalized western mysticism and no longer Sufism?

Actor 1: Is Sufi mysticism about flavor and aesthetics?

Actor 2: To be Sufi, do you have to learn the music and the movements and the outfits and the poetry and the language, or do you have to accept Muhammad?

Actor 1: To be a Jew, do you have to be a little more Middle Eastern than European? To learn the language, music, history, movements, outfits, poetry, and so on?

Actor 2: How much are Sufism and Judaism aesthetics, or philosophies, or forms of a religion?

Alan: For Persian Jews, this was rarely a question, because they were by default a part of Persian culture, which was by default Sufi—and generally mystical even before the Rise of Islam. Many of the features of Sufism were originally Jewish, and, as already indicated, there was no theological issue with Jewish Sufi practice.

In the modern era, persecutions and then separation from Iran have deteriorated most vestiges of the Jewish-Sufi past. As Persian Jews assimilate more and more into “mainstream Judaism”, they inevitably come back into contact with some of the Sufi flavors they lost, as these flavors have pervaded the Judaism of Spain and Eastern Europe, Kabbalah, and Western Culture.

So no matter what type of Jew or Sufi we encounter, we can remember the words of the earliest known Sufi Jewish poet of Persia, Shahin, in his introduction to his epic telling of the creation of the Universe by the Almighty God:

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 2: God, you have given me success

Actor 1: In your mercy you opened doors before me

Actor 2: I was an embryo without legs or head

Without ears, eyes, chest, or form

Actor 1: From your own mercy you looked in my direction

The waters of mercy flowed into my gutter

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 2: You are the creator of conscious creatures

You are the owner of the heavens and the nine celestial spheres

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 1: You are the provider for mosquitoes and for ants

You are the forgiver of the dead in their graves

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 2: You are the Sultan, you are the ultimate judge

You are the merciful one, you are the great creator

Actor 1: You are that King of Kings, unique

To you the Sultans are like servants

Actor 2: You are that visible merciful compassionate one

God of the morning, evening, night, and day

Actor 1: You are the powerful one, the principal, the King

You are the light of Venus, the sun, and the moon

Actor 2: You are the treasure of mercy, the sea of gifts

You are the medicine for the pain of the pained

Actor 1: You are the forgiver, the veiler, the divine

You are the almighty, the intention, existence itself

Actor 2: You are the seer, the knower, the clairvoyant

You are the king, the sovereign, the inimitable

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian.

Actor 1: O, Shāhin, how long will you pontificate?

How much can you elaborate with words?

Actor 2: Go in the corner and be silent

Actor 1: Breathe deeply, leave behind this abundance of scribbles

We hear Alan read in Judeo-Persian. We then hear the music continue, followed by audience applause.