Abu Nasr as-Sarraj on Repentance

The Station of Repentance (Tawba)

Abu Ya’qub Yusuf ibn Hamdan as-Susi (God grant him compassion) said: “The first station of those devoted completely to God Most High is repentance.”

When as-Susi was asked about repentance, he replied: “Repentance is the return from everything that knowledge condemns toward what knowledge praises.” When Sahl ibn ‘Abdullah was asked about repentance, he responded, “It is to never forget your fault.” When Janayd was asked about repentance, he said, “It is forgetting your fault.”

The Shaykh (God grant him compassion) said: The response of as-Susi (God grant him compassion) concerning repentance was in reference to the repentance of the novice, the venturers, the seekers, the questers, those who are sometimes in the right and sometimes in the wrong. The same is the case for what Sahl ibn ‘Abdullah [at-Tustari] (God grant him compassion) said.

However, the response of Junayd (God grant him compassion)—that repentance is forgetting your fault—concerns the repentance of those who have achieved realization. They do not remember their faults; their hearts are overwhelmed with God’s majesty and with his continual remembrance.

Similarly, Ruwaym ibn Ahmad (God grant him compassion), when asked about repentance, said: “It is the repentance from repentance.” Likewise, Dhu n-Nun, when asked about repentance, said: The masses repent of their faults. The select repent of their neglect.”

As for the pronouncement of the people of knowing, the wajidin, and the select of the select, concerning the meaning of repentance—Abu l-Hasan an-Nuri (God grant him compassion) said when asked about repentance: “It is turning away from everything except God Most High.”

Someone else alluded to that when he said: “The faults of those near to God are the virtues of the pious”—that was Dhu n-Nun. He also said:

“What is sincerity for the seeker or novice is self-display for the knowers (‘arifin). When the knower has become firm and self-realized in that through which he draws near to God Most High and Transcendent—in the moment of his quest, in his beginning stage, upon his undertaking of offerings and pious deeds—when he has been encompassed by the lights of guidance, when providence has touched him, when he has been encircled by divine care, when his heart is witness to the majesty of his master, when he contemplates what God has fashioned and the eternity of his goodness, then he turns away from noticing, relying upon, and attending to his pious deeds and acts and offerings, as he did as a seeker and a beginner.”

How great are the differences among the repentant! One turns away from faults and bad acts; a second turns away from slips and oversights; a third turns his attention away from his good and pious deeds.

Repentance demands watchfulness.

Excerpt from from The Book of Flashes (Kitab al-Luma’) by Abu Nasr as-Sarraj (d.988)

Where Art Thou?

Rabbi Schneur Zalman, The Rav of Northern White Russia (died 1813), was put in jail in Petersbutf, because the mitnagdim had denounced his principles and his way of living to the government. He was awaiting trial when the chief of the gendarmes entered his cell. The majestic and quiet face of the rav, who was so deep in meditation that he did not at first notice his visitor, suggested to the chief, a thoughtful person, what manner of man he had before him. He began to converse with his prisoner and brought up a number of questions which had occurred to him in reading the Scriptures. Finally, he asked: “How are we to understand that God, the all-knowing, said to Adam: ‘Where art thou?’”

“Do you believe,” answered the rav, “that the Scriptures are eternal and that every era, every generation and every man is included in them?”

“I believe this,” said the other.

“Well then,” said the zaddik, “in every era, God calls to every man: ‘Where are you in your world? So many years and days of those allotted to you have passed, and how far have you gotten in your world?’ God says something like this: ‘You have lived forty-six years. How far along are you?”

When the chief of the gendarmes heard his age mentioned, he pulled himself together, laid his hand on the rav’s shoulder, and cried: “Bravo!” But his heart trembled.

-Martin Buber, The Way of Man (9-10)

As I mentioned in my last post, the seemingly simple can be quite powerful when understood for its underlying symbolism. The name “Adam” is Hebrew, meaning “mankind”. While on one level the Biblical text tells the story of a particular individual, it also tells the story of all mankind, as well as the story of every individual. We are to understand the story as we stand in Adam’s place and imagine God speaking to us. God has given us commandments and the violation of these commandments brings us into opposition with God, for he “cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:31).

I quote again from Buber. God says to Adam: “Where art thou?”

In so asking, God does not expect to learn something he does not know; what he wants is to produce an effect in man which can only be produced by just such a question, provided that it reaches man’s heart—that man allows it to reach his heart.

Adam hides himself to avoid rendering accounts, to escape responsibility for his way of living. Every man hides for this purpose, for every man is Adam and finds himself in Adam’s situation...

Everything now depends on whether man faces the question. Of course every man’s heart, like that of the chief in the story, will tremble when he hears it. But his system of hideouts will help him to overcome this emotion. For the voice does not come in a thunderstorm which threatens man’s very existence; it is a “still small voice”, and easy to drown... Adam faces the Voice, perceives his enmeshment, and avows: “I hid myself”; this is the beginning of man’s way. The decisive heart-searching is the beginning of the way in man’s life; it is, again and again, the beginning of a human way. (pages 12-13)

Everyone must take this step and face the Voice. Until Adam takes responsibility for his action he does not progress. Hiding from God provides only a false solace. It is like trying to solve problems by forgetting about them. Forgetting may bring relief but it does not actually change anything—the problems are still there. The reason God calls after Adam is not to find him but to help Adam to find himself. When Adam understands where he is he can decide where he must go.

Adam and Eve are made to face the consequences of their action: pain and death. Because the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance they are banished from his presence. As Adam, mankind, we face a similar, personal fall from favor with God by sin. We are cut off from the presence of God and suffer sorrow and spiritual death. The objective now is to return to Eden. This is the “teshuvah”, the returning to God. This is what is meant by repentance, to return. The Lord still cannot allow sin, but Adam can return to the presence of God through covenant.

By sinning, Adam has become “natural man” and is in effect “an enemy to God... and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19). Adam can become “kadosh”, or holy once again, through the atonement of Christ to be brought back “at-one” with God.

So Adam, where art thou? “Have ye been spiritually born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts? Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view his mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?” (Alma 5:14-15).

“Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you” (Alma 5:33).

Ring in the Christ

I was thinking that a New Year’s Eve post might be appropriate and with it one of my favorite poems – “Ring Out, Wild Bells” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. This poem was later made into a hymn set to music by Crawford Gates. The poem was published in 1850 as part of “In Memoriam” which was an elegy to his sister’s fiancé Arthur Henry Hallam. Hallam was a close friend of Tennyson’s at Cambridge before dying of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1833. Tennyson worked on “In Memoriam” for the next seventeen years. The major theme of the elegy is the search for hope after a painful loss. It is one of Tennyson’s greatest works and one of the most famous of nineteenth century literature.

I especially enjoy the poem when sung to the tune composed by Crawford Gates. The song is found in the LDS hymn book as hymn number 215. It is a haunting melody set in a morose minor key. It doesn’t include all the stanzas from the original poem but takes the first two stanzas and ends with the eighth and last stanza.

This is the only hymn in the LDS hymn book I know that is classified as a New Year’s hymn. It is very fitting with the repeated plea to let old things pass away and to bring in the new and good. The New Year has long been a time of beginning again. I mentioned in my last post the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah which means “the head of the year”. Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of the world and is the first of the Ten Days of Repentance, Aseret Yemei Teshuvah. The Mishnah refers to Rosh Hashanah as “The Day of Judgment”. The ten days set aside for Aseret Yemei Teshuvah are a time for all to practice “teshuvah” which is “repentance” or literally “returning”. The Ten Days of Repentance concludes with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

I find this a very profound way at looking at the New Year. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about returning and atonement with God. Tennyson’s poem lists several evils surrounding us in the world but encourages us to let them go and let them die. My favorite part is that the poem ends with the source of redemption, which is The Christ. Appropriately, Crawford Gates’ melody for this poem ends with the ringing in of The Christ on a major chord.

And now the poem:

Ring Out, Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson