In the Talmud there's a famous story about four Rabbis who enter a fine garden. The word is "Pardes" which literally means orchard, but is a distant cousin of the word paradise. To no-one's surprise this turns out to be (spoilers!) a metaphor for heaven or divine knowledge which is Making a Point. In fact, I think the whole story is recorded not for its own sake but as a supporting example to a general prohibition, if you meditate and study so hard you gain divine insight that gives you miraculous powers, only share the knowledge with sober-minded over-40s of good character, in case someone is a bit reckless and heat-visions an entire landscape or designs a robot that runs amok and destroys Prague, or whatever.
You will also be shocked, shocked, to learn that when reach these heights of divine knowledge, three of them act incautiously and get comeuppance for it, and R Akiva is sensible about it and gets out safely and becomes One of the Most Famous Rabbis in the Talmud ever.
According to later versions of the story, the first rabbi, Ben Azzai saw God and died. In the earliest version is just says he went into the garden and "glimpsed and died", and what exactly he glimpsed was something only contained in oral versions of the story. The real life Ben Azzai was another Talmud Rabbi famous for all sorts of things, although apparently he did die young-ish and never officially got recognised as a rabbi in his lifetime.
The second, Ben Zoma, looked around and saw too much, but not so much that he died, and went mad. The original cliff notes version quotes a bit of the bible about not eating too much honey here, so something like, he didn't know what was too much. Apparently he also died without becoming a Rabbi but was famous for his learning anyway.
The third "trampled the stalks" which is bad in a field, and super super bad to do in heaven. The expanded version says he saw God and Metatron and said, "oh look, there's two Gods!?" and caused a holy hullabaloo across all of heaven, and got kicked out. And in real life, he abandoned being a great famous Rabbi and became a super super heretic, and went around gratuitously sinning all over the place -- or perhaps, adopted ideas of a different sect of Judaism that the people writing this down wanted to tell everyone how BAD it was. His name as Elisha ben Abuya, but he's known as "Acher" which means "The Other" all through the talmud where's an example of what absolutely not to do.
And Akiva entered the garden peacefully, did no harm, and left again safely. The Talmud usually likes Akiva.
Next time we'll talk about Acher's heresy in a lot more detail. Also (spoilers) the angels drag Metatron from his throne and whip him with thousands and thousands of fiery whips (yes, really) which may give some satisfaction to those of you who read Good Omens.
You will also be shocked, shocked, to learn that when reach these heights of divine knowledge, three of them act incautiously and get comeuppance for it, and R Akiva is sensible about it and gets out safely and becomes One of the Most Famous Rabbis in the Talmud ever.
According to later versions of the story, the first rabbi, Ben Azzai saw God and died. In the earliest version is just says he went into the garden and "glimpsed and died", and what exactly he glimpsed was something only contained in oral versions of the story. The real life Ben Azzai was another Talmud Rabbi famous for all sorts of things, although apparently he did die young-ish and never officially got recognised as a rabbi in his lifetime.
The second, Ben Zoma, looked around and saw too much, but not so much that he died, and went mad. The original cliff notes version quotes a bit of the bible about not eating too much honey here, so something like, he didn't know what was too much. Apparently he also died without becoming a Rabbi but was famous for his learning anyway.
The third "trampled the stalks" which is bad in a field, and super super bad to do in heaven. The expanded version says he saw God and Metatron and said, "oh look, there's two Gods!?" and caused a holy hullabaloo across all of heaven, and got kicked out. And in real life, he abandoned being a great famous Rabbi and became a super super heretic, and went around gratuitously sinning all over the place -- or perhaps, adopted ideas of a different sect of Judaism that the people writing this down wanted to tell everyone how BAD it was. His name as Elisha ben Abuya, but he's known as "Acher" which means "The Other" all through the talmud where's an example of what absolutely not to do.
And Akiva entered the garden peacefully, did no harm, and left again safely. The Talmud usually likes Akiva.
Next time we'll talk about Acher's heresy in a lot more detail. Also (spoilers) the angels drag Metatron from his throne and whip him with thousands and thousands of fiery whips (yes, really) which may give some satisfaction to those of you who read Good Omens.