Merkabah - Heikhalot Literature and "Four Entered Pardes"

Heikhalot Literature and "Four Entered Pardes"

Moshe Idel, Gershom Scholem, Joseph Dan, and others have raised the natural question concerning the relationship between the "chambers" portion of the Heichalot literature and the Bavli's treatment of "The Work of the Chariot" in the presentation and analysis of such in the Gemara to tractate Hagigah of the Mishna. This portion of the Babylonian Talmud, which includes the famous "four entered pardes" material, runs from 12b-iv (wherein the Gemara's treatment of the "Work of Creation" flows into and becomes its treatment of "The Work of the Chariot") to and into 16a-i.

By making use of the Rabbinically paradigmatic figures of Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael in their writings, the generators of the Heikhalot literature, quite arguably, seem to be attempting to show some sort of connection between their writings and the Chariot/Throne study and practice of the Rabbinic Movement in the decades immediately following upon the destruction of the Temple. However, in both the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud the major players in this Chariot/Throne endeavor are, clearly, Rabbi Akiva and Elisha ben Abuyah who is referred to as "Akher." Neither Talmud presents Rabbi Ishmael as a player in Merkabah study and practice.

In the long study on these matters contained in " 'The Written' as the Vocation of Conceiving Jewishly" the hypothesis is offered and defended that "Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha" (more often, simply "Rabbi Ishmael") is in fact a Rabbinically sanctioned cognomen for Elisha ben Abuyah who, as is well known, apostatized from the Rabbinic Movement. The argument is that through this indirection Rabbinic offialdom was able to integrate into the Gemaric give and take of argumentation and analysis the huge body of halakhic and hermeneutical teachings of this great Torah scholar without, however, honoring his equally significant apostasy. To be sure, in the accounting of this figure's mystical study and practice the pejorative (in context) "Akher" is used instead of "Rabbi Ishmael." This is because Elisha ben Abuyah's teachings under the heading of "The Work of the Chariot" came to be considered heretical in contrast to his halakhic and hermeneutical teachings which were generally admired—and whose weighty influence, in any case, could not be ignored. All of this indicates that the generators of the Heikhalot literature were indeed savvy in choosing "Rabbi Ishmael" as paradigmatic in their own writings as a means of relating their own endeavors to the mystical study and practices of the tannaim in the early decades following upon the destruction of the Temple.

Both Akiva and the "Ishmaelic Akher" traded upon the "two-thrones"/"two-powers"-in-Heaven motif in their respective Merkabah-oriented undertakings. Akiva's version is memorialized in the Bavli Gemara to tractate Hagigah at 14a-ii wherein Akiva puts forth the pairing of Hashem and "David" in a messianic version of that mystical motif. Immediately after this Akivian "solution" to the puzzle of thrones referred to in Song of Songs and the two thrones spoken of in Daniel, Chapter Seven, the text presents Akiva as being pressured—and then acquiescing to—a domesticated version of this twoness theme for the single Jewish God which would be acceptable to Rabbinic officialdom. The text offers Justice and Charity as the middot of God which are enthroned in Heaven. Akher's non-Messianic and Metatron-oriented version of this "two-thrones"/"two-powers"-in-Heaven motif is discussed at length in the entry "Paradigmatia" of the above-mentioned study. The generic point in all of this is that by the time of the final editing of the Mishna this whole motif (along with other dimensions of Merkabah-oriented study and practice) came to be severely discouraged by Rabbinic officialdom. Those who still pursued these kinds of things were marginalized by the Rabbinic Movement over the next several centuries becoming, in effect, a separate grouping responsible for the Heikhalot literature.

In the "four-entered-pardes" section of this portion of the Bavli Gemara on tractate Hagigah, it is the figure of Akiva who seems to be lionized. For of the four he is the only one presented who ascended and descended "whole." The other three were broken, one way or another: Ben Azzai dies soon after; Ben Zoma is presented as going insane; and worst of all, "Akher" apostatizes. This putative lionization of Rabbi Akiva occurs at 15b-vi-16a-i of our Gemara section