For the source text click/tap here: Chagigah 15
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As a continuation of the story of arba she-nikhnisu ba-pardes – four tannaim who embarked on the study of esoteric secrets of the Torah – our Gemara discusses the case of Acher, the Tanna Elisha ben Avuya, whose experience in the pardes led him to become a heretic. According to the Gemara, Acher peered into heaven and found the Archangel Mitatron who had received permission to sit down to write the merits of the Jewish people. From the midrashim it appears that Mitatron is the angel responsible for the entire world, and seeing him gave Acher the sense that there existed shetei reshuyot (two competing forces in heaven) – Mitatron and God – which was a common belief of Gnostic sects at that time.
Even after Elisha ben Avuya’s heresy, his student Rabbi Meir continued to study with him, and our Gemara relates a series of conversations that went on between them.
We explore the story of his apostasy and the history of scholarship on the parallel texts regarding his tragic end in Tosefta and Midrashim.
Milton Steinberg’s novel is a reconstruction of his biography which bears on the issues of theodicy and belief.