Elisha ben Abuyah
Elisha ben Abuja (also: Elisha ben Abuja, Hebrew אלישע בן אבויה; nickname: Acher, "the other ", named so as not to call him as an apostate by name; * before 70 in Jerusalem ) was a disreputable as heretics Tannait the so-called second generation.
Life
He was a teacher of Rabbi Meir and friends with Rabbi Akiva. Elisha ben Abuja was considered one of the greatest connoisseurs of religious law, which he then no longer wanted to comply, so he was a freethinker. Therefore, he was by his contemporaries generally with the Apostatennamen " Acher ", "the other ", " the Apostate ," occupied ( bChag. 15a).
About the reasons for his " waste", there are various conjectures: he had after dealing with mystical and gnostic questions after his " invasion " in the PaRDeS (Hebrew פרדס, "paradise", paraphrase for the field of mysticism ) the " plantations of paradise garden destroyed, " a symbol of the rejection of religious law ( Tosefta Chag II, 3;. bChag 14b. ). General was the understanding that an invasion of Jewish mysticism was highly dangerous and many like his friend Rabbi Akiva survived this without being insane. Elisha also studied Greek philosophy and sang according to contemporary reports, often in the Greek language.
Elisha himself claimed that his father had Abuja rather than led him out of ambition out of pure love for the Torah, to study the Jewish scriptures. Abuja Elisha had already dedicated to Torah study on the day of circumcision and to this pompous celebration of the most outstanding scholars, Yohanan ben Zakkai, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Yehoshua ben Hananiah and others, and the most prominent in social position, men of his time, Nakdimon ben Gorjón, Kalba Sabua, Ben tsitsith Hake sass, indeed all realms of Jerusalem invited. Therefore, the Torah have it can not permanently bind to itself ( jChag. 77b ).
A third theory for his departure from the law-abiding suspected of Elisha doubt on the justice of God according to their own considerations regarding retribution, reward and punishment.
Elisha was because of his free thinking among his colleagues becoming the outsider and the despised. Only Meir met his former teacher, not least because of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, continue steadfastly loyal, but gave in defense of his own conduct following justification: " A pomegranate, I found the interior I ate that dish but I threw away " ( bChag. 15b). Even on his deathbed Meir, who by his teacher Elisha had been unable to drain trying to cause it to reverse. Elisha died but before he could do is definitely be able to comment. Elisha crying during this discussion pointed Meir as a reversal in the last minute and was very happy. Rabbi Meir is attributed the merit of having saved his teacher in front of a punishment in the next world. As Meir saw that Elisha's grave was in flames, he spread his suit about it and said: ". If God will not save you, I'll do it " ( supra)
In the Jewish tradition literature (eg Abot IV, 25), a few statements of pedagogical nature of Elisha are obtained, which probably came from the time before he became the " Acher ". Thereafter, however, criticized Elisha Torah study, made even fun of it and was in the time of Hadrian religious persecution an ally of the emperor. He is said to have during a tour of Jewish schools where learned the boy exclaimed: " What drive because here Why all this studying target rather of a carpenter, the other a carpenter, are the third a tailor? " ( JChag. 1c).
Survival in the literature
- Max Letteris (1800-1871) treated Elisa in a Hebrew Drama (1865 ) as the "Faust" of Judaism.
- The Austrian writer Nathan Birnbaum chose in the early Zionist period of his life ( he was later Territorialist, Jiddischist and Aguda - Toratreuer ) according to Elisha ben Abuja, the writers pseudonym Mathias Acher.
- Jacob Gordin (1853-1909) wrote in 1906 a play in Yiddish, Elisha ben Abuja, which was performed in his lifetime but Gordins without success in New York, according to Gordins death several times successfully.
- The conservative American Rabbi Milton Steinberg (1903-1950) wrote a controversial ( fictional ) novel about Elisha ben Abuja: As A Driven Leaf ( 1939).
- In 2007, the Iraqi- Israeli author Shimon Ballas published ( born 1930 in Baghdad, immigrated to Israel in 1951), an English-language novel titled Outcast in which a Elisha ben Abuja similar figure describes a Jew who converted to Islam and can not find their way into his old still in his new home at the end and is deserted by all friends. This - also translated into Hebrew ( we hu acher ) - Roman was abused at times of Saddam's regime to anti-Jewish propaganda.