Rabbi Eliezer of Worms told his pupils on the even of Passover that he intended going to Egypt to meet Maimonides. The pupils were surprised at his undertaking such a long journey at that time but he, being a master of the Kabbalah, conjured a cloud and rode on it and in the twinkling of an eye reached Egypt. In the evening Maimonides invited him to his house. During the Hagadah Maimonides discoursed philosophically but R. Eliezer never opened his mouth.
Maimonides believed him to be an ignorant man, not knowing who he was. In the morning he warned R. Eliezer not to go through a street of the Lupanaria on his way to synagogue, for any Jew caught there would be burned alive. So R. Eliezer went deliberately, was captured and condemned to be burned. Maimonides and the people grieved.
On his way to the market place where he was to be burned, R. Eliezer called at Maimonides 's house and asked him to wait for him before pronouncing the blessing of the wine at the midday meal. Maimonides believed him to be mad, but waited. At the market place, R. Eliezer through his magical powers assumed the form of one of the governors, a bitter enemy of the Jews, and the latter appeared to the people in the shape of R. Eliezer and was therefore burned.
At the appointed time R. Eliezer entered the house of Maimonides and explained to him that he had come to show him the mystical power of the Kabbalah and to convert him to the belief in it, for till then Maimonides had refused to acknowledge it. Eliezer then remained a year with him and Maimonides became a convinced student of Kabbalah.