Rabbi Ishmael Stood Before the Throne and the Patriarchs Celebrated

There is a moment in the Heikhalot Rabbati that does not describe what Rabbi Ishmael saw. It describes what happened to everyone else when he came back.

The Heikhalot Rabbati. the "Greater Book of Palaces". is the central text of the Merkavah mystical tradition, likely compiled in Palestine between the third and seventh centuries CE. It describes the ascent through seven heavenly palaces, each guarded by angels who demand the correct divine names as passwords, each closer to the throne of God's glory than the one before it. The mystics who undertook this ascent were not seeking philosophical insight. They were seeking direct encounter. standing before the source itself and surviving the experience intact.

Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha, one of the Ten Martyrs executed by Rome in the second century CE and a central figure in this literature, had stood before the throne. When he returned and shared what he had witnessed, his colleagues. including Rabbi Nehunya ben Hakkanah, the mystic who taught the descent-tradition to the assembled sages. were overcome. The Patriarch himself called for musical instruments. Wine was brought. "We shall exult with joy of harp and flute," he declared. And then: God. named in this text as Zoharariel, the "Lord God of Israel," the radiance-of-God. would wreak wonders upon Rome.

Rome was not mentioned incidentally. For the rabbis of this period, under the boot of an empire that had destroyed the Temple and martyred their colleagues, the promise of divine vengeance against Rome was not political. It was eschatological. It was the announcement that history was moving toward its conclusion and that what Rabbi Ishmael had seen from before the throne confirmed this. The vision was proof. The rejoicing was the natural response of people who had just received confirmation that the suffering was not permanent.

The Heikhalot Rabbati also records what the ascent required. and what happened when it went wrong. In another passage from this same text, Rabban Simon ben Gamliel angrily rebuked Rabbi Ishmael for having failed to give the correct angelic names and divine seals to his companions before ascending. "Almost had Zahaphtariai rebuked us and shucked us as husks of corn," he said. an image of utter annihilation, the celestial guardians stripping away everything. The danger at the gate of the seventh palace was not metaphorical. Even a scholar of unquestionable stature could be exterminated by the doorkeepers if he arrived without the proper credentials.

This is why, in the passage that has become most famous from the Heikhalot tradition, Rabbi Ishmael assembled the entire Sanhedrin at the third entrance to the Temple to receive instruction on the Merkavah. Not scholars only, not an inner circle of mystics. the great and the small, every member of the supreme rabbinic court, gathered around Rabbi Nehunya ben Hakkanah as he sat on a chair of pure marble (a family heirloom, the text specifies, passed down through generations) and taught the secrets of the chariot-descent. Around them, the assembled students saw what the text describes as "spiderwebs of fire and torches of light" separating the inner circle from the rest. Something divine was present in the teaching.

Rabbi Nehunya would eventually be recalled from his ascent by a cloth soaked in myrrh and spikenard and balsam placed upon his knees. a fragrant anchor that pulled him back from before the throne to the earthly room where his students waited. The return from the throne required the same preparation as the ascent toward it. You could not simply come back. Someone had to bring you.

What Rabbi Ishmael saw when he stood before the throne, the text does not record. What it records is the feast. The music. The proclamation against Rome. The joy of people who had been shown that the universe was still under the management of the One who had made it, and that the management had not forgotten them.