<strong>Elisha ben Abuya</strong>—the rabbi the Talmud calls "Aher" (אחר), "the Other"—became a heretic because of something he saw in heaven. According to Chagigah 15a, the vision that broke his faith involved a single seated angel.
When Elisha entered the Pardes, he saw the angel Metatron (מטטרון)—the highest of all angels, the heavenly scribe who records the merits of Israel—seated on a throne. In heaven, there is a tradition that no one sits. Only God sits. Every angel stands in service. But Metatron was seated.
Elisha drew the worst possible conclusion: "Perhaps there are two powers in heaven." If an angel can sit like God, perhaps there is a second divine authority. The foundation of Jewish theology—that God alone rules—seemed to crack before his eyes.
The Talmud immediately corrects the misunderstanding. Metatron was granted permission to sit because his job was to write down the merits of Israel. He was a scribe, not a rival deity. As punishment for the confusion his seated position caused, Metatron was struck with sixty lashes of fire. The message was clear: no angel, no matter how exalted, shares God's authority.
But for Elisha, the damage was done. The earlier passage in Chagigah 14b tells us that Ben Zoma, another of the four who entered the Pardes, had also been overwhelmed by mystical contemplation. He was found by Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananya in a state of distraction, staring into the gap between the upper and lower waters of Creation (Genesis 1:2), claiming they were separated by only three fingerwidths. Rabbi Yehoshua told his students: "Ben Zoma is still outside"—he had not achieved understanding, only obsession.