<p>According to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a medieval text composed between 700 and 1000 CE, the child prodigy Ben Sira mastered the entirety of human and divine knowledge in just seven years. The text lays it out year by year, like a supernatural curriculum.</p>
<p>Year one: the entire Torah. Year two: the Mikrah (Hebrew Bible), the Mishnah, and the Talmud -- both its legal rulings and its narrative aggadah. Year three: biblical and scribal grammar. Year four: logic, astronomy (specifically calculating equinoxes), and geometry.</p>
<p>Then things get strange.</p>
<p>Year five: the language of palm trees, the language of the ministering angels, the language of demons, and the Mishlei Shualim -- the Fox Fables, a tradition of animal parables that circulated widely in Jewish literature. Year six: the Sifra, the Sifrei, and the Tanna De-Bei Eliyahu, three great works of midrashic commentary. Year seven: everything else. "He did not leave anything -- large or small -- without study."</p>
<p>The progression is fascinating because it mirrors a medieval understanding of the hierarchy of knowledge. You start with Torah, move through law and scripture, then grammar and science, and only then are you ready for the truly esoteric stuff -- the languages of angels and demons. It's as if the text is saying: rational knowledge is the foundation, but the real goal is supernatural understanding. The <a href='/texts/sefaria-ben-sira-1.html'>Book of Ben Sira</a> itself opens with the claim that "all wisdom is from the Lord." This passage shows what it looks like when someone takes that idea to its absolute limit.</p>