Elisha ben Abuyah had once been one of the greatest scholars of his generation, a colleague of Rabbi Akiba. Then he turned away from the tradition so completely that the rabbis stopped using his name. They called him Acher, "the Other."
The Exempla preserves several reasons for his turning. His father had dedicated him to the Torah not out of love for Torah, but out of pride in having a learned son. A dedication made for wrong reasons does not hold. Elisha also saw, one Sabbath in the valley of Gennesaret, a man climb a tree and take a bird and its young from the nest. The climber descended unharmed, violating the commandment. Another man climbed a tree, observed the Torah's rule by sending the mother bird away (Deuteronomy 22:6–7), and on the way down was bitten by a snake and died. The Torah had promised long life for keeping that commandment. Elisha looked at the two bodies and concluded that the promise was empty.
A third tradition says he saw the tongue of Rabbi Nachum the martyr eaten by dogs, and said, "Is this the reward of study?" He did not believe in reward after death or in the resurrection. In the time of persecution he crossed over and helped the Romans force Jews to break the Law.
Rabbi Meir, his student, never gave up on him. Meir pleaded with him to repent. Elisha refused, saying he had once heard a voice behind the western wall of the Temple announcing that all who repent are received, except Elisha ben Abuyah, "who knew my power and rebelled against it." When Elisha fell dangerously ill, Meir visited him and asked again. "Will He receive me now?" Elisha whispered. "Yes," Meir answered. Elisha wept and died.
Days later, smoke rose from Elisha's grave. Meir came and spread his own mantle over it. "Sleep through the night," he said. "Perhaps the Lord will redeem you. If He does not, I will." He slept until morning. The Exempla borrows this closing line from the biblical story of Boaz and Ruth (Ruth 3:13), but the meaning has shifted. Meir took on responsibility for his teacher's soul. Years later, Elisha's daughter came to Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi seeking assistance, and he helped her, for the sake of the father she had never stopped claiming.