6 myths
The boundaries of belief in Jewish tradition: Elisha ben Abuya's apostasy, the minim, and what it means to leave the fold.
6 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines heresy, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
Four sages entered Pardes. One died, one broke, one became Aher, and only Rabbi Akiva crossed the marble threshold and returned whole.
Elisha ben Abuya entered heaven and saw an angel seated on a throne. In heaven, no one sits. His mind drew one conclusion, and it cost him everything.
An angel held the chisel at creation, said a sect hidden in caves, and the rabbis who hunted the doctrine fought to bury it forever.
Sages nearly suppressed Ecclesiastes as heresy. A final clause on judgment, and wisdom answering at the gates, kept the scroll open.
Kohelet sounds like heresy until judgment returns in the last clause. The sages almost suppress the book, then keep it.
Rabbi Eliezer walked free from a governor's court, then trembled because a heretic's clever question in the marketplace had once pleased him.
