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The Tragedy of Aher: The Sage Who Could Not Return

by Ram ben Ze'ev


The Tragedy of Aher: The Sage Who Could Not Return
The Tragedy of Aher: The Sage Who Could Not Return

He was once among the greatest minds of his generation — brilliant, respected, steeped in Torah and philosophy alike. Yet he would become known not by his name, but by his absence from it. The Sages no longer called him Elisha ben Abuyah; they called him Aher — “the Other.”


Elisha was born into privilege in Jerusalem during the late Second Temple period. His father, Abuyah, was a wealthy and influential man who admired Torah scholarship, though more for prestige than for Heaven’s sake. When Elisha was circumcised, the greatest sages of the time — Rabban Eliezer and Rabban Yehoshua — attended the celebration. As they studied Torah together, fire appeared to dance above them — the visible presence of the Shechinah.



Abuyah, struck by the sight, declared, “If the power of Torah is so great, I will dedicate my son to it!” Yet his motives were tainted by pride, not purity. The Sages later taught that when something begins for the wrong reason, its end may be marred — and so it was.


Elisha grew into a prodigy. He mastered Torah, Mishnah, and Midrash, but also Greek philosophy, literature, and logic. He was a man of rare intellect, capable of holding sacred and secular thought in the same breath. Yet that very gift would prove his undoing. His fascination with foreign wisdom began to blur the boundaries between faith and reason, revelation and speculation.


Then came the event known as the four who entered the Pardes — the mystical “orchard” of Divine secrets. Four sages entered: Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Aher (Elisha), and Rabbi Akiva. The Talmud tells that Ben Azzai looked and died; Ben Zoma looked and lost his sanity; Elisha looked and “destroyed the plantings.” Only Rabbi Akiva entered in peace and left in peace.


Elisha saw a vision he could not reconcile: the angel Metatron seated and recording the merits of Israel. Believing that no being could sit in Heaven save G-D, he concluded — falsely — that there were “two powers” above. That thought — that there might be dual authority — severed his faith. A voice then called from Heaven: “Return, all My children — except Aher.”

From that moment, he was no longer Elisha ben Abuyah. He became “the Other.”



He abandoned the yoke of Torah, joined with the Romans, and mocked his former colleagues. Yet his most devoted student, Rabbi Meir, refused to abandon him. The Talmud tells that Rabbi Meir would follow him on Shabbat, riding alongside Aher’s horse as they discussed Torah. Though his teacher was excommunicated, Rabbi Meir said, “I find a pomegranate — I eat the seeds and discard the peel.” He could still taste holiness in his teacher’s words.


One day, as they rode together, Aher suddenly stopped. “Meir, turn back,” he said. “I have measured the steps of my horse. This far is the boundary of Shabbat — beyond it, one must not go.” In that single act, he revealed everything: even in rebellion, he still knew where holiness ended and profaneness began. He could no longer live within Torah, yet he could not entirely leave it behind.


Rabbi Meir pleaded, “Return with me, too.” But Aher replied with despair, “I cannot. I have already heard from beyond the Curtain: ‘Return, all My children — except Aher.’” He believed himself eternally exiled.


The Talmud relates another scene, perhaps the most poignant. One day, Elisha saw a child climbing a tree to perform the mitzvah of shiluach ha-ken — sending away the mother bird before taking her young — exactly as the Torah commands. The boy’s father had told him to do so, thereby fulfilling also the commandment to honour one’s parents. Both mitzvot carry the same promise: “That it may be good for you, and that you may live long upon the earth.” The boy sent away the bird, reached for the eggs, and fell to his death.


Elisha watched and cried out: “Where is his reward? Where is his long life?” That moment, more than any other, extinguished his faith. He had seen a child perform perfect obedience and receive death as his wage. From that, he concluded, “There is no justice, and there is no Judge.”



Yet the Sages explained later that he misunderstood. The Torah’s promise of long life refers not to this world but to Olam HaBa — the eternal world to come. “There is no reward for mitzvot in this world,” said Rabbi Yaakov, Elisha’s own descendant. Elisha’s mind could not accept what his heart could not see. He sought fairness on earth and, failing to find it, denied the Heaven that sustains it.


When Elisha lay dying, Rabbi Meir came to him again and begged him to repent. Aher wept but could not utter the words. He died with that cry still within him. Yet the Talmud says that when Rabbi Meir later died, a column of smoke that had risen from Aher’s grave ceased to rise — a sign that his student’s merit had drawn him out of judgment.


In the end, Elisha ben Abuyah became the symbol of intellect unmoored from faith — of wisdom without humility, and of the peril of demanding that the infinite conform to the understanding of the finite. Yet within his tragedy lies also a glimmer of hope: that even one who believes himself beyond redemption still carries within him the knowledge of where holiness begins and ends.


The voice that said, “Return, all My children — except Aher,” was not a decree, but a test. And perhaps, in the compassion of Heaven, it was never meant to exclude him at all — only to remind us that no soul is truly the Other.



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