Elisha ben Abuyah

Elisha ben Abuyah (] whereas a man who broke the same law was not hurt in the least. This encounter, as well as the frightful sufferings of Jewish martyrs during the Hadrianic persecutions, led Elisha to the conclusion that there was no reward for virtue in this life, though the Pharisee sages interpreted this passage as referring to life and reward in the next world. Thus, the "Jewish Encyclopedia" suggests that Elisha was a Sadducee, since belief that reward and punishment must occur on Earth and disbelief in an afterlife are part of Sadducee philosophy. However, his abandonment of Jewish practice after his troubling encounters seems to indicate that, whatever his earlier philosophy, Elisha abandoned any form of Jewish religion.

The Jerusalem Talmud is also the authority for the statement that Elisha played the part of an informer during the Hadrianic persecutions, when the Jews were ordered to violate the laws of the Torah. As evidence of this it is related that when the Jews were ordered to do work on Shabbat, they tried to perform it in a way which could be considered as not profaning the Sabbath. But Elisha betrayed the Pharisees to the Roman authorities.

The "Jewish Encyclopedia" clearly accepts the account of Jerusalem Talmud as based on reliable tradition, partly because the information therein is confirmed by the Babylonian Talmud (Kiddushin 39b). Just as clearly, the "Jewish Encyclopedia" rejects the Babylonian Talmud as a reliable source in this matter.

In his book, "The Sinner and the Amnesiac: The Rabbinic Invention of Elisha Ben Abuya and Eleazar Ben Arach" (2000), Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein argues that rabbinic stories should be read as literature rather than as history::They [the rabbis] construct stories that are then integrated into larger ideologi­cally motivated literary units in such a way as to impart particular ideologi­cal messages. The sources do not necessarily relate the historical facts about the heroes but they do illustrate the cultural concerns that find expression in the stories told about them. ... All this leads to the realization that the significant unit for presentation is not the life of the sage; it is the stories about sages. These stories are not formulated in an attempt to tell the life of the sage. They are told because the sage, as part of the collective culture, has some bearing on the common cultural concerns. Various anecdotes are coupled into a larger story cycle. [Alon Goshen-Gottstein, "The Sinner and the Amnesiac: The Rabbinic Invention of Elisha Ben Abuya and Eleazar Ben Arach", Stanford University Press, 2000.]

Rabbinic Judaism was based on vigorous and often contentious debate over the meaning of the Torah and other sacred texts. One challenge facing the rabbis was to establish the degree of heterodoxy that was acceptable in debate. In this context, Elisha the heretic and Eleazar, who is said to have forgotten the Torah, represent two extremes in attitudes towards the Torah; actual rabbis and their arguments had to fit somewhere between these two limits.

Elisha an "Epicurean"

The harsh treatment he received from the Pharisees was due to his having deserted their ranks at such a critical time. Quite in harmony with this supposition are the other sins laid to his charge; namely, that he rode in an ostentatious manner through the streets of Jerusalem on a Day of Atonement which fell upon a Sabbath, and that he was bold enough to overstep the "teḥum" (the limits of the Sabbath-day journey). Both the Jerusalem and the Babylonian Talmuds agree here, and cite this as proof that Elisha turned from Pharisaism to heresy. It was just such non-observance of customs that excited the anger of Akiva (Sotah 27b). The "Jewish Encyclopedia" writes that the mention of the "Holy of Holies" in this passage is not an anachronism, as Grätz thinks, for while it is true that Eliezer and Joshua were present as the geonim "par excellence" at Elisha's circumcision—which must, therefore, have occurred after the death of Johanan ben Zakkai (80)—it is also true that the "Holy of Holies" is likewise mentioned in connection with Rabbi Akiva (Makkot, end); indeed, the use of this expression is due to the fact that the Rabbis held holiness to be inherent in the place, not in the building (Yevamot 6b).

The same passage from the Jerusalem Talmud refers to Elisha as being alive when his pupil Rabbi Meir had become a renowned teacher. According to the assumption made above, he must have reached his seventieth year at that time. If Elisha were a Sadducee, the friendship constantly shown him by Rabbi Meïr could be understood. This friendship would have been impossible had Elisha been an apostate or a man of loose morals, as has been asserted. Sadducees and Pharisees, however, lived in friendly intercourse with one another (for example, Rabban Gamaliel with Sadducees; Eruvin 77b).

"For legends concerning Elisha see Johanan ben Nappaha; Rabbi Meir; compare also Gnosticism."

Elisha's place in the Mishna Tree

Modern cultural references to Elisha

Jacob Gordin's play "Elisha Ben Abuyah"

Jacob Gordin wrote a Yiddish play, "Elisha Ben Abuyah" (1906); it was played unsuccessfully in New York City during Gordin's lifetime, and more successfully in numerous productions after his death; the title role was written for Jacob Adler, the only actor ever to play it. In the 1911 production after Gordin's death, the fallen woman Beata was played by Adler's wife Sara, Ben Abuyah's faithful friend Toivye Avyoini was played by Sigmund Mogulesko, and his daughter (who, in the play, runs away with a Roman soldier) by the Adlers' daughter Frances; in some of the last performances of the play, toward the end of Jacob Adler's career, the daughter was played by Frances younger, and eventually more famous, sister Stella.

Gordin's Ben Abuyah is clearly a surrogate for Gordin himself, and to some extent for Adler: an unbeliever, but one who thinks of himself, unalterably, as a Jew, and who rejects Christianity even more firmly than Judaism, a man who behaves ethically and who dies haunted by a vision of "terrible Jewish suffering", condemned by the rabbis generally, but lauded as a great Jew by his disciple Rabbi Meir. [Adler, 1999, 254-255 (commentary)]

Milton Steinberg's novel, "As A Driven Leaf"

Conservative Rabbi Milton Steinberg fictionalized the life of Elisha ben Abuyah in his controversial 1939 novel, "As A Driven Leaf". Steinberg's novel wrestles with the 2nd century Jewish struggle to reconcile Rabbinic Judaism both culturally and philosophically with Greek Hellenistic society. In Elisha's struggle, Steinberg speculates about questions and events that may have driven such a man to apostacy, and addresses questions of Jewish self-determination in the Roman Empire, the Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135), and above all the interdependence of reason and faith. Although the novel draws on Talmudic tradition to create the framework for Elisha's life, Steinberg himself wrote that his novel "springs from historical data without any effort at rigid conformity or literal confinement to them." (Steinberg, "As A Driven Leaf", 480, ISBN 0-87441-103-3).

himon Ballas' novel, "Outcast"

Iraqi-Israeli author Shimon Ballas' novel "Outcast," published in English in 2007, features an Elisha-like character. "Outcast" is narrated by Haroun Soussan, a Jewish convert to Islam. For Iraq, he left Judaism, embraced Islam, and fought Zionism as the nonpareil, ethnocentrist threat to his dreams. He has lost his closest friends because of politics, particularly Assad Nissim, a principled Iraqi Jew forced to depart for Israel. Despite everything Soussan believes and has done, however, what he was is not forgotten, and he feels an outcast not merely from the Jews and the West but within his homeland. Based on a historical figure, Ahmad (Nissim) Soussa's work ended up being used as anti-Jewish propaganda during the era of Saddam Hussein. Commenting on the use of Soussan's writing on Judaism by propagandists, his friend Assad Nissim likens him to Elisha Ben Abuya, or the one they called "Aher", the "Outcast." In Hebrew, the title of the book is "V'Hu Aher", which means "And He is an Other" or "And He is a Different One".

Footnotes

References

* Jacob Adler, "A Life on the Stage: A Memoir", translated and with commentary by Lulla Rosenfeld, Knopf, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-679-41351-0, pp. 254-255.The "Jewish Encyclopedia" cites the following bibliography:
* Heinrich Graetz, "Gnosticismus und Judenthum", pp. 56-71.
* Peretz Smolenskin, "Sämmtliche Werke", ii. 267-278.
* Adolf Jellinek, "Elischa b. Abuja", Leipzig, 1847.
* Isaac Hirsch Weiss, "Dor Dor we-Dorshaw", ii. 140-143.
* M. Dubsch, in "He-Halutz", v. 66-72.
* Karl Siegfried, "Philo von Alexandrien", pp. 285-287.
* Wilhelm Bacher, "Die Agada der Tannaïten", i. 432-436.
* M. D. Hoffman, "Toledot Elischa b. Abuja", Vienna, 1880.
* Solomon Rubin, "Yalkut Shelomoh", Kraków, 1896, pp. 17-28.
* Michael Friedländer, "Der Vorchristliche Jüdische Gnosticismus", 1898, pp. 100 "et seq."
* Samuel Baeck, "Elischa b. Abuja-Acher", Frankfurt, 1891.
* Compare also Meïr Halevi Letteris' Hebrew drama "Ben Abuja", an adaptation of Goethe's "Faust", Vienna, 1865.
* B. Kaplan, in "Open Court", August, 1902.