(This is the second post in a series. For the first post, click here.) "Now, friend, return to the study of the descent to the merkabah. I have been instructing you in it: how one goes down and how one comes up; what the character of the First Palace is; how one gets angels into his service and … [Read more...]
The Mystery of the Merkabah – “What Was That Paradise?”
Sometime around the beginning of the 11th century, an Iraqi Jewish academician named Hai Gaon had to field a query from a puzzled reader of the Talmud: "With respect to that which our rabbis taught, 'Four entered Paradise, Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, the "Other One" and Rabbi Akiba'--what was that … [Read more...]
Jewish Faust, Heretic Rabbi – The Strange Case of Elisha ben Abuya
His name was Elisha ben ("son of") Abuya. He’s been called “the Jewish Faust”; and when the 19th-century writer Max Letteris translated Goethe's Faust into Hebrew, he gave his adaptation the title "Ben Abuya." The ancient rabbis of the Talmud, who spoke with fascinated horror of their colleague … [Read more...]
Lost Horizon, Deadly Paradise – Quaternity Tales (Part 3)
"Conway went to the balcony and gazed at the dazzling plume of Karakal; the moon was riding high in a waveless ocean. ... He was only partly unhappy, but he was infinitely and rather sadly perplexed. He did not know whether he had been mad and was now sane, or had been sane for a time and was now … [Read more...]
Lost Horizon, Deadly Paradise – Quaternity Tales (Part 2)
(Continued from last week's post:) The secret of Shangri-La is this: Living there, you age with preternatural slowness. Unlike in the archetypal paradise of Eden (at least according to some interpretations), you're not exactly immortal. Sooner or later you're going to grow old and die. But … [Read more...]
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