The Four Who Entered Paradise – A Jungian View Of The Rabbinic Mind

The Perils of Desire

The Talmudic legend of the Four Who Entered Paradise is a basic text of the Kabbalah.
It is part of the Merkava canon, appearing in the Talmud, Tosefta, Hekhalot literature
and the Bahir. Quoted often directly or by allusion in Zoharic texts, it describes an event
in the lives of four rabbinic sages (Tanaim) of the Mishnaic period (c.a. late 1st Century –
early 2nd Century CE).

Our sages taught: Four entered paradise, Ben Azai, Ben Zoma, Acher and R.
Akiba. R. Akiba told them, “When you reach the place of pure marble stones,
do not say, ‘Water, Water,’ for it is written, ‘Whosoever tells lies, cannot stand
in My sight.1’” Ben Azai glanced and died. It was said, the verse, ‘Precious in the
eyes of God the death of His saints,2’ applies to him. Ben Zoma glanced and
was injured. The verse, ‘You found honey, eat cautiously, lest you eat to
satiation and vomit,3’ applies to him. Acher uprooted the plantings, and only R.
Akiba came out in peace.4

********

Abraham Lincoln is said to have said, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you
want to test a man's character, give him power."

Rabbi Akiba is suggesting, "Nearly all men can stand hardship and deprivation, but if you
want to test a man's character, put him in Paradise."

Being in Paradise means having to face the truth about yourself when getting everything
you want, that's why R. Akiba told them, it is written, ‘Whoever tells lies, cannot stand in
My sight.’ There is no lying or hiding in Paradise; nothing but the bare naked truth.

As a result, the three sages who entered paradise with R. Akiba came apart in different
ways. Because deep inside, where we experience pleasure, we have to be honest with
ourselves, or else we go mad, or die, or become monsters.

Elisha b. Abuya was the most extreme and stringent among the group; he was the
frumak5. He splits into Jekyll & Hyde opposites when placed into a situation with no
boundaries. In a Paradise where no one says no to anything, Elisha/Acher asks himself,
"Why did I torture myself with so many rules?” and concludes, "Oh, there are no rules."

Ben Azai asks himself, "Why would I leave Paradise?" He remains there and dies in this
physical world.

Akiba is integrated. Akiba has long known what he is capable of when possessed by his
instincts and seized by archetypes. Akiba is the great Jungian Hero who has transcended
the Trickster and Sage aspects of his own nature. Akiba has journeyed to the dark side
and into the underworld. He has rescued the Torah of his father from the HARAM of
excommunication in his attendance upon the great R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanos6, and slain his
dragon, the Roman Army, in the re-conquest of Jerusalem and the Temple site, and in his

© J. Hershy Worch 2017 – The Open Yeshiva – rebhershy@yahoo.com

Messianic crowning of Bar Kochba7. Akiba has also won the hand of the most beautiful
(if not quite virginal) wife of his most powerful adversary, Tineius-Rufus, the Roman
governor of Judea8. Akiba is unafraid of his truth, and so can enter, enjoy and leave
Paradise in peace.

It is the hapless ben Zoma who suffers the most damage during the encounter with
himself in Paradise. He cannot reconcile himself to his own desires, and cannot face his
own nature. Where previously he had managed to deal with his urges and instincts by
denying their ubiquity, their necessity and primacy, he is now faced with the raw truth;
there are no 'Higher' and 'Lower' desires - just Desire, plain and simple. But his entire
world view had been predicated on the notion that there is a real division between the
upper and lower waters, that noble and base desires are distinct. He went mad!9

There is a Midrash10 which gives us a window into ben Zoma’s thinking:

It is written, ‘God made the firmament.11’ This is one of the verses with which
Ben Zoma shook the world. ‘What do you mean, ‘God made’?’ Ben Zoma
demanded to know. ‘Doesn’t the same verse already tell us that God said, ‘Let
there be firmament.’ Wasn’t God’s command sufficient? Is it not written, ‘At
God’s word the heavens were made and in the breath of His mouth all their
hosts?12’

It was Ben Zoma who saw the split in the firmament spanning three finger-breadths
between the waters above and the waters below the heavens. He saw the split between
the Good Desire and Evil Desire. The Talmud recounts an anecdote with ben Zoma
after his exit from Paradise:

A story with R. Yehoshua b. Hanania who was standing on a step of the

Temple Mount. ben Zoma saw but did not acknowledge him. R. Yehoshua said,
‘Whence and whither ben Zoma?’

‘I was peering into the gap between the upper and lower waters,’ answered ben
Zoma. ‘And there is no more than three finger-breadth between them, as it is
written etc.’

‘ben Zoma is still on the outside,’ R. Yehoshua said to his disciples.13

‘Making’ in the context of the verse, ‘God made the firmament,’ is understood to mean
‘Fixing’14. Ben Zoma asked, if the verse had followed ‘God said ‘Let there be,’ with ‘and
it was so,’ which is the standard format of the other stages in Creation, I would have
assumed that the firmament was like any other creation. But the verse doesn’t say ‘it was
so’, the verse adds ‘And God made’ suggesting that the firmament needed fixing after it
was spoken into creation. ‘If God fixed it,’ Ben Zoma laments, ‘Why is there still a split
between my Good Desire and Evil Desire?’

Ben Zoma’s thundering is at his frustration with the split in himself, and his desires. If
there is still such a visible split between Good Desire and Evil Desire that they never
‘touch’ one another, then in what manner is the firmament fixed? And thus Ben Zoma is
considered to be ‘still outside’, damaged in his mind15.

© J. Hershy Worch 2017 – The Open Yeshiva – rebhershy@yahoo.com

1
Ps. 101:7
2
ibid. 116:15
3
Prov. 28:16
4
Talmud Bavli Hagiga 14b
5
Yiddish - over-pious person
6
Talmud Bavli Bava Metzia 59b
7
Talmud Yerushalmi Taanit 24b
8
Talmud Bavli Avoda Zara 20a
9
Mei Hashiloach Vol I. Emor - appendix
10
Genesis Rabba 4:6
11
Gen. 1:7
12
Ps. 33:6
13
Babylonian Talmud Hagiga 15a
14
Rashi Gen. 1:7
15
Sefer Yetzira: Chronicles of Desire p.p. 172

© J. Hershy Worch 2017 – The Open Yeshiva – rebhershy@yahoo.com