הרב אלישע בן אבויה

Elisha ben Abuya (Hebrew אלישע בן אבויה) was a tanna born in Jerusalem before the Churban of the second Beit HaMikdash, the son of one of the leading men of the city, who raised him for a life of Torah. Before the turn his life took, he was counted among the great Tannaim, and his sayings are scattered through the Talmud, Pirkei Avot, and Avot deRabbi Natan. The one teaching preserved in his name in the Mishnah praises early learning: one who studies Torah as a child, he said, is like ink written on fresh paper, while one who learns in old age is like ink written on erased paper. He stressed that good deeds must rest beneath a man’s learning as a foundation of stone beneath brick, lest the whole structure be washed away.

Later in his life Elisha left the observance of Torah and mitzvot, and from then on the sages did not teach in his name but called him Acher — “the Other One.” He was one of the four who entered the pardes, the hidden wisdom; of the four it was said that Acher “cut down the saplings.” The Talmud records several accounts offered for what turned him, among them the sight of a child who fell to his death while fulfilling the two mitzvot for which the Torah promises length of days. Even so, his talmid Rabbi Meir never left him, and went on learning Torah from his mouth. It is said that Rabbi Meir treated Acher’s teachings like a pomegranate. He would take in the beautiful fruit, true teachings on the inside, while ignoring the bitter peel, his heretical shell.

When Elisha lay dying of illness, Rabbi Meir came and urged him to return in teshuvah. Elisha asked whether repentance would still be accepted from one such as him; Rabbi Meir answered him from the pasuk that a man may be brought back “to the very crushing of the soul.” Elisha wept, and in his weeping he was niftar — and Rabbi Meir said it seemed his rebbi had departed in teshuvah.