The Eternal Jew’s Tale, #167, Abarbanel 4.4

In this episode, two short tales, one by Shimon bar Yohai, the graffiti artist, and one by Shimon ben Azzai, the skywalker.

The Eternal Jew’s Tale
Twentieth Era, Part 4, ~1483 C.E., Iberia

The Abarbanel Cycle, 4.4
The Ladder of Ascents, 4
Compiled by Isaac Abarbanel
With the help of the Eternal Jew and his wife Batkol

Third Courtyard, Imaginal Ascents

2.
Shimon bar Yohai used to lead the prayers at the synagogue in Kefar Nakhum*. This be a journey he told to me.
* Capernaeum

“When Belial was the caesar of Rome and his stinking legions roamed our land, I designed an icon of him — a snake biting its own stinking tail — that became famous throughout the land because of the title I gave to it — caesar kissing his own ass. And artfully, I painted it on every bathhouse and bridge in the land. But fame always has its price. His soldiers were always looking for me. I guess they wanted my autograph. So I hid in a palace up in the hills to escape their annoying arrows and slings. Such a palace only a king of kings could design, so artful it was. Without windows, without doors, without a roof, without a floor, but many levels and many rooms, and full of splendorous raiment of light. And servants a-plenty tended on me with food and drink most heavenly. Nor did we need to don garment or shawl. Angelic beauty, angelic awe, angelic kindness prevailed over all.

“For many an age I lived in this place until Elijah called me back to the land of Adam and morning and eve, since I was needed to harvest sheaves.”

3.
I lived in Yavneh for a spell in the days when ben Azzai taught. Many a marvelous midrash he gave, giving preference to Solomon’s book to expose the worlds in a Torah verse. I don’t remember the parasha* now, or the verse or the word he opened up. But the journey of it, that I recall, which is writ here now, never before seen.
* Torah reading for a given week

“The four of us be began our ascent to that Pardes* seen and yet unseen. The eye, the heart, the mind, and the soul see the same worlds all differently. Fields of barley swayed in the wind; leaves a-flutter on the sycamore; lichen embroidered the parched rocks; frost sparkled on the mica schist. The slope got steeper at every step. The path narrowed as we entered a mist. On the left a sheer plunge to the depths. On the right, an icy palisade. All concentration, balance, and calm. Didn’t look down, didn’t look around, repeating the thirty-six letter Name til the footpath widened into a grove. There the Pardes. Joy to behold!
* Hebrew: orchard, paradise

“Now time slowed down and the light increased. It bent and buckled and broke into rays with darkened shadows* in between. And where the light is a blackened ray, there, no time; there no space. Like each moment is a page of a book turning itself, tale after tale. The others stopped incanting the Name inside the Pardes’s black light, but I continued in a panting breath to penetrate the darkness of it. Then I stood in an ancient grove; the trees became beams of light; the beams became a pillared hall. I walked a step, it seemed a mile. Then I was in a palace, its blinding glare, its walls of marble like sheets of ice. I turned around. Primeval trees, their branches hidden in the clouds, their trunks vast, the bark inscribed with books of Torah coiled around. A faint chanting filled the air, singing out the *whole world.**
* others say: Shaddai; ** others say: holy word

“I began to pirouette, floating in the limpid air. And then a Voice arose in me; words of Torah yet unknown in a language I never heard before, and yet I fully understood. And then I was engulfed in flames, engulfed in angels chanting psalms, and still I ascended, and far below Akiva stared but didn’t see, he didn’t hear; remained unchanged. And I, I did not return with him.”

~~~~~~~~~~

In the next episode, we hear from Shimon ben Zoma and Yokhanon ben Zakkai.