Elisha ben Abuyah (Aher)

Elisha ben Abuyah was a Jewish sage of the early second century CE, born in Jerusalem before the Temple's destruction in 70. He was a respected teacher and the master of Rabbi Meir, but later rabbinic literature says he abandoned the tradition, and it calls him Aher, 'the Other One.'

He is one of the four sages in the Talmud who 'entered the orchard' (pardes), a mystical ascent. Of the four he is the one who 'cut the shoots,' that is, became a heretic. The Babylonian Talmud (Hagigah 15a) explains how: in heaven he saw the angel Metatron seated, writing the merits of Israel, and since only God sits there he concluded 'perhaps there are two powers in heaven.' To correct the error, Metatron was given sixty lashes of fire.

3 Enoch tells the same episode with Aher's name. Scholars read the story as a rabbinic warning against making Metatron, the transformed Enoch, into a second god. Rabbi Meir stayed loyal to his teacher, and later stories describe him spreading his cloak over Elisha's grave.