Ben Azzai: The sage who died for to see too

“Despise not any man.”
(Pirqé Avot 4:3)

1. Historical context general

• Time: first third of the second century and.c., that is to say, the generation immediately after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 e.c.) and in the years of repression roman prior to and subsequent to the revolt of Bar Kojbá (132-135 e.c.).
• Medium: the circle of the Tanaím (wise men of the time of the Mishnah). It is almost a contemporary of rabbi Akiva, rabbi Tarfon, rabbi Yehoshua ben Jananiá, rabbi Eliezer and rabbi Elazar ben Azaria.

It is a time of:

• Rearrange judaism without a Temple.
• Set halachah and canon text.
• Growing up in speculation mystical (merkavá, Pardés).

There stood Ben Azzai.

2. Sources on Ben Azzai

Ben Azzai appears sparse in:

• Mishnah: mentioned several times, in some cases as “Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai” (for example, Zevajim 1:3; Yadáim 3:5; 4:2, according to some manuscripts).
• Tosefta, Talmud Bavlí and Yerushalmí: stories, halachot, anecdotes of his piety and his death.
• Midrashim: Bereishit Rabbah, Avot of Rabbi Nathan, Shir HaShirim Rabbah, among others.
• Pirqé Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): two maximum well-known (4:2-3).

There are No writings to “own” Ben Azzai: his voice comes through these collections.

3. Biography and personal profile

3.1. Name and status

• Name: Shimon ben Azzai, more simply known as Ben Azzai.
• Tanna high-levelbut some traditions emphasize that, unlike others, is not always called “rabbi”, but appears as one of the great talmidei jajamim (students of the wise), even without taking a formal charge, reached enormous authority in Torah.

3.2. Teachers and circle study

The sources closely linked with:

• Rabbi Yehoshua ben Jananiá: transmits halachah in his name, and even defend it in front of other sages.
• Rabbi Tarfon: appears as one of his teachers.
• Rabbi Akiva: the key figure. Ben Azzai was studying with him, share methods of reading the bible, and, as we shall see, goes with him to the famous “Pardés” mystic.

That is to say, is at the epicenter of the circle that you define the halachah post-temple and the hermeneutic rabbinic.

3.3. Celibacy, commitment and worship of the study

A feature eye-catching Ben Azzai is your decision to stay single, despite the fact that he preached against the celibacy.

The sources relate that he was betrothed to the daughter of rabbi Akivabut never consummated the marriage because she was completely absorbed by the study of the Torah. When rabbi Elazar ben Azaria questioning by contradicting with his life, his own teaching on the obligation to procreate, responds:

“What can I do? My soul is anchored to the Torah; others deal with to perpetuate the species”.

This point illustrates:

• An extreme model of devotion intellectual: the Torah as the passion totalizing.
• A permanent tension in the tradition: how far the study moves other mitzvot as marriage and procreation?

3.4. Piety and character

The Talmud says that “whoever sees Ben Azzai in dreams is on the way to piety”, to signal that his figure became a symbol of personal holiness.

It is also said that when he taught, “fire surrounded him” while spun verses of Torah, Prophets and Writings “as the beads of a necklace”, image midráshica of a mind that connects all the texts on a live system.

4. Death and the mystery of the “Pardés”

4.1. The classic tale: four who entered the Pardés

The tradition is more famous on Ben Azzai is the of the “four who entered the Pardés”:

• The four are Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Elishá ben Avuyá (Ajer) and rabbi Akiva.
• “Pardés” (פרדס, “garden/orchard”, where it comes from “paradise”) designates the domain of the esoteric doctrinespeculation mystic extreme.
• Result:
  • Ben Azzai: “he looked at it and died.”
  • Ben Zoma: “he looked and went mad” (was corrupted).
  • Ajer: “cut the sprouts” (became a heretic).
  • Rabbi Akiva: “he ascended in peace and descended in peace.”

About Ben Azzai applies the verse: “Precious in the sight of God is the death of His pious” (Psalms 116:15).

4.2. Interpretations

This account has been understood in several ways:

1. Read mystic-literal
   • The four had reached an ecstatic experience of the “heavenly palaces”, perhaps through practices of merkavá (meditation on the Divine Name).
   • Ben Azzai, to the “look” beyond what is tolerable by a human being, dies of pure ecstasy or shock spiritual.
2. Symbolic reading-pedagogical
   • Each outcome represents a risk of the intellectual search extreme:
     • Death (rupture of the link with the world).
     • Madness (psychic imbalance).
     • Heresy (rupture with the community and tradition).
     • Only Akiva maintains a balance between the mystic, halachah and reality.
3. Message for the study of kabbalá and philosophy
   • The story is used as a warning: not everyone can or should enter into certain levels of speculation; there is a need-based ethical and halachic solid, and a proper guide.

4.3. How he died as one of the “Ten Martyrs”?

Some traditions, not at all safe, include it among the Ten Martyrs from the persecutions of Hadrian, which place it among the first executed by the romans.

In any case, his death is dyed in a double halo:

• Martyr of the repression roman.
• Martyr of the mystical quest (“she died to see too much”).

5. Authority halachic and intellectual style

5.1. Position between the Tanaím

Despite his fame by the Pardés, most of the appointments of Ben Azzai are halájicasnot mystical:

• Appears in the Mishnah and Tosefta by issuing opinions on ritual purity, sacrifice, family relationships, etc
• In some passages, discuss with figures such as rabbi Meir and rabbi Akiva.

The great amoraím (talmudic sages later) use their name as synonymous with maximum authority halachic:

• Rav and rebbi Yochanan say about themselves, to make their weight as teachers: “Here I am as a Ben Azzai”.

That is to say, “Ben Azzai” becomes the honorary title of scholar ideal.

5.2. Method of study: “stringing words such as accounts”

The midrash Shir HaShirim describes the way you teach:

• Une verses of Torah, Prophets and Writings as if together for a necklace.
• Each quote to draw another, generating frames intertextual.
• While teaching, it is said that “fire burns around you”a metaphor of spiritual intensity.

In modern terms, we could say that is a master of:

• Synchronous read of the Bible (all Scripture as a single tissue).
• Hermeneutics creativebut always supported in text, not in speculation-free.

6. Ethical teachings central

6.1. “Mitzvah goreret mitzvah”

In Pirqé Avot 4:2, is credited with this education:

“A mitzvah brings another mitzvah, and a transgression brings with it another transgression.
The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah, and the payment of a transgression is a transgression.”

Main Ideas:

• Human behavior has inertia moral: every act creates a trend.
• The real “reward” of the mitzvah is that it allows you to become someone who makes more mitzvot; the real “punishment” of sin is to become someone who does it more.
• It is an ethics that is very psychological: the focus is not on award-punishment external, but in the shaping character.

6.2. “Despise not any man,”

In Pirqé Avot 4:3 is attributed to another maximum famous:

“Despise not any man, neither't underestimate any thing,
because there is no man who does not have his hour,
or anything that doesn't have its place.”

This synthesizes:

• Respect radical for the dignity of every person.
• Consciousness of that the value and the role of each one can be at a specific time.
• Warning against intellectual pride: the wise man has no right to minimize anyone.

6.3. The “greatest principle” of the Torah

Rabbi Akiva had said that the great principle of the Torah was “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). Ben Azzai says that there is a principle even more:

“This is the book of the generations of Adam:
the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him” (Genesis 5:1).

Interpretation:

• While Akiva emphasizes the love of neighbor (interpersonal dimension),
  Ben Azzai emphasizes the image of God in every human being (ontological dimension).
• It is a twist clearly universalist: do not speak only of the “neighbor jew”, but of “Adam”, the whole of humanity.
• Commentators as the Malbim have pointed out that this seemed to be an ethics of “kantian”: every human being has intrinsic dignity by being a bearer of the image of God, and should be treated as an end in itself.

This statement is crucial in theology jewish contemporary on:

• Human rights.
• Value of each life beyond community membership.
• Dialogue between judaism and global ethics.

6.4. Providence and determinism

Other sources attribute it with a teaching tone almost deterministic:

“By your name call thee, in the place that you will see, what is yours give you.
No man touch what is meant to his neighbour;
and no government reduces hair the time that was marked to other government.”

Axes of this idea:

• Trust in providence: no need to envy or the usurpation, each one will receive what he deserves.
• Relativization of the political power-even empires have their “time appointed” by God.
• Invitation to focus on the mission, not obsessed with the alien.

7. Teachings on death, reward and mercy

Ben Azzai is attributed to multiple reflections on the time of death and the destination of the righteous:

• He taught that God displays the pious, near his death, the reward that awaits themto strengthen them in the final moment.
• Your own death is interpreted as the paradigmatic: “precious in the eyes of God” precisely because of the purity of your search.

Here you see a theology where:

• The death of the righteous is not failure, but consummation of their bond with God.
• The suffering of the pious (including possible persecution or martyrdom), is read in the key of extreme faithfulness, not of abandonment to divine.

8. Welcome back and footprint cultural

8.1. In the rabbinic tradition

As already pointed out:

• For Rav and rebbi Yochanan say, “I am here as Ben Azzai” is declared at the top of the authority in that topic.
• Your name gives title to a section of Derech Eretz Rabbah (“Perek Ben Azzai”), collection of ethical standards of conduct.
• It is quoted in midrashim as an example of:
  • Mercy extreme.
  • Total dedication to the study.
  • Capacity hermeneutics extraordinary.

8.2. In modern culture

Without being massive, it appears in some works:

• Jorge Luis Borgesin “Three versions of Judas,” mentioned Ben Azzai as the one who “saw the Paradise and he died”, returning to the reason for the Pardés.
• In the novel “As a Driven Leaf” Milton Steinberg, participates in the philosophical debates of Elishá ben Avuyá and dies in a state of spiritual ecstasy.

These recreations of a literary underscore the side intellectual-mystic taken to the limit.

9. Conceptual synthesis: what is Ben Azzai?

If you had to hold on to “essential” rabbi Shimon ben Azzai for your analytical work, which can condense on several axes:

1. The intellectual all of the Torah
   • Person for whom the study is total vocation; to the point of surrender (arguably) to marriage and children.
   • Model erudition and piety at the same time: not an academic cold, but someone whose teaching “burning” (literally, a fire around him in the midrash).
2. Universalism ethical within the halacha
   • His “greater principle” (Genesis 5:1) put the image of God in every human being in the center of theology.
   • This fixes a possible readings too particularistas of the phrase of Akiva on “your neighbor.”
3. Moral psychology fine
   • The idea that “mitzvah goreret mitzvah” and “shall asee goreret shall asee” accurately describes how habits shape the subject.
   • The “reward” is already in the midst of a moral person, not only in a life beyond.
4. Warning about the limits of speculation mystical
   • His death in the Pardés is a symbol of the risk of cross certain thresholds spiritual without adequate preparation.
   • It represents the wise dies for going too far in the pursuit of God.
5. Radical confidence in the providence
   • No one may appropriate of what is destined to the other; not even governments can be extended beyond what is decreed.
   • Vision that combines comfort for the individual and implied criticism of the pride of empires.

10. To continue to deepen

If you would like to go to the text talmudic and midráshico base, the entry points most useful are:

• Pirqé Avot 4:2-3 – maximum ethical classic Ben Azzai.
• Avot of Rabbi Nathan, cap 25 approx. – development on its “greater principle” and other sayings.
• Haguigá 14b and parallel – story of the four who entered the Pardés.
• Selections Bereishit Rabbah, Derech Eretz Rabbah, and Shir HaShirim Rabbah where is he says his method, and his figure.