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b. Hagigah 14b: The Pardes Account and the "Water, Water" Warning

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תלמוד בבלי, חגיגה יד ע"ב

b. Hagigah 14b: The Pardes Account and the "Water, Water" Warning

Talmud Bavli, Chagigah 14b

Hebrew · redacted c. 6th-7th c. CE; the pardes tradition tannaitic · canonical

The Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 14b -- the baraita of the four who entered the pardes (Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Aher, Rabbi Akiva) and Rabbi Akiva's warning about the stones of pure marble. Vilna Romm edition.

תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: אַרְבָּעָה נִכְנְסוּ בַּפַּרְדֵּס, וְאֵלּוּ הֵן: בֶּן עַזַּאי וּבֶן זוֹמָא, אַחֵר, וְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא.
The Rabbis taught: Four entered the orchard, and these are they: Ben Azzai and Ben Zoma, Aher, and Rabbi Akiva.
אָמַר לָהֶם רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא: כְּשֶׁאַתֶּם מַגִּיעִין אֵצֶל אַבְנֵי שַׁיִשׁ טָהוֹר, אַל תֹּאמְרוּ "מַיִם מַיִם", מִשּׁוּם שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: "דּוֹבֵר שְׁקָרִים לֹא יִכּוֹן לְנֶגֶד עֵינָי".
Rabbi Akiva said to them: When you reach the stones of pure marble, do not say “water, water,” because it is said (Psalms 101:7), “One who speaks falsehoods shall not be established before my eyes.”
בֶּן עַזַּאי הֵצִיץ וָמֵת. בֶּן זוֹמָא הֵצִיץ וְנִפְגַּע.
Ben Azzai gazed and died. Ben Zoma gazed and was stricken.
אַחֵר קִצֵּץ בַּנְּטִיעוֹת.
Aher cut down the shoots.
רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא יָצָא בְּשָׁלוֹם.
Rabbi Akiva departed in peace.

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About b. Hagigah 14b: The Pardes Account and the "Water, Water" Warning

This passage from the Babylonian Talmud (Hagigah 14b) is the single most famous text of early rabbinic mysticism: the account of the four who "entered the pardes" -- the orchard, read since antiquity as the dangerous garden of esoteric contemplation.

Four sages enter. Ben Azzai looks and dies; Ben Zoma looks and is stricken; Aher (Elisha ben Abuyah) "cuts the shoots" and becomes a heretic; only Rabbi Akiva "entered in peace and departed in peace." The story is the locus classicus for the rabbinic conviction that mystical ascent is real, potent, and perilous.

The word pardes later lent its consonants to PaRDeS, the fourfold scheme of scriptural interpretation. Hekhal's apparatus keeps the orchard concrete and the danger live, and links the passage to the Heikhalot ascent literature it stands behind.