There is a story in the Talmud which depicts the experience of four individuals entering an orchard. There is much speculation about the nature of that orchard and the experience of each. Here is one of several versions of the account:
Four entered the orchard — Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Acher, and Rabbi Akiva. Ben Azzai looked and died; Ben Zoma looked and went mad; Acher destroyed the plants; Akiva entered in peace and departed in peace.
Orchard – A literal pass!
Look to the left illustration “Four who entered the orchard” Using the illustrating ‘language’ of computer programming, let’s analyze this passage. Using stick figures to represent each of the four, we create a two-level box for each. One level of the box shows the action entered for each of the four, and the innermost box we use for for the nature of the reaction of each of the four.
Considering the extent of the impact of the experience on Ben Azzai and Ben Zoma, this was not just any orchard. What would cause glimpsing and dying, or glimpsing and going mad? The description of Acher is strange to us, but it does seem like a negative response! Only Akiba’s was a non-negative experience. So what gives?
Pardes – A broader pass
Look at the 2nd diagram to the right and note a few differences: The orchard is now labeled Pardes, Acher has left the fold of believers, and Akiba’s faith remains intact and his leadership is enhanced. Ben Azzi rejects the experience, and Ben Zoma is overwhelmed by it.
Pardes is more than just an ordinary orchard or garden. A common explanation for Pardes in this context is mysticism, mystical speculation, an elevated spiritual state. Think beyond rational imagination. To best understand the implications of Pardes, think of an LSD or drug-induced state of mind. Think also of a Future exploring workshop, entering the “unknown”, or guided imagination review of the past.
Moshe Dror shared some background about Pardes being “an Old Persian word, meaning an enclosed royal hunting ground – a garden. This later became associated with what we call Paradise in many of the European languages as well as in English. This later became associated with The Biblical Garden of Eden –. Ultimately, it came to mean any place of pleasurable surroundings.”
Psychological -Another Pass
The Four Who Entered the Pardes and the Study of PTSD, Ira Bedzow, Faculty Member New York Medical College, Journal of Torah and Medicine of the Einstein College of Medicine Synagogue and the Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, Volume V, Pages 223-224
The four paradigms that we have identified are:
Ben Zoma- This type of person interprets events with a synchronic orientation. Previous experience and knowledge does not inform the present or future. This type of person also continually reinterprets the past so that it conforms to currently-held opinions, so that the person sees life as an undifferentiated totality. This is reflected in how the person defines every thing in his or her life by the present moment.
Ben Azzai – This type of person has a tendency towards interpreting events abstractly, and thus may take ideas to a logical extreme. However, while the person’s ideology may be extreme, his behavior often contradicts that ideology, which he justifies through a sense of personal exemption. This person also has little to no interest in social involvement.
Aher- This type of person will form a conclusion based on just one experience and then will search for evidence to support his conclusion, without considering other possibilities. Interpretation for this person serves merely as a justification for his personal view. This person’s social involvement tends to be antagonistic.
R. Akiva- This type of person interprets events in a manner that is consistent with his traditional narrative, and that narrative serves to provide a positive outlook with a moderate conclusion. He also interprets experiences in a diachronic manner so that events are related to one’s past and serve as a guide for one’s future. His social involvement is conciliatory.
The future is its own subject of the unknown and the speculation. The future is worthy of being Pardes. Alvin Reines wrote: “It is not the past that is taken as holy; the past is nonexistent, living on as relics and in the human imagination…It is the future that is holy.” And, “To see the future as holy, therefore, is to understand its divine sanction and inevitability. It means, at the very least, to be open to its image, to listen to its whispers, to heed its plea for life. Beyond this, the holy attitude toward life calls us to action, to communication and dialogue with its onrushing possibilities”
In a sermon, Rabbi Dr. Andrew Goldstein suggested another interpretation of Pardes: “But what if it was Paradise… meaning that the four tried to envision the perfect world and then were forced to compare it with the world in which they lived. And this examination proved a great trial of their religious faith. In many ways, their world had many of the challenges of ours today.”
(https://www.liberaljudaism.org/2018/09/four-rabbis-entered-paradise/)
The Christian Theologian Harvey Cox had this to say about living in the future: “if he is to survive, man must be both innovative and adaptive. He must draw from the richest wealth of experience available to him and must not be bound to existing formulas for solving problems. Festivity, by breaking routine and opening us to the past, enlarges our experience and reduces our provincialism. Fantasy opens doors that merely empirical calculations ignore. it widens the possibility of innovation.”
If Pardes is to serve as a model of a Jewish Future, it must provide a structure into which we can enter to explore ourselves. Ellis Rivkin’s perspective of the past as scenario for the future is insightful: “The goal of the Jewish community must be the individual who “recognizes that Judaism has been the manifold expression of human beings struggling and wrestling with their human problems, and he therefore can enter into the thoughts and feelings of each historical moment and come forth enriched.” “Free to draw on the riches of our past we need no longer be slaves to it. Judaism, for us, is not only a past, but a future.“