Four Sages Enter the Island

Although the previous week of Talmud has been unlike any that I have ever studied (Chapter 11 of Sanhedrin deals almost exclusively with questions of the Messiah, the afterlife, and heresy) I don't want to post about it tonight. Rather I want to point out something that came up in a recent class I attended at Congregation Beth Elohim called "The Theology of Lost."

For those who don't know about Lost, it's a 6 year television phenomenon that just came to an end on Sunday and had TONS of religious, ethical, and philosophic themes.

In tonights class, we discussed the Island as a kind of paradise. This got me thinking: if the Island was paradise then why all the blood, deception, and anger. Why not love?

According to tradition, paradise doesn't always mean perfection. Chagigah 14b is the perfect example of this:

Our Rabbis taught: Four men entered the ‘Garden’, namely, Ben ‘Azzai and Ben Zoma, Aher (Elisha ben Abuya) and R. Akiba...Ben ‘Azzai cast a look and died...Ben Zoma looked and became demented... Aher mutilated the shoots (i.e. he became a heretic) and R. Akiba departed unhurt.

Here, paradise probably means the study of esoteric, hidden mystical teachings.  However, I think the metaphor is more powerful than what it stands for. Not everyone is built for paradise. Not everyone is ready for it.

In Lost we had characters who died quickly upon entering the Island, others who went crazy, and still others who turned evil (However one could debate how evil any single character actually is. This is the beauty of Lost). And like Akiba, we also had those who were fine.

I don't think the writers of Lost knew this text (although it would be pretty cool if they did). Nevertheless, Lost gives us a new cultural model to understand our Chagigah text, to see the flaws in humanity, and the struggles we all face in the presence of paradise.

Hadran Alayich Lost, I will return to you!