Rabbi Ishmael

Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha was one of the leading Jewish sages, or tannaim, of the early second century CE. In legal interpretation he is credited with thirteen rules for deriving law from the Torah, expanding Hillel's seven. His approach is often contrasted with that of his contemporary Rabbi Akiva: Ishmael preferred the plain sense of Scripture and held that 'the Torah speaks in human language.'

Later tradition made him a priest and, in some accounts, one of the martyrs of the Roman persecution after the Bar Kokhba revolt, though historians think the martyr stories may confuse him with a namesake.

He is also the hero of the Hekhalot ('palaces') literature, a body of Jewish mystical texts compiled in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. In 3 Enoch (Sefer Hekhalot) Ishmael ascends through the heavenly palaces, is protected by the angel Metatron, and hears Metatron's story: he was once Enoch son of Jared, transformed into fire. Scholars regard these attributions as literary, not as Ishmael's own writings.