Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
Several heavens were created,[20] seven in fact,[21] each to serve a
purpose of its own. The first, the one visible to man, has no function
except that of covering up the light during the night time; therefore
it disappears every morning. The planets are fastened to the second of
the heavens; in the third the manna is made for the pious in the
hereafter; the fourth contains the celestial Jerusalem together with
the Temple, in which Michael ministers as high priest, and offers the
souls of the pious as sacrifices. In the fifth heaven, the angel hosts
reside, and sing the praise of God, though only during the night, for
by day it is the task of Israel on earth to give glory to God on high.
The sixth heaven is an uncanny spot; there originate most of the trials
and visitations ordained for the earth and its inhabitants. Snow lies
heaped up there and hail; there are lofts full of noxious dew,
magazines stocked with storms, and cellars holding reserves of smoke.
Doors of fire separate these celestial chambers, which are under the
supervision of the archangel Metatron. Their pernicious contents
defiled the heavens until David's time. The pious king prayed God to
purge His exalted dwelling of whatever was pregnant with evil; it was
not becoming that such things should exist near the Merciful One. Only
then they were removed to the earth.
The seventh heaven, on the other hand, contains naught but what is good
and beautiful: right, justice, and mercy, the storehouses of life,
peace, and blessing, the souls of the pious, the souls and spirits of
unborn generations, the dew with which God will revive the dead on the
resurrection day, and, above all, the Divine Throne, surrounded by the
seraphim, the ofanim, the holy Hayyot, and the ministering angels.[22]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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