The Legends of the Jews, vol 1 | Page 9

one end
to the other. Anticipating the wickedness of the sinful generations of
the deluge and the Tower of Babel, who were unworthy to enjoy the
blessing of such light, God concealed it, but in the world to come it will
appear to the pious in all its pristine glory.[19]
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]
Corresponding to the seven heavens, God created seven earths, each
separated from the next by five layers. Over the lowest earth, the
seventh, called Erez, lie in succession the abyss, the Tohu, the Bohu, a
sea, and waters.[23] Then the sixth[24] earth is reached, the Adamah,
the scene of the magnificence of God. In the same way the Adamah is
separated from the fifth earth, the Arka, which contains Gehenna, and
Sha'are Mawet, and Sha'are Zalmawet, and Beer Shahat, and Tit
ha-Yawen, and Abaddon, and Sheol,[25] and there the souls of the
wicked are guarded by the Angels of Destruction. In the same way
Arka is followed by Harabah, the dry, the place of brooks and streams
in spite of its name, as the next, called Yabbashah, the mainland,
contains the rivers and the springs. Tebel, the second earth, is the first
mainland inhabited by living creatures, three hundred and sixty-five
species,[26] all essentially different from those of our own earth. Some
have human heads set on the body of a lion, or a serpent, or an ox;
others have human bodies topped by the head of one of these animals.
Besides, Tebel is inhabited by human beings with two heads and four
hands and feet, in fact with all their organs doubled excepting only the
trunk.[27] It happens sometimes that the parts of these double persons
quarrel with each other, especially while eating and drinking, when
each claims the best and largest portions for himself. This species of
mankind is distinguished for great piety, another difference between it
and the inhabitants of our earth.
Our own earth is called Heled, and, like the others, it is separated from
the Tebel by an abyss, the Tohu, the Bohu, a sea, and waters.
Thus one earth rises above the other, from the first to the seventh, and
over the seventh earth the heavens are vaulted, from the first to the
seventh, the last of them attached to the arm of God. The seven heavens
form a unity, the seven kinds of earth form a unity, and the heavens and
the earth together also form a unity.[28]

When God made our present heavens and our present earth, "the new
heavens and the new earth"[29] were also brought forth, yea, and the
hundred and ninety-six thousand worlds which God created unto His
Own glory.[30]
It takes five hundred years to walk from the earth to the heavens, and
from one end of a heaven to the other, and also from one heaven to the
next,[31] and it takes the same length of time to travel from the east to
the west, or from the south to the north.[32] Of all