4 myths
Myths, legends, and mystical writings about Heavenly Ascent from across Jewish tradition.
4 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines heavenly ascent, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
Enoch's angelic guides abandon him at the threshold of the tenth heaven. He falls to the ground in terror. Then God calls him to come closer.
An angel lifted the emperor out of his bed at night and left him in a pigsty. He put the condemned rabbi in the bed. At dawn the killers came anyway.
Enoch ascends through dark heavens, finds chained angels weeping in gloom, then silent Watchers stripped of light, still awaiting judgment.
Rabbi Akiva ascended into the Power and came back with a census of heaven's bridges, rivers of fire, and the vast parasangs guarding the road to God.
