49 myths · Page 2 of 2
By the river Chebar Ezekiel sees wheels and living beings, then the shapes of letters themselves begin to teach what he saw.
Rabbi Yishmael measured the neck in myriads, then reached a head no mouth could name. Speech broke before the brightness around the throne.
He finished the fringe knots and the Queen seized the threads. She called chariot angels to lift him and hide him from the Accuser.
A man hardens his face against one who has seen the chariot. Heaven answers with dark eyes, erased lineage, and trumpets thrice each day.
A man fasts, immerses, and sinks into the Merkavah (divine chariot). Seven palaces test him with fire and ice until he falls before a throne he may only behold.
A traveler climbs from heaven to heaven toward the Throne and keeps meeting angels so vast his eyes fail before he ever finds the top.
A descender to the chariot climbs through gates of fire to the Throne and learns the world was not hammered but poured out of beauty and light.
In seven palaces of fire the chariots pass the sanctus upward, but the whole burning host must wait in silence until Israel sings the first note.
At the seventh palace his knees gave out. The guardians stood taller than towers, and behind the last door was a roar that turned out to be singing.
An angel sets Rabbi Yishmael in his lap and weeps over Israel's decrees, then carries him to watch King David rise to a throne of fire.
Coming down from the palaces, a mystic hears a voice in Aramaic mourn Jerusalem, then God confess He aches to rebuild His burned Temple.
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.
A soul who cleared five heavenly palaces reaches the sixth, where Kazpiel raises a sword of lightning and fiery horses stamp at the gate.
Before the world had a floor, Yah drew fire out of the coldest water and engraved a burning throne, then sealed the six ends with His Name.
A righteous soul dies at lamplight and is carried up through seven palaces, and at the last gate the guards nock arrows before the seal is lifted.
Rabbi Ishmael carried a seal past seven gates and found the Throne of Glory already singing a hymn with no last verse and no exit.
Rabbi Ishmael went up through the palaces to see a face and found weather instead, wrath rising over the earth and angels who cancel what heaven signed.
Rome votes to destroy the sages, so Nehunya reads a chain of divine names by their final letters, goes up, and hears God confess the ruin.
Nehunya sent a prayer past every keeper to the beings who carry the Throne of Glory, and a horn answered from beyond the last firmament.
