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.
The neck still took numbers, myriads stacked on myriads. Then the head rose, and Rabbi Yishmael's mouth found no word.
He tied the last knot with dust on his fingers. The Queen seized the fringes and called chariot angels to 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.
The mikveh water was still cold when the floor stopped being a floor. Seven palaces waited, and the last one would not let him stand.
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.
Praise cooled on his tongue. A voice used the street language of Jerusalem to bury a city, while the palace wall under his hand stayed warm.
Rabbi Yishmael asked how angels keep their footing where there is no ground. Akiva answered with a bridge, then with numbers that would not end.
Horses ate forty bushels of live coal in one mouthful. Beyond them a prince shook a sword that screamed one word. Pain.
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.
