Kabbalah Library

357. When I went up to the firmament, I found Seraphim angels at the top firmament, all looking like torches, wheels of fire surrounding them, and their backs like embers of fire, their teeth and eyes are sparkles of fire, and their garment is blazing fire. There is an appointee over them whose name is Hadomiam.

358. When they saw me, they said, “Who placed a woman born among us in this place?” I was afraid and mentioned the letters of the name when I saw that they wanted to burn me with the vapor of their mouth. They all stood. That great minister appointed over them told me, “Who are you?” I told him my name.

359. He said to me, “Listen, friend, all the people in the world pass by me each night when they come to lie on their beds and deposit their spirit in the hands of the master of the world. Some of them fly right away and rise up before Him.

360. “All the spirits are before me, and I was given permission to let in only those who are written before me, except for those who performed commandments before Him in the day, and whom we are still looking for.”

361. I raised my eyes and saw 365 halls, as the number of the days of the sun, and all of them toward the east, and four gates in each hall, and several appointees and servants over them, and they all had the same image, and they were called “servants of the east.” And it was likewise toward the south.

362. Besides what I saw toward that side: a gate far higher than all the gates. I asked about that gate. He told me, “Oh, friend, all those with sorrow and all those in tears from the afflictions of this world pass through this gate, and all those who repented, they all enter this gate.”

363. Above that gate, a great gate was revealed to me, with ten gates around it. I asked about it. He said to me, “I have no permission over this gate, and it opens only on beginnings of months, on Shabbat, and on good days [holidays]. At the time when Shabbat begins, or the beginning of a month, or a holiday, a voice explodes through all the firmaments and says, “Open the gates and let the loyal righteous gentile come.”

364. This is so because all the spirits in the Garden of Eden in the earth stand there all the days of the week and walk in it. And at that time and in the same firmament that is over the Garden of Eden in the earth, four windows open in those gates, inscribed in the four letters of the explicit name, which is the unified one in the concealments of above.

And all those spirits dress in clothes of honor in that Garden of Eden, like an image of that world where they stood in flesh clothing from a foul drop.

365. When the windows open, everyone takes off their garments and fly up through those windows, and rise to that place, and six winged ones and several appointees are with them, opening that gate. And all those ten gates, the spirits enter there with joy and rise up, and so it is with every firmament, with peace and with great joy.

366. When these spirits ascend, other spirits descend, who have been added among the living in that world. These ascend, and those descend. In the place from which these descended, the other ones park, and the place does not remain vacant.

367. At the end of Shabbat, when Israel say, “And may the pleasantness of the Lord our God be,” those spirits that descended on Shabbat rise up. These ascend, and those descend. These ascend to their place, and those descend to their place, and it is always in this matter.