Heavens

Beyond the Beyond

Abraham Joshua Heschel described the translation of words and concepts from the Holy Language of Hebrew to modern English like pressing flowers between the pages of a book.

The basic stuff of the flower remains, but all of its depth is lost in the process.

“…the translation of words and concepts from the Holy Language of Hebrew to modern English like pressing flowers between the pages of a book.

The basic stuff of the flower remains, but all of its depth is lost in the process.”

Sometimes, though, an English translation manages to hold onto some of the nuance from the original.

You may have noticed that the English word “heaven” is often used in the plural, as in: “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.”

Heavens.

The word “Heavens” preserves the plural from the Hebrew word for sky, Shamayim-שמיִם, which ends with “יִם-” (pronounced “-eem”) indicating a plural noun.¹

Note that this isn’t intuitive to most modern people. If you and I were standing outside, and you were to point up and ask me what you were pointing at, I would respond, “the sky.” I wouldn’t say “skies.”

As we’ll see in a moment, though, skies are exactly what you are pointing at with your finger skywards.

When you point to the sky, you aren’t just pointing to our atmosphere. There’s not much there for you to point to other than 60 miles or so of thin, transparent air. The illusion of a blue dome stretched over our heads is nothing more than the scattering of blue light, as photons ricochet between air particles to make their way to us.

Beyond the edge of what we call “the sky” is a different sky — many orders of magnitude more vast than our atmosphere.

Just the Solar System (including the Oort cloud beyond Neptune) is over two billion times the diameter of planet Earth. If the Earth were the head of a needle, the solar system would be the size of North America.

If we then zoom out to properly consider that our solar system is only a single star system among the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy, we would have to appreciate that if our Solar System would be the size of a U.S. quarter, the Milky Way would be the size of the United States.

And based on what the Hubble Telescope can currently see, the Milky Way is only one of around 2 trillion galaxies like it in the observable universe.

All of this — and much more — is out there when you point to the sky.

You are pointing to a “there” you can see, but at the same, pointing beyond it to a much further “there” you cannot see.

“You are pointing to a ‘there’ you can see, but at the same, pointing beyond it to a much further ‘there’ you cannot see.”

This idea is elegantly contained in the word Shamayim-שמים. The word “Sham-שם” means “there.” The word “Shamayim-שמים” essentially doubles over the word “Sham” — in the same way that the word “Yad” (hand) is doubled with the word “Yadayim” (hands) — as if to say “beyonds” or even better said, “beyond the beyond.”

What a gorgeous way to refer to the Heavens.

It is explicitly this conception of the Heavens about which King Solomon, in his wisdom, remarked upon inaugurating the Holy Temple to the Infinite, Blessed Be He:

Melachim I 8:27:

“For will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens and heavens of heavens (השמים ושמי השמים) cannot contain You — how much less this house that I have built?”

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How many heavens are there?

It depends how you count, but according to the the standard way of counting, there are seven.

The English idiom of being “in seventh Heaven” comes from this ancient cosmology recorded in the Talmud, and shared with other ancient cultures, of there being seven distinct levels of heaven.

Illustrations of Christian and Muslim conceptions of the “seven heavens.”

Chagigah 12b:

Reish Lakish said: There are seven firmaments, and they are as follows: 1) Vilon, 2) Rakia, 3) Sheḥakim, 4) Zevul, 5) Ma’on, 6) Makhon, and 7) Aravot.

Vilon, literally, “curtain,” is the firmament that does not contain anything, but enters at morning and departs in the evening, and renews the act of Creation daily, as it is stated: “Who stretches out the heavens as a curtain [Vilon], and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in” (Isaiah 40:22).

Rakia, firmament, is the one in which the sun, moon, stars, and zodiac signs are fixed, as it is stated: “And God set them in the firmament [Rakia] of the heaven” (Genesis 1:17).

Shekhakim, heights, is the one in which mills stand and grind manna for the righteous, as it is stated: “And He commanded the heights [Shekhakim] above, and opened the doors of heaven; and He caused manna to rain upon them for food, and gave them of the corn of heaven” (Psalms 78:23–24)…

Without going through each one, I want to share with you one more insight.

Rabbi Meir Levush “Malbim” (1809-79) explained just as we’ve started to explain.² The lowest level of the Heavens is what we call the “atmosphere” — it contains the celestial forces that affect daily life on Earth: rain, snow, hail, dew, wind, fluctuations in pressure and temperature, etc. It is what the Talmud calls “Vilon” (curtain) in the sense that it creates a daily illusion of curtaining us off as separated from the rest of the cosmos.

The next level up is what the Talmud and the Torah itself call the “Rakia” (firmament). It refers to the ethereal fabric of spacetime itself in which the celestial bodies of the sun, moon, stars and everything in between are suspended. It is what we usually mean when we say “universe” or “cosmos” (and we’re only 2/7 of the way there!).

The next level up, the third level of Heavens counting from the Earth upwards, is called “Shechakim.” The Talmud clearly refers to a metaphysical dimension that is beyond what we speak of in physics as the “known universe.” Perhaps the Talmud makes a reference to the source of manna, the food that materialized out of nowhere for the Jews in the desert, because this dimension of reality of Shechakim is beyond the beyond the beyond of spacetime — the dimension from which matter and energy themselves materialize seemingly out of nothing.

Not only is each level of the Heavens bigger and beyond the level below it, but each one makes the level below it look physical relative to it. If you manage to get out of the city and look up at the blue sky, you will be filled you with wonder and expansiveness. But if you were to leave the Earth’s atmosphere, you would perceive Earth’s atmosphere as heavy and physical in comparison — so much so that from space, we refer to its heavens simply with the word “Earth.”

“Not only is each level of the Heavens bigger and beyond the level below it, but each one makes the level below it look physical relative to it.”

So too with every level above it.

The Malbim illustrates this phenomenon of spiritual relativity with the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the highest Heavens in which the angels of the level below it (Ophanim) are pictured as if standing on the Earth. They’re nearly in the highest heaven, but relative to the level above them, they are standing on solid ground.

This helps us answer King Solomon’s question: “the heavens and heavens of heavens cannot contain You — how much less this house that I have built?”

The Heavens do not contain the Infinite. The Infinite contains them and everything in them.

Judaism is not about “containing God.” It is about realizing we are contained by Him.

“The Heavens do not contain the Infinite. The Infinite contains them and everything in them.

“Judaism is not about ‘containing God.’ It is about realizing we are contained by Him.”

1. In the same way that one hand is a “Yad-יד,” while multiple “hands” are “Yadayim-ידיִם.”

2. Take a look at his commentary “Torah Ohr” on the opening verse of the Torah, and his commentary “HaTorah v’haMitzvah” on Day 2 of Creation.