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The Secret Gate
Avital Dicker
Copyright © 2020 Avital Dicker
All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.
Translation from the Hebrew by Susann Codish
Contact: [email protected]
Contents
Prologue
The First Gate
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The Second Gate
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The Third Gate
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
The Fourth Gate
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgements
“May it be thy will to put an end to war and bloodshed on earth, and to spread a great and wonderful peace over the whole world, ‘so that nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.’ (Isaiah 2:4)
“Prayer for Peace,” attributed to Rabbi Nachman of Breslev
Prologue
When their laughter bounces and echoes jovially off the walls of cloud in the white tunnel, to us it sometimes sounds like thunder, while lightning light up the sky and raindrops fall to the planet that humans call Earth.
One of mankind’s most common mistakes is thinking that heaven is weeping and God is angry. On the contrary, heaven is laughing. Not the ordinary kind, but peals of laughter that roll thunder and lightning across the sky.
And this is only one example of mankind’s misunderstanding of the way things work in heaven, high above the clouds in the place invisible to the human eye.
Incidentally, now is a good time to mention that the story of the Garden of Eden is completely inaccurate. God didn’t punish or banish Adam and Eve. God just doesn’t do things like that. It’s so not his style.
It is man who has told tales of God as a furious, fearsome being who continually says “I forbid you” and constantly metes out punishment.
And to top it all, mankind uses God’s name to justify the never-ending bloodshed on Earth. “It is in the name of God,” they say. But there’s no sanctity in taking a life that God created. It’s blasphemy – not sanctification – of God’s name.
Truly, it’s a little offensive when someone uses your name for the sake of devastation and ruin, when, really you had created the world with precisely the opposite intention.
Mankind continues to capitalize on God and use Him as an excuse for all that is bad, ugly, and ill-intentioned.
“It is God’s word,” they say. “We are commanded.” But for your information, God doesn’t use words or language as we know it and certainly doesn’t believe in giving orders. Ever. To anyone.
Nevertheless, humans are an extraordinary species. Mankind’s evolution is quite astounding, considering that humans have inhabited the earth for only a few thousand years, which, in the context of eternity, is less than the blink of an eye. Aircraft, space exploration, scientists cracking the biology of genomes, innovative treatments for numerous diseases, and a World Wide Web that connects it all. Which, incidentally, bears a slight resemblance to the failed Tower of Babel initiative and treads on slightly dangerous ground.
In general, today humans are healthier and definitely more visually appealing than they were back in the Stone Age. The fashion that once included animal fur, bow-and-arrow, and untamed hair, have made way for a wider range of options and, now and then, even heaven draws inspiration from the latest trends on Earth.
The trouble is that, emotionally, mankind has not evolved at all; in fact, the opposite is true. Man’s acts of jealousy, envy, theft, and violence against their own kind are still as rife as they were the day Adam and Eve left paradise.
For some inexplicable reason, humans can’t make do with what they need. They’re in constant pursuit of more: more riches, more beauty, more fame. So they kill each other and steal from one another over and over again.
Relatively speaking, for an intelligent species with great potential, nothing’s really changed since the beginning of time because humanity has lost sight of where it all began and – most importantly – why it all began.
The First Gate
The Draw
Chapter 1
Anise
Wearing a robe woven from the threads of heaven’s cloth, she made her way through the soft mist, clutching the hem as the mighty wind threatened to lift it up and away.
At the edge of the expanse, where there was a break in the mist, a neat line of trolleys was waiting to transport the approaching commuters. As soon as a trolley was full, the wind picked up speed, pushed and detached it from the loading dock, and propelled it forward.
“No more than five passengers per row,” a stern-sounding female voice echoed impatiently across the expanse.
Passengers in pairs and groups of three excitedly hopped in and settled into the plush seats. The wind unfastened the trolley and jolted the passengers forward at a dizzying speed.
“Where are we going?” she asked him, her tiny hand enfolded in his palm.
“To the departure hall. Can’t you remember a single thing?” interrupted a bespectacled boy, cheeks covered with freckles, who sat in the third seat at the back.
Now’s the time to explain that the word child is almost correct but not completely accurate because the commuters we’re talking about are souls. Yes, exactly right: those that have just recently returned to heaven and are waiting to descend once again to the confused world below. But, at this very moment, they’re as wise as the universe, as old as eternity, and as childish and playful as the beginning of time.
The cloud came to a grinding halt, tumbling into a furious heap and sputtering swirls of white fluff. While the passengers grumbled as they collided and crashed into each other, the girl’s hair was whipped straight up toward the roof of the trolley. She had almost managed to pull it back down when, blowing and snickering at their flapping robes, an irate gust of wind spat the passengers out of the trolley with a thud, before turning its attention to the next trolley in line.
Anise bumped her knee slightly. She got up, rubbed the grazed skin and searched for Yam in the crowd. She found him a little further on the right and watched his solemn blue eyes light up with a smile when he caught sight of her. As she tried to wind her way through the crowd to reach him, a shower of shooting stars sent everyone scrambling for cover.
“Watch where you’re going!” cried a rather plump kid at a shooting star that scraped his leg on its way down.
Anise raised her head and looked around. With folded wings, angels wit
h concerned expressions scurried briskly about, eagerly blowing what looked like alphabet-shaped smoke rings into the air. The letters hurried to form words, wrestling each other for first place on the long, elaborate lists that fluttered in the air behind the angels as they rushed busily from here to there.
Attendants wearing white gloves directed the flow of passengers urging them to descend with caution through the rainbow, which stretched proudly and with a grandiose shake of its palette, splashed drops of color all around.
Anise trod carefully on the rainbow, and in a flash, the green step changed to red. She stopped for a moment and watched the vivid parade of changing colors.
“Hey,” said Yam, resting his hand on her shoulder as he appeared behind her.
Anise breathed a sigh of relief. He’d found her. She laced her fingers through his long, firm fingers.
A ray of light tapped its foot impatiently at the end of the stairs. “Please exercise caution. It’s hot. And don’t forget to buckle your seatbelt,” echoed the stern female voice again across the expanse.
One after another, passengers climbed into the vacant trolley awaiting at the bottom of the stairs. The white metal railings rattled restlessly, and before she had a chance to pull the belt across her middle, Anise was pitched forward as the ray of light set off and went reeling into a spin. A burst of white light dazzled her. Just don’t let go of his hand she thought as they plunged into the darkness. She closed her eyes. Just don’t lose him again.
Sparks ricocheted impishly off what looked like the walls of a tunnel, but by then Anise was sleeping, blissfully unaware, with her head nestled deep in the warm hollow between Yam’s neck and shoulder.
She was woken by the sound of cheering and cries of joy. She raised her head and saw that the darkness had been replaced by a bright light. As the trolley inched forward, Anise looked around in awe. They had entered a vast hall where thousands of galaxies with innumerable stars glittered from the walls, taking turns igniting and extinguishing. Some vaulted off the walls, alone or in groups, cascading to the floor and sending a ripple of complaints through the crowd below.
“Look,” Yam whispered, giving her hand a firm squeeze.
Anise followed his gaze and shivered. There, in the center of the hall, turning on its axis, was Planet Earth in all its glory. With mixed feelings, she watched as rushing rivers, autumn leaves kicked up by the wind, forests, mountains, and deserts all went past her. A moment’s glimpse of a snow-capped mountain; then a fleeting peek at a radiant sun pouring its rays onto golden sand. An utterly beautiful but complex planet, she thought.
With a muffled creak, the trolley came to a halt. “Welcome to The Draw,” the female voice announced. “Last stop. All passengers out.”
There was a sudden ruckus, the passengers roared to life, bustling about, cheering happily as everyone hurried to disembark. Anise felt a hand on her shoulder and spun around. Mor! A playful twinkle caught the light in the jade bits of Mor’s brown eyes. He beamed a broad smile, and it seemed like his whole body was greeting her with joy.
Anise ran into the warmth of his embrace. There was a chorus of protest behind her as she obstructed the flow of commuter traffic. She didn’t care. “I missed you,” she whispered with no words.
Yam came to the rescue and quickly pulled Anise up the stairs and into the hall, Mor following not far behind. The soft cloud floor pleasantly tickled their bare feet.
Anise glanced at the two boys beside her. They hadn’t always had the names they had now. Each time they entered the gates of heaven they were assigned new names. These would be their names for their next reincarnation on Planet Earth.
Humans spend so much time choosing the perfect name for their baby. In heaven, it’s a well-known fact that babies are born with a name. The eager couple might argue, deliberate, and prepare long lists of possible names when, in fact, it’s impossible to name a child anything other than their true God-given name. This very name might appear in a young father’s dream the night before a baby’s birth, or it might be the name that just felt right to a young mother’s intuition. Anise had no need for names. She would recognize them both anywhere, on Earth or up above. The three of them had been together, inseparable, for as long as she could remember. Since the beginning of time.
Century after century, they had chosen their journey together, learned countless languages, and shared the metamorphosis of time as humanity evolved. Anise remembered the very beginning, the start of it all, before words existed, before man discovered fire. At the beginning of time, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, and humans lived in caves.
She’d been through so much since then, and a lot had changed on this planet known as Earth.
First came horses, then wagons, trains, enormous ships that could cross oceans, hot-air balloons, cars, planes, and space shuttles. Every time she returns to Earth, she is met with a new adventure.
There were times she was reincarnated as a man and other times as a woman, once as an Asian, another as an African. She still remembers the time she was born with dark skin on a farm in South Carolina, back when black people weren’t even considered human and were branded as slaves. As luck would have it, she was born as a boy with dark skin who was the property of a cruel, fleshy white man. When she was seven years old, she was taken from her parents and sold as labor to another farm. She never saw her parents again and spent most of her life picking cotton in the sweltering sun. She had tried to run away countless times but was caught each time. Her back was a grid of scars that grew every time she was lashed with a whip. That lifetime was particularly difficult.
There were times she was born into nobility and others into poverty. Once she was even a free-spirited Comanche: she could still feel the wind on her face, riding horses bareback in the wild. She loved that reincarnation and would be more than happy to do it all over again.
The thing is that, regardless of gender, color, language, or where she found herself on Earth – she always found them, both Yam and Mor, even if it took an entire lifetime. On Earth, man calls this karma, but it’s more profound and powerful than words can ever describe.
“Run,” called the red-haired boy behind her, interrupting her train of thought. “Any minute now the trumpet will sound and it will come to a stop,” he said, short of breath.
“What will come to a stop?” wondered Yam.
The redhead responded with a mocking smirk, “Seriously? What’s wrong with you? Did you go senile in a past life? Don’t you remember anything? Earth stops turning.” His words were drowned out in the flurry and he raced ahead, disappearing among the runners.
It all came flooding back to her now. This was it! The single point on their eternal voyage that afforded clarity – an unobstructed view of infinity from the beginning of time. That single moment right before she returns to Earth and forgets it all again. The celestial administration likes to call it “The Draw,” possibly because they think it’s less offensive and more politically correct. But a draw is just a nice name for a distribution system that uses a lottery to assign each soul to a country. In human terms, it’s called fate.
Anise felt her stomach clench in fury. She remembered all the times she’d stood here, at this exact point in time, and searched for God, wanting to ask Him about the distribution system – this so-called draw – and explain just how unfair it was.
But as usual, God is always busy and never around when you need Him. And no sooner she’s back in heaven, then she’s sent right back on course, into the vortex and down to Earth. The whole thing is so efficient and organized that she never has time to stray off course and look for Him.
And so it plays on repeat, always the same. There’s a single point in time, up there in the clouds, while the race is in full swing and moments before they’re sent back to Earth, when the eternal wisdom of the universe is free, available and as clear as day. It’s so ironic that this exact point in tim
e, the moment she decides to leave the line and go look for God, is also the precise moment she’s sent back to Earth again and stripped of all memory until the next round.
Furthermore, God is a firm believer in freedom of choice. He doesn’t like to make decisions for anyone, which presents another problem for the many different countries and diverse cultures on Earth.
Heaven is, of course, fully aware that a number of countries are considered blue-chip countries, like the United States and England for example. Countries with a relatively good standard of living, decent healthcare systems, sufficient food, and comparatively fewer life-threatening dangers. Of course, this is all relative. We’re talking about a confused and quite primitive human race, after all. In any case, in heaven, these are the countries that are always in high demand – countries where man can live in relative liberty and where very few go hungry.
There is, however, a great number of outcast countries that no one wants to come close to, countries like Sudan, Rwanda, and Syria, which are in a state of chaos and war more often than not, and where people die for no reason almost every day.
But God stands firm on His principles. He believes in freedom of choice, or at least that’s what He claims. And He is not willing to intervene in mankind’s mismanagement of Earth. The result is that there are no takers for the many outcast countries, while the blue-chip countries continue to amass popularity.
Since it’s not possible to send everyone to the popular countries, and since bureaucracy is the same everywhere and government officials in heaven are just as inefficient as anywhere else, The Draw was invented late at night by a not-so-talented angel on some burned-out committee.
Everyone around the table agreed that while it wasn’t exactly a mind-blowing idea, it was the best and only one they’d had all night. It was late, they were exhausted, and their snacks had run out. The committee decided that they would implement the system, just for now, as a short-term plan. They called it The Draw and adjourned the meeting by pledging to make a final decision at their next committee meeting.
The Celestial Gate Page 1