Chapter 21: Myth—Everybody Gets To Go

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Myth—Everybody Gets To Go

God Created Heaven For Only A Few!

[The angel] answered me and said, “The Most High made this world

for the sake of many, but the world to come for the sake of only a few. But I tell you a parable, Ezra. Just as, when you ask the earth, it will tell you that it provides a large amount of clay from which earthenware is made, but only a little dust from which gold comes, so is the course of the present world.

Many have been created, but only a few shall be saved.”

[Ezra] answered and said, “then drink your fill of understanding, O my soul, and drink wisdom, O my heart. For not of your own will did you

come into the world, and against your will you depart, for you have been given only a short time to live. O Lord above us, grant to your servant that we may pray before You, and give us a seed for our heart and cultivation of our understanding so that fruit may be produced, by which every mortal who

bears the likeness of a human being may be able to live. For You alone exist, and we are a work of Your hands, as You have declared. And because You give life to the body that is now fashioned in the womb, and furnish it with members, what You have created is preserved amid fire and

water, and for nine months the womb endures your creature that has been created in it. But that which keeps and that which is kept shall both be kept by Your keeping. And when the womb gives up again what has been created in it, You have commanded that from the members themselves (that

is, from the breasts) milk, the fruit of the breasts, should be supplied, so that what has been fashioned may be nourished for a time; and afterwards You will still guide it in Your mercy. You have nurtured it in Your righteousness, and instructed it in Your law, and reproved it in Your

wisdom. You put it to death as Your creation, and make it live as Your work. If then You will suddenly and quickly destroy what with so great labor was fashioned by Your command, to what purpose was it made?”

“And now I will speak out: About all humankind You know best; but I will speak about Your people, for whom I am grieved, and about Your inheritance, for whom I lament, and about Israel, for whom I am sad, and about the seed of Jacob, for whom I am troubled. Therefore I will pray before You for myself and for them, for I see the failings of us who inhabit