winstonsmith@theministryoftruth.ls1

The Wisdom of the Zohar: An Anthology of Texts by Hungarian/Israeli Jew, winner of the Israel and Rothschild prize; Isaiah Tishby nee Sándor Schwartz (1908 - 1992), was originally published in Hebrew between 1949 - 1961 and later translated to English by David Goldstein and published in 1989. The English version is a three volume, 1654 page work, and "offers a thorough historical analysis of many topics covered by the Zohar, followed by selected passages."1  

The extract which mentions the "six million" figure is from the Hadash Zohar or New Zohar, which was first published in Greece in c.1597. It is a collection of Zoharic texts which had not been included in the Zohar, which was first published as a book in Italy in 1558.2  

By definition, esoteric texts make no sense to the the uninitiated, so a brief key to the following text follows (I of course don't pretend I completely understand it, and I'm not a religious person, so believe not a word of it): 

• Hashmal
- Are the fourth level of angels in Maimonides' ranking

• Gallitsur
- Alternatively Galizur and Raziel, is an angel assigned various roles including "Keeper of Secrets", the "Angel of Mysteries."

• Anael
- Alternatively Haniel, is the angel of the planet Venus and governor of the 2nd heaven, where he is in charge of prayers ascending from the 1st heaven. 

• Gates
- The Zohar 2:201b, 202a, 202b states the commander of each heaven and the number of gates into each of the seven heavens as follows:

• 1st heaven
Zebuliel, 9 gates.

• 2nd heaven
Anael, 12 gates.

• 3rd heaven
Gedariah, number of gates not mentioned, but when prayers enter the third heaven, Gedariah strikes with "the ray of light" a large rock which contains 375 legions, imprisoned within it by God, for they attempted to prevent the Torah from descending to Earth, they bow to the prayer and crown it with supernal crowns

• 4th heaven
Shamshiel (sun of God), number of gates not mentioned, but Shamsheil and 365 legions called days of the solar year, perfume the Jew's prayer and accompany it into the 5th heaven.

• 5th heaven
Gadriel, number of gates not mentioned, nor the number of "all" Gadriels "hosts," but they bow down to the Jewish prayer, crown it, then accompany it into the 6th heaven.

• 6th heaven
Anpiel, 70 gates. Anpiel crowns the prayer, numerous hosts and legions join with the legions and hosts from the lowers heavens, and they all accompany the prayer into 7th heaven.

• 7th heaven
Sandalphon "the keeper of all his mater's keys" combines all the crowns from the lower heavens into one, and introduces the prayer into the seven palaces of God in the 7th heaven

Sources: 

1. Green, Arthur. A Guide to the Zohar. Stanford University Press. 2004. p.xiii. 

2. Matt, Daniel Chanan. The Zohar, Volume 4. Stanford University Press. 2004. p.9 & 462.

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