"When the Lord your G‑d will bring you to the land to which you will come in order to inherit it." (Deut. 11:29) There are two parallel mountains in the Celestial Regions…

The Torah speaks of terrestrial Eretz Yisrael which is similar to its celestial counterpart. The word "ha'aretz" refers to the "earth" after one's death in which one "sleeps", i.e. refines the body through metamorphosis in order to be able to take one's place in one's original inheritance, the one intended for Adam before the sin. Just as on our earth there are two mountains, Mount Gerizim and Mount Eyval, which symbolize blessing and curse respectively, so there are two parallel mountains in the Celestial Regions.

One is generally known in our scriptures as "The Mountain of good" or "The Mountain of G‑d", the one which can be climbed only by people who have complied with the criteria set down in Psalms. ["He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not taken My name in vain and has not sworn deceitfully." (24:4)] The other mountain is known as the Mountain of Se'ir, symbolizing darkness exuded by the evil urge. Our rabbis describe it as a "Mountain" because they view the overcoming of the evil urge as similar to the scaling of a mountain. The wicked, on the other hand, consider the evil urge as something they can easily control and therefore the evil urge appears to them merely as high as a hair, hence the name "Mount Se'ir" [literally "Hair Mountain"]-"the mountain no higher than a hair." Were it not for the "good angels" created by our various mitzvot, our access to the Mountain of G‑d would be severed…

Were it not for the "good angels" created by our various mitzvot, our access to the Mountain of G‑d would be severed to the "voice" of what these good angels relate about us than to the foul deeds we commit with our hands, i.e. "though the hands are the hands of an Esau, the voice is that of Jacob." [a homiletical explanation by Midrash Shemuel of Gen. 27:22 applied to Akvyah's statement in Avot 3,1. Ed.] The words "..and you fall into the hands of sin" mean that if you have the voice of Jacob going for you you are in no danger at the hands of Esau, the hands of Satan.

The meaning of the name "Mount Gerizim" is similar to the meaning of the verse "I said in my haste I am thrust out of Your sight." (Psalms 31:23) The Psalmist goes on to say that David learned that he had not been cast out by G‑d after all. The function of Mount Gerizim then is to reassure us that Paradise lost is recoverable. Our deeds create the "good angels" whose pleas reach the throne of G‑d. There are also barriers in the heavens between the different categories of tzadikim. Every righteous person occupies a station appropriate to his conduct while he lived on earth.

[Translated and adapted by Eliyahu Munk.]