History and Mythology Angels of Destruction ("malache habbalah")-Uriel, Harbonah, Azriel, Simkiel, Za'afiel, Af,Kolazonta, Hemah. Chief of the group is Kemuel, according to the Revelation of Moses, but, according to Enoch, the chief is Simkiel. In the latter book, the angels of destruction correspond to the angels of punishment, and these in turn may be equated with the angels of vengeance, wrath, death, ire. They may also be compared to the Avestan devas. "When executing the punishments on the world, the angels of destruction are given the 'Sword of God' to be used by them as an instrument of punishment." [Rf.3 Enoch,32:l.l] According to Moses Gaster, there were 40,000 such angels but, according to a Jewish legend, there were (or still are) in Hell alone 90,000 angelsof destruction. It is said that the angels of destruction helped the magicians of Egypt in Phar-aoh's time; that they duplicated the miracles performed by Moses and Aaron, specifically the miracle of changing water into blood. [Rf.Exodus7:2O.] There is a division of opinion among rabbinic writers as to whether the angels of destruction are in the service of God or the Devil. Apparently, even when they serve the Devil, it is with the permission of God. In The Zo-harI 63a, Rabbi Judah, discoursing on the Deluge, declared that "no doom is ever executed on the world, whether of annihilation or any other chastisement, but the destroying angel is in the midst of the visitation. "In Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, it is related that when Moses visited Hell, he beheld, in a region called Titha-Yawen, sinners (mainly usurers) standing "up to their navel in mud" lashed by the angels of destruction "with fiery chains, the sinners' teeth being broken with fiery stones from morning until evening." Cf: Dante's description of the tortures suffered by sinners in the Inferno.[Rf. The Apocalypse of Baruch; The Book of Enoch; Talmud Bab-Sanhedrin; Trachtenberg, JewishMagic and Superstition; Jewish Encyclopedia,p. 516.
The Book 1 Story When a young researcher gets permission to stay overnight inside a large library she's excited by the opportunity to work alone and uninterrupted despite the slight unease she feels at the shadows and creaks of the old library. While looking for a book kept in the endless basement book stacks, she hears a loud bang- another book has fallen off a shelf. This is The Book of Habbalah. Drawn to it, she picks it up and begins to read. Inside is a collection of stories, each more horrifying than the next. Incapable of putting the book down, she is drawn into each of the stories and the words take on a life of their own as she is subjected to the injuries in the stories. As the pages turn, she grows more and more desperate for the stories to stop. Finally, she is forced to flee the library, but she is compelled to keep the book with her...
