JewishEncyclopedia.com - EDEN, GARDEN OF

JewishEncyclopedia.com - EDEN, GARDEN OF: "Earthly and Heavenly Gan Eden. The boundary line between the natural and supernatural Gan Eden is hardly perceptible in Talmudic literature. In fact, 'Gan Eden and heaven were created by one Word [of God], and the chambers of the Gan Eden are constructed as those of heaven, and as heaven is lined with rows of stars, so Gan Eden is lined with rows of the righteous, who shine like the stars' (Aggadat Shir ha-Shirim, pp. 13, 55). The leviathan disturbs the waters of the seas, and would have destroyed the life of all human beings by the bad breath of his mouth, but for the fact that he occasionally puts his head through the opening of Gan Eden, the spicy odor issuing from which acts as an antiseptic to his bad smell (B.B.75a). Ḥiyya bar Ḥanina says that God had prepared for Adam ten canopies of various precious stones in Gan Eden, and quotes Ezek. xxviii. 13 (B. B. 75a). This, according to the Midrash, relates to the celestial Gan Eden. The Zohar claims for everything on earth a prototype above (Yitro 82a). Naḥmanides also says that the narrative of Eden in Genesis has a double meaning, that besides the earthly Gan Eden and the four rivers there are their prototypes in heaven ("