Knocking on Heaven’s Gate

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The TV footage was disturbing—people with identical short haircuts, long robes and brand-new Nike sneakers telling us why they were about to take their own lives. Their Web site told of a spaceship hiding behind comet Hale-Bopp that would take them to a higher plane. They lived in a millionaire’s mansion in San Diego and called themselves Heaven’s Gate. They jump-started their own personal eschaton by committing mass suicide.

The idea that the end of the world is nigh is familiar to Jews and Christians. It is an idea that began in Judaism during the Second Temple period and has taken many forms in the two millennia since. The theology of Heaven’s Gate is a strange brew, interpolating Star Trek and other sci-fi ideas into the old beliefs, but it is not surprising to find such a blend of old and new—especially in California in the 1990s. Here is the “new and improved” version of that old-time religion.

So what went wrong? An old blues lyric says, “Everybody wants to go to heaven / but no one wants to die.” These people wanted so badly to go to heaven that they decided to die, incited by their fearless leader. Among the many causes of this tragedy, one can be singled out—impatience. These people wanted to eat their dessert before the main course was over. The problem, of course, is that no one really knows if dessert will be served in this case, and if so, to whom. Maybe it would be best to wait for dessert until after you’ve finished your dinner.

Judaism and Christianity have tended to deal with this kind of problem in similar ways. A leitmotif in both traditions is the danger of knocking on heaven’s gate. Judaism learned this lesson after the tragedies of the Jewish revolts against Rome in the first and second centuries C.E. With Jerusalem in ruins and tens of thousands dead, the classical rabbis turned away from the kinds of eschatological fervor that had kindled the revolts. In one rabbinic text a sage says to a farmer: “If there were a plant in your hand and they should say to you, ‘Look, the messiah is here!’—go and plant your plant, and after that go forth to receive him.”¹ If the messiah has come, he has come, but finish the work you have started. If it’s really the messiah, he will still be there. Don’t abandon your life, for it may not be the messiah after all. This was a hard lesson to learn.

In Christianity the same lesson was learned in later years, when groups embracing the eschaton abandoned their normal lives to knock on heaven’s gate. When the Protestant Reformation started to spawn radical apocalyptic groups, Martin Luther opposed them. He said that there is no need to go in search of the cross—it will overtake one soon enough.² Similar cautions have been expressed by other Christian leaders, past and present.

While classical Judaism acknowledged the possibility of reaching heaven’s gate by mystical means, mystical training was limited to mature students. Origen (third century C.E.) tells us that among the Jews there was a rule that only those who have “reached a full and mature age” were allowed to read mystical texts (including the beginning of Genesis, the beginning and end of Ezekiel, and Song of Songs).³

The danger of allowing immature people to knock on heaven’s gate, in particular those not fully rooted in family and society, is illustrated by the famous story of the four sages who ascended by mystical means to the heavenly paradise: “Four men entered Paradise: Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Ahder [Elisha Ben Abuya], and Rabbi Akiva…Ben Azzai looked and died…Ben Zoma looked and went mad…Elisha looked and cut the young plants [became a heretic]…Rabbi Akiva ascended safely and descended safely.”⁴

Death, insanity and heresy await the unwary who dabble in heavenly mysteries. Only the rare saint, like Akiva, can survive the dangers of this kind of knowledge. Those of us who aren’t saints would be wise to abstain.

The people of Heaven’s Gate looked (into their sci-fi view of paradise) and died. They were people who had left their families and cut their ties to society. They embarked on “a bold new journey, where no one has gone before,” embracing the Star Trek anthem. But they weren’t saints, just lost souls, and they martyred themselves like lemmings to the sea. It’s dangerous to knock on heaven’s gate. Just ask the classical rabbis and Martin Luther. Among their many differences, this is one issue on which they fully agree.

The TV footage was disturbing—people with identical short haircuts, long robes and brand-new Nike sneakers telling us why they were about to take their own lives. Their Web site told of a spaceship hiding behind comet Hale-Bopp that would take them to a higher plane. They lived in a millionaire’s mansion in San Diego and called themselves Heaven’s Gate. They jump-started their own personal eschaton by committing mass suicide. The idea that the end of the world is nigh is familiar to Jews and Christians. It is an idea that began in Judaism during the Second Temple period and […]