There are, as we all know, seven kinds of heaven. The first is of pure silver, and contains the stars hung out like lamps on golden chains, each with a dedicated angel to switch it on and off. This first heaven is the last known celestial address of Eve and Adam.
The second heaven is pure gold. The third, except that it is made of pearl, reminds me a little of my study here in Auerbach, since it is there that Azrael works incessantly on a large and endless book. But Azrael has more important things to write about than meteorology; he inscribes the name of every new-born child, and erases from his page the newly dead. And so it goes up to the oft-quoted seventh heaven, ruled by Abraham, a place so full of light so exquisite that no description from a human tongue could do it justice.
It is the fourth heaven, however, that interests us today or, more particularly, the Prophet Enoch in whose charge it has been placed. You will find no details of Enoch's adventures in the Bible, where he is mentioned merely as the father of Methuselah.
But if you go to one of the noncanonical Apocrypha, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, you will see that the aged eponym was taken on a guided tour of all the heavens, including the sixth of which Moses was in charge, and there he learned all that one might wish to know about the weather.
In this sixth heaven Enoch was able to measure the movement of the stars, and also counted the rays of the sun and witnessed the precise mechanics of its annual and daily wanderings. On his return he was able to describe to his children the mechanics of the roar of thunder, and to illustrate in detail the intricate and marvellous patterns of lightning.
He explored the area of the sky occupied by the clouds and by the raindrops, and visited the stores of snow, and the heavenly pools of ice-cold air: "There I saw the locked reservoir from which may be dispensed the rain, and the vast caverns for hail and fog and mist, and the cloud coming from them that has been floating over the Earth from the beginning of the world." He saw exactly how the angels filled the clouds, without ever depleting their celestial inventory.
Enoch on his heavenly travels had even entered the hall of the winds, and knew how their custodians used a variety of scales and measuring tools before releasing them, carefully avoiding any sudden gust so strong that it might overturn the world.