God as wholly other (Judaism)

Meditation on the heavenly Temple while chanting the sacred names of God, the mystic, already wise and steeped in knowledge of the Torah, experiences an ascent through the chambers of the celestial palace, passes the gates of the seven heavens and their angelic guardians and, beyond the universe, comes into the presence of God where his soul becomes a flame of praise and rejoicing before the throne, surrounded by light and choirs of angels. Such an experience leads to spiritual distortion, madness or death in agony unless the mysteries are already understood. Total experience of God leads to the Kiss of God, ecstatic death.