God replies, “As you increase, Gehenna, too, increases, growing wider and broader and deeper every day,” as it is said, His firepit has been made both wide and deep (Isa. 30:33). For even though God finished creating the world and rested from His work on the seventh day, yet He continues to ordain punishment for the wicked, and to bestow rewards upon the righteous.
The point of this myth about Gehenna is that there will always be room for more sinners—God will see to that. The question of finding sufficient space for all the sinners of Gehenna is also addressed in “Gehenna Seething,” p. 238.
Sources:
Pesikta Rabbati 41:3.
297. THE GATES OF GEHENNA
Gehenna is located at the north of the world, in the unfinished corner of creation. There are three princes of Gehenna, who have been appointed over its three gates. One gate is in the desert, where Korah and his followers fell to the underworld of Sheol. The second gate is in the Sea of Tarshish, and the third gate is in the valley of Gehinnom in Jerusalem. The three ministers of Gehenna, Kipod, Nagdasniel, and Samael, are in charge of these three gates.
Gehenna itself is filled with the dwellings of demons. Among the inhabitants are harmful demons and destructive spirits, as well as many hosts of avenging angels. There the wicked are punished in the seven circles of Gehenna.
Avenging angels lead wraithlike beings to the gates, whipping them onward. When they reach one of the gates of Gehenna, an angel strikes the gate with his fiery whip so that it swings open. Then the angels force them all inside, even though they try to resist. But they are no match for his whip.
This myth fills in details about the entrances to Gehenna and who rules them, as well as which avenging angels and demons serve there. See “The Unfinished Corner of Creation,” p. 213 and “The Openings of Gehenna,” p. 233.
Sources:
Midrash Konen in Beit ha-Midrash 2:30;Orhot Hayim.
298. THE DOOR TO GEHENNA
There is a door that leads to Gehenna. It is a danger to anyone standing nearby. Without warning, the door will swing open and a hand reach out and grab whoever is standing there and pull them into Gehenna, never to be seen again. Then the door will slam shut.
This motif of the forbidden door is well known in world folklore. Perhaps the best-known version is that found in the fairy tale “Bluebeard.” Such a door becomes an emblem for all taboos, reminding us of Eve’s plucking of the forbidden fruit or of the Greek myth of Pandora. In the Talmud, Paradise and Gehenna are said to be as close as three fingerbreadths, implying that it is very easy to sin, and that the door to Gehenna confronts us at every turn. For a Jewish folktale based on this motif, see “The Door to Gehenna” in Lilith’s Cave, pp. 64-70. For more on the punishments of Gehenna see Hell in Jewish Literature by Samuel J. Fox, which collects these sources.
Sources:
Ms. Oxford Bodleian OR 135, published in “Un Recueil de Contes Juifs Inedits,” edited by Israel Levi, Revue des Etudes Juives, vol. 35 (Paris: 1897).
299. THE GATEKEEPER OF GEHENNA
The angel appointed over the gates of hell is Samriel. He sees that no one is admitted to Gehenna unless his name is listed in the giant Book of Gehenna that Samriel consults. Avenging angels drag the souls of sinners to Gehenna, and the gatekeeper makes sure that they deserve to be punished there.
Samriel is appointed over the three gates of Gehenna that are found on the side of the wilderness. He has the keys for these three gates, and when he opens them, the light of the world seeps in. Samriel has three angels under him, with three shovels, who clear a path out of Gehenna so that the light of the world can enter and be seen by the inmates of Gehenna.
Once in a while a sage or rabbi descends to Gehenna in order to obtain a bill of divorce from one of the souls being punished there. But the gatekeeper turns them all away, all except for Rabbi Naftali Katz. When Rabbi Naftali came there on a mission, the angel guarding the gate of Gehenna looked for his name in the Book of Gehenna, and refused to admit him when it wasn’t there. Rabbi Naftali threatened to take a vow to remain there for eternity and to pester the angel until he let him in. So the angel let him in.
The only ones permitted into Gehenna are the sinners who are brought there for punishment. However, there are a number of stories about sympathetic rabbis who attempted to enter Gehenna to ease the suffering of the sinners there. This myth explains that there is an angel, Samriel, who guards the entrance of Gehenna in order to keep out anyone who does not belong. In the story “Rabbi Naftali’s Trance,” Rabbi Naftali descends to Gehenna to search for a man who abandoned his wife without giving her a bill of divorce. Unlike many others who had sought entrance there, Rabbi Naftali intimidates the powerful angel who guards Gehenna and succeeds in going in. See “Rabbi Naftali’s Trance” in Gabriel’s Palace, pp. 152-154. See also the following tale, “The Messiah in Hell,” p. 241.
Sources:
Zohar 1:62b;Sippurei Ya’akov 7, edited by Ya’akov Sofer; Sippurim Mi-she-kevar, no. 27.
300. THE MESSIAH IN HELL
When Rabbi Joshua ben Levi found himself in the Garden of Eden, he decided to explore it as completely as he could. One by one he explored the nine palaces of the Garden of Eden, until he came to the palace of the Messiah. He recognized the Messiah by the splendor of his aura. There he saw how the patriarchs and kings came to the Messiah every Sabbath and holy day and wept, because it was not yet time for him to go forth into the world.
When Rabbi Joshua came before the Messiah, the Messiah said, “How are my children faring?” And Rabbi Joshua said: “Every day they await you.” Then the Messiah gave a great sigh and wept.
After that the Messiah showed Rabbi Joshua all of the earthly garden and the heavenly one as well, and revealed the greatest mysteries to him. But when Rabbi Joshua asked to be shown hell, at first the Messiah refused, for the righteous are not permitted to behold hell. But when Rabbi Joshua told him that it was his intention to measure hell from beginning to end, the Messiah agreed to take him there.
So it was that Rabbi Joshua followed the Messiah until they reached the fiery gates of hell. When the angels guarding the gate saw that the Messiah was with him, they admitted him at once. Everywhere they went, Rabbi Joshua saw the punishments of hell, where avenging angels smite the wicked with flaming rods, and throw them into fiery pits, and after that hang them by their tongues, or by the organs with which they committed adultery. And although Rabbi Joshua tried to measure the compartments of hell, he found that they were boundless, as was the suffering of the wicked. But whenever the wicked in hell saw the light of the Messiah, they rejoiced and cried out, “There is the one who will bring us out of here.”
This myth about the descent of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi and the Messiah into hell builds on the talmudic account of Rabbi Joshua’s highly irregular entrance into the Garden of Eden. See “Rabbi Joshua ben Levi and the Angel of Death,” p. 206. There Rabbi Joshua is portrayed as fearless, and here he asks the Messiah, whom he meets in heaven, to show him hell. The Messiah finally agrees and they descend to Gehenna together. Rabbi Joshua tries to measure the compartments of Gehenna, but discovers that they are boundless, i.e., that they can contain any number of sinners. However, this visit serves to give hope to the sinners of Gehenna, who acclaim the Messiah as the one who will free them from there, since one of the traditions about the coming of the Messiah is that all those being punished in Gehenna will be raised from there to Paradise. The Messiah described here is Messiah ben David, the celestial Messiah, who lives in a heavenly palace and will only descend to earth when the time is right for the footsteps of the Messiah to be heard.
Sources:
Sefer ha-Zikhronot 21:1-11; Orhot Hayim; Aggadat Bereshit 51a-b.
301. THE SABBATH RESURRECTION
On the eve of every Sabbath, between the afternoon and evening prayers, the spirits of the dead are led to a field in front of a river that comes out of the Garden of Eden. There they drink from this river, and when the congregation s
ays, “Blessed is the Lord who is blessed,” they are returned to their graves and God resurrects them and they stand up alive from their graves. In this way all the dead of Israel rest on the Sabbath, and come in crowds and sing in the presence of the Lord. And they come and prostrate themselves in the synagogues, and come to behold the Divine Presence and bow before it.
This myth is a variant of that about Sabbath in Gehenna. However, this one seems to assume that all of the spirits of the dead are in a Hades-like place where they are kept during the week, not necessarily Gehenna, but more like Sheol. Although it is vague on this point, the central focus of the myth, on the resurrection of all of the dead of Israel every Sabbath, is memorable and unique. It tells us that the Sabbath is not only celebrated by the living, but also by the dead.
Sources:
Seder Gan Eden in Beit ha-Midrash 5:43.
302. THE ASHES OF SINNERS
Every twelve months the sinners of Gehenna are burned to ashes, and the wind disperses them and carries those ashes under the feet of the just, as it is said, And you shall trample the wicked to a pulp, for they shall be dust beneath your feet (Mal. 3:21).
Then the righteous take pity on the fate of the sinners and they pray for mercy upon them, and say, “Master of the Universe, these are the men who rose early to go to synagogue. They read the Shema, prayed, and performed other commandments.”
Hearing this, God revives them out of the ashes and stands them upon their feet and brings them to life in the World to Come.
For most sinners the punishments of Gehenna are only supposed to last for up to 12 months. After that, their souls have been purified, and they are able to slowly ascend on high, through the seven heavens. What is amazing about this myth of sinners being burned to ashes is that their revival comes about because the righteous intercede for them.
Of course, the notion of the sinners in Gehenna being burned to ashes is highly punitive. But the myth also includes an example of righteousness and generosity on the part of the just, whose prayers make it possible for those burned to ashes to be restored for life in the world to come.
See “The Prince of Gehenna,” p. 232, for more about the power of the prayers of the righteous.
Sources:
Orhot Hayim; Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 3; Yalkut Shim’oni, Malachi 593.
303. PURIFIED SOULS
When the process of purification has been completed, the chief angels take a soul out of Gehenna and lead it to the Gate of Paradise. There they say to the angels standing guard: “This soul was broken after its ordeal in the infernal fire, and now it has come to you pure and white.”
Then God causes the sun to penetrate the firmament and shed its rays on that soul and heal it.
The purpose of Gehenna is to purify the souls of sinners so that they can be permitted to enter paradise. This myth demonstrates how a soul is taken out of Gehenna. Note that this purification process is clearly described as a painful one, where the soul is purified in the fires of Gehenna.
Sources:
Zohar 2:211a.
304. HOW THE DEAD SEE THE DEAD
The day a person dies is the day of his judgment, when the soul parts from the body. A person does not leave this world until he sees the Shekhinah, accompanied by three ministering angels, who receive the soul of a righteous person. These angels examine a person’s deeds, and insist that a person confess to all that the body has done with the soul in this world. After this confession, the soul of a righteous person rejoices in its parting from this world and looks forward with delight to the world to come. For when God takes the souls of the righteous, He takes it with gentleness. But when He takes the souls of the wicked, He does so through cruel angels, as it is said, Therefore a cruel angel shall be sent against him (Prov. 17:11).
After a man dies he can be seen by all the others who are dead. To each of them he appears as they last saw him alive: some see him as a youth, others as an old man. For the angel who guards the dead makes his soul assume these various forms so that all should recognize him by seeing him just as they saw him in life.
However, if a man is condemned to punishment in Gehenna, he is enveloped in smoke and brimstone, so that none of those being punished can see the punishment of any other. Thus none are put to shame, except for those who have put others to shame.
This description of a man seeing the Shekhinah as he dies is based on Exodus 33:20: No man shall see Me and live. The three angels who accompany the Shekhinah are identified as the three angels who visited Abraham in Genesis 18:2.
It is characteristic of Jewish myth to describe in great detail unknown realms, such as heaven, hell, or what comes to pass when a person leaves this life. Here the dead are said to see each other exactly as they appeared when they last saw each other alive. This explanation of how the dead see and recognize each other solves the problem of a person’s changing appearance by aging.
Sources:
Sifre on Deuteronomy 357; Midrash ha-Ne’elam in Zohar 1:98a; Sefer ha-Zikhronot 11:6.
BOOK FIVE
MYTHS OF THE HOLY WORD
There were two angels to every one of them, one to lay his hand on the heart of each one, to keep his heart still, and one to lift each one’s head, so that he might behold the splendor of his Creator.
Midrash Aseret ha-Dibrot
305. CREATION BY WORD
In the beginning a word was spoken from the mouth of God, and the heavens and the earth came into being, as it is said, By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made (Ps. 33:6). It was no wearisome labor for God, whose word came into being at the instant it was spoken. When God told the heavens to continue to spread out, they went on expanding, as it is said, Who spread out the skies like gauze, stretched them out like a tent to dwell in (Isa. 40:22). Indeed, if God had not said: “Enough!” they would have gone on expanding until the end of time.
This creation myth presents a variant of Genesis 1:3, where God said “Let there be light,”; and there was light. Here, too, the world is created through speech. God is said to have spoken a word, and the world came into being. Here, however, another word is required to stop the expansion of the heavens. This echoes the myth of the golem, a man made out of clay, who, when told to bring water from the river, continues to bring barrels of water until the house is flooded, simply because no one told him to stop. The image of the world continuing eternally to expand suggests the modern theory of the Big Bang.
Sources:
Midrash Tanhuma, Bereshit 11; Midrash Tanhuma, Lekh-Lekha 25; Midrash Tanhuma, MiKetz, 12; Midrash Tehillim 148.3; Raziel ha-Malakh 30.
306. TWO WORLDS
In the beginning God created not one world, but two. For two worlds came forth out of the first two letters of God’s Name, YHVH.
Some say that this world was created with the letter heh, while the World to Come was created with the letter yod. That is the meaning of the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array (Gen. 2:1).
Others say that no one knows which letter this world was created with, the yod or the he. This has remained a mystery, to this day. All that is known is that with those two letters God brought two worlds into being.
This myth postulates that God created two worlds at the time of the creation, this world, Olam ha-Zeh, and the Olam ha-Ba, the World to Come. Midrash Tehillim 62:1 links this myth of two worlds to the verse Truly my soul waits quietly for God (Ps. 62:2). It then adds, “Know you upon whom you wait? Upon Him who created two worlds with the letters of His Name: with yod and heh He created worlds, this world and the World to Come.”; There is a rabbinic debate over which letter was used to create the two worlds. Midrash Tehillim 114:3 declares that no one is certain which letter was used for which creation.
Other rabbinic sources view heaven and earth as a single world. Indeed, Genesis Rabbah 1:15 recounts a heated rabbinic discussion about which was created first, the heaven or the earth: “The school of Shammai maintains that heaven was created first, while the school of Hillel maintains
that earth was created first. In the view of Shammai, this is like a king who first made his throne and then made his footstool. Hillel compares it to a king who builds a palace—first he builds the foundation, then the upper portion. Hearing this, Rabbi Simeon said: ‘I am amazed that the fathers of the world engage in controversy over this matter. Surely both were created at the same time, like a pot and its lid.’”
Eliyahu Rabbah follows this pattern of simultaneous creation, asserting that God created the heavens and the earth at the same time, in their entirety, and gave them permanent form by shaping them. He gave them their finishing touch by hammering them out. In this way He made the earth fit to dwell in, while He stretched out the sky above it, as it is said, The heaven and the earth were finished (Gen. 2:1).
Sources:
Midrash Tehillim 62:1, 68:3, 114:3; Eliyahu Rabbah 31:29.
307. THE PRIMORDIAL LANGUAGE
Hebrew is the primordial tongue. Not only is Hebrew the language of the angels, it is the language in which God addressed Adam.
One of the key assumptions of the rabbinic texts is that Hebrew is the sacred tongue, spoken in heaven as well as on earth. It is an axiom that Hebrew is the language of the angels. The Karaites, Jews who accepted the Bible but rejected the Talmud, shared this belief, as indicated here.
Sources:
Kitab al-riyad w’al-Hada’ik.
308. THE CREATION OF THE TORAH
God created the Torah at the very beginning, before the heavens were created and the earth was brought into being, before the mountains were sunk, before the hills were born, before there were any streams or sources of water, as it is said, Yahweh created me at the beginning of His course (Prov. 8:22). It lay in God’s bosom and sang praises of God along with the ministering angels.
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