10
I place the different punishments described here in different chapters so as to separate them, even though the shamash recounted them without interruption, except when he gave forth with such anguished expressions as “oy vay!” and various invocations of God and His mercies.
Just as he went on uninterruptedly, so did his listeners never cease being amazed at what they were hearing. They knew full well that a righteous person goes to Gan Eden and a wicked person to Gehinnom and that there are certain righteous ones who enter Gan Eden while still alive. But in all their days they had never heard of anyone who went into Gehinnom alive and came out unscathed — until they heard from that old gentleman that he himself saw Gehinnom in his lifetime and walked around inside it as one walks around in his home, and even the hems of his clothing were not singed. You might think that this was because he was great in Torah and wisdom and piety and good deeds. Not at all. This was a poor shamash, one who was no different from anyone else in Buczacz, except for his temper. Perhaps the merits of his forebears who were killed in the pogroms stood in his stead. But in this matter he was no more privileged than the other townspeople, almost all of whom saw their father or mother die a terrible and cruel death. So the matter is truly puzzling.
Many things are unfathomable. I can shed no light on them and therefore return to the main thread of this tale, continuing again with the phrase “the shamash went on.”
11
The shamash went on:
Beneath that compartment of Gehinnom is another one known as Gag ‘al Gag, Roof Upon Roof. It is several times bigger than the first one and wider. It is so wide, in fact, that the walls, the ceiling, and the floor are invisible to the naked eye. It is as if the whole compartment were suspended over the void. Of course the earth too is suspended over the void, but the earth, as the Bible says, He has given to mankind, which means that the earth was given by God to mankind so it could flourish over the void. But in the nothingness over which this place hangs nothing can flourish. The people sitting here all have foreheads that are either wide or high or wrinkled. Their eyes are small, squeezed by all the intellectual activity into the space between the forehead and the nose. Some of them stroke their beards, some of them pluck out hair after hair and flick them into the air without even knowing it. This part of Gehinnom is different from the first; there the people sit as far from each other as the distance of a Sabbath boundary, whereas here they sit right next to each other, cramped together, each one sharing his ḥidush with the other, exactly as they did in the land of the living. The name of the angel appointed over them is Otem. This is not Gabriel, who covers over Israel’s sins with a veil, but an evil angel who once was good but was debased by all the silly ḥidushim he heard. All this I learned from what our Master, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, told me.
The people here do exactly what they did when they were alive, namely, they offer ḥidushim anywhere and anytime. The difference is that in this world a person who recognizes that he is mistaken will, if he so chooses, admit his error, or if he is so inclined will deny it completely. There every word a person uttered in this world is permanently engraved in public view with his signature attached, and the dead cannot contradict what the living say.
When a person studies a page of Talmud and parses the plain sense of the text, the more his reading approximates what the words say, the less will he seek out colleagues to praise him for it. But when a person thinks up a ḥidush on that text, the more far-fetched it is, the more eager he is to proclaim it. He leans over to his colleague to propose it to him and his lips fly apart. His tongue goes in search of his lips and becomes impaled on the sharp edges of his teeth, whereupon it starts to swell, growing thicker and thicker. I am an old man and do not like exaggerations, but when I say that that tongue becomes as massive as a church bell I would not be too far from the truth. My comparison to a church bell is apt, for just as a church bell peals without knowing why, so the tongue wags without knowing why it was put into motion. His colleague sees all this and starts to yell, but no sound comes forth. I am an old man and have seen much trouble and travail, but misery like that I have never seen.
I buried my face in our Master’s cloak so that I would not have to look at all that suffering. I covered my eyes but the torments were still visible. I stood there wondering: what offense brought on such a punishment?
12
I reviewed all the sins and punishments enumerated in the holy books and could find none that matched what I had seen — and the mercies of the Heavenly One are presumably greater than those of mortal men. Panic seized me. Maybe my mouth was contorted. Maybe my lips had flown apart. I was afraid to raise my hands to check. And then I feared that ears had grown over my whole body. When fear takes hold of a person, nature then compounds it. Because I had buried my face in the folds of our Master’s cloak, I suddenly felt as if my ears were wrapped all around me. If I told you that I heard all the bones in my body rattling, it would not be far from the truth.
Our Master turned and looked back at me. My head cleared for a moment, and I wanted to ask him about the meaning of the forms we had just seen. But I had no voice. I vowed then that if I could ever talk again, I would make sure that not one unnecessary word would come out of my mouth.