A Dry Crust in the Land of Israel and Its Atonement

"Better a dry crust with quiet in it than a house full of feasting with strife" (Proverbs 17:1). Rabbi Yohanan said: This is the Land of Israel, for even if a person eats bread and salt and dwells within it, he is assured that he is a child of the world to come. "Than a house full of feasting with strife" - this is the land outside the Land, which is full of robbery and plunder. Rabbi Yohanan said: Whoever walks four cubits in the Land of Israel is assured that he is a child of the world to come. Rabbi Levi said: Whoever dwells in the Land of Israel even a single hour and dies within it is assured that he is a child of the world to come. What is the reason? "And His land shall atone for His people" (Deuteronomy 32:43). Rabbi Nehemiah said: The Land of Israel atones for the sins of those who die in it. Rabbi Zevida said: As for all the righteous who died outside the Land, what do you do for them? Rather, you must say that the Land of Israel atones for those who die within it; but as for the righteous who are outside the Land, the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to command the ministering angels, and they bring them through tunnels from outside the Land to the Land of Israel, and there atonement is made for them, as it is said, "and I will cleanse them upon their own land" (Ezekiel 36:25, as read). Rabbi Abbahu said: Shall one say that even the wicked in the Land of Israel are granted atonement? Scripture teaches, "and the wicked are shaken out of it" (Job 38:13). To where does He shake them out? Rabbi Levi said: From the Land to outside the Land. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: He does not let them stand, so that they may know that there is judgment and a Judge. And to where does He shake them out? To Gehinnom, as it is said, "The leech has two daughters: Give, give" (Proverbs 30:15). Gehinnom is destined in the time to come to demand before the Holy One, blessed be He, and say, "Give me the wicked." There we have learned: The judgment of the wicked in Gehinnom is twelve months. Rabbi Eliezer asked Rabbi Yehoshua, saying to him: What shall a person do to be saved from the judgment of Gehinnom? He said to him: Let him go and occupy himself with good deeds. He said to him: If so, even the nations of the world would perform commandments and good deeds; might they too be exempted from the judgment of Gehinnom? He said to him: My son, the Torah spoke not of the dead but of the living. Rabbi Eliezer said to him: I will tell you a reason from what you have taught me. He said to him: Speak. He said to him: Once I heard you, while you were expounding in the house of study, and saying... (the discussion continues in chapter 19).