Abraham Chooses the Empires Over Gehinnom in the Torch of Fire

[These are the records of the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle of the Testimony (Exodus 38:21).] What is "the Testimony"? This is the Torah in which they would labor. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: By the merit of the Torah and by the merit of the offerings I deliver you from Gehinnom. Even to their father Abraham, the Holy One, blessed be He, showed the Torah, and the offerings, and Gehinnom, and the empires. The Torah: "and a torch of fire" (Genesis 15:17); and the offerings: "And He said to him, Take Me a three-year-old heifer" (Genesis 15:9); Gehinnom: "a smoking oven" (Genesis 15:17); the empires: "and behold, a dread, a great darkness" (Genesis 15:12). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: As long as your children occupy themselves with the two, they are delivered from the two. As long as they occupy themselves with the Torah and the offerings, they are delivered from Gehinnom and from the empires. But the Temple is destined to be destroyed, and the offerings will cease. So then, what do you say: shall your children be subjugated by Gehinnom or by the empires? Abraham chose the empires. He said to Him: Master of the Universe, let them be subjugated by the empires, and let not one of them go down to Gehinnom, as it is said, "Were it not that their Rock had sold them" (Deuteronomy 32:30); and "their Rock" is none other than Abraham our father, as it is said, "Look to the rock from which you were hewn" (Isaiah 51:1). "And the LORD had delivered them up" (Deuteronomy 32:30) — for the Holy One, blessed be He, agreed with him. Rabbi Hanina said: Abraham stood astonished, and did not know what to choose. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: Cut the matter short. At that hour the Holy One, blessed be He, hinted to him to choose the empires. Thus, "These are the records of the Tabernacle of the Testimony" — all the days that Israel occupies itself with the Torah and the offerings, they do not go down to Gehinnom. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: In this world you were subjugated under the hand of the empires, and in the world to come I will deliver you from Gehinnom, by the merit of the Torah, which is called fire, as it is said, "from His right hand a fiery law for them" (Deuteronomy 33:2). And the fire extinguishes the fire, as it is said, "When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you" (Isaiah 43:2).