Clothed in Scarlet Mitzvot Against the Snow of Gehinnom

[4] "She does not fear for her household because of the snow, for all her household is clothed in scarlet [shanim]" (Proverbs 31:21). Chizkiyah said: the judgment of the wicked in Gehinnom is twelve months, six months in heat and six months in cold. At first the Holy One, blessed be He, brings into them an itch, and He brings them into Gehinnom in the heat, and they say, "This is the Gehinnom of the Holy One, blessed be He." And afterward He brings them out to the snow, and they say, "This is the cold of the Holy One, blessed be He." At first they say "Vah" [ah], and at last they say "Vai" [woe]. This is what David says, "He brought me up out of the pit of tumult, out of the miry clay" (Psalms 40:3). What is "the miry clay"? From the place where they say "vah" and "vai." And where do they yield up their souls? Yehudah son of Rabbi said: in the snow, as it is written, "When the Almighty scattered kings in it, it snowed in Tzalmon" (Psalms 68:15): the snow is their Tzalmon [their place of darkness]. One might think Israel is also so; therefore the text states, "She does not fear for her household because of the snow, for all her household is clothed in scarlet [shanim]." "Clothed in shanim" [read as "in twos"]: circumcision and uncovering, fringes and phylacteries, "you shall surely give a gift [hasheward]" (Deuteronomy 15:14), "you shall surely give" (Deuteronomy 15:10), "you shall surely open" (Deuteronomy 15:8), "you shall surely tithe." Therefore Moses warns Israel and says to them, "You shall surely tithe" and so forth (Deuteronomy 14:22).