Moses Walked Through Gehinnom Before He Died

The sinners stood in mud up to their navels. Moses had not asked to see this. An angel named Nasargiel led him through the places where consequences had bodies. No punishment floated loose. Every chamber knew what it was for.

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The place was called Tit ba-Yawen, the deep mire.

Mud Up to the Navel

They could not climb. They could not sink away. Angels of destruction lashed them with fiery chains. Stones of fire shattered their teeth from morning until evening. Night restored the teeth to the length of a parasang, only so morning could break them again. The body was not allowed to finish suffering by falling apart.

Nasargiel named the sins that belonged to that mud. Carrion. Forbidden flesh. Money lent at usury. The Name written on amulets for Gentiles. False weights. Theft from a fellow Israelite. Eating on the Day of Atonement. Blood drunk. The list was long because the people in the mud had been specific in life, and the mud was specific in answer.

Moses looked at judgment that repeated itself because the wrong it answered had repeated itself while those mouths still had ordinary teeth.

Hung by the Limb That Sinned

In another place the guilty hung by the parts of the body that had sinned. Eyes that had reached greedily toward another's property were chained by the eyelids. Tongues that had lied and slandered swung in fire. Ears that had turned away from Torah hung with the tongue that had filled the silence with empty talk. Women hung by the hair and by the breasts. All of them hung from chains of fire, and they cried without rest.

Moses asked the keeper of the place why these were hanged by the eyes and the tongues. The keeper did not speak in generalities. They looked with an evil eye at fair women, at married women, at a neighbor's money, and they gave false witness. Those hanging by ears and tongues had neglected the study of the law and poured out slander and vain words.

A glance had weight. A word had weight. Refusal to hear had weight. The body itself gave testimony, and Moses walked on with that testimony still in his ears.

Three Gates and Five Fires

Gehinnom (גיהנום), the valley of wailing, had gates. Two bands of angels stood at them and called, "Come! Come!" One gate opened at the sea, where Jonah cried from the belly of Sheol. One opened in the wilderness, where Korah's company went down alive. One stood in Jerusalem, where the prophet spoke of God's fire in Zion and furnace in the city. The gates were wounds in the map of Israel's memory.

Five kinds of fire burned within. One devoured and absorbed. One absorbed without devouring. One neither devoured nor absorbed. Another fire could eat fire. Coals stood the size of mountains. Rivers of pitch and sulphur flowed and seethed. The angels of destruction seized a sinner and hurled him toward the flame, and Gehinnom opened its mouth.

Seven Levels of Venom

The depths had names. Sheol. Beer Shahat. Tit-Hayaven. Shaare Mavet. Abadon. Shaare Salmavet. Gehinnom. Each level stretched three hundred years' walking in every direction. The whole span was six thousand three hundred years of walking if a man could walk it.

In every compartment, seven thousand crevices. In every crevice, seven thousand scorpions. Every scorpion carried three hundred cavities, and every cavity held seven thousand pouches of venom, each pouring six rivers of poison. When a man touched it, he burst. Limbs tore from him. He fell on his face. The angels of destruction collected the limbs, set them aright, revived him, stood him on his feet, and began again.

Sheol, the uppermost, was half fire and half ice. Escape the flames, and the ice took him. Escape the ice, and the fire burned him. The angels kept the soul inside the body so the worm would not die and the fire would not be quenched. Moses walked through it. Then the tour turned toward a mountain that looked, for a moment, like mercy.

See With Your Eyes

He reached Mount Avarim. The inheritance of Reuben and Gad lay east of the Jordan, close enough to wound him. He walked into that portion and hope rose. Perhaps the decree had loosened. Perhaps he had already entered enough. He prayed again, like a son walking through palace rooms toward the one chamber his father had forbidden. Gate. Reception hall. Inner door.

"From here on, you are forbidden," the king says, when the son's hand is on the last latch. Moses said, "All of me is separated from the land only by a fifty-ell string of this Jordan." The answer stopped him at the border. See with your eyes, but do not cross.

The same man who had seen souls unable to rise from mud now stood where he could see the land and not enter it. His own judgment was not Gehinnom. It was nearness. It was a door left visible and closed. If he was buried with the generation that died in the wilderness, they would rise by his merit. He would be the gold coin dropped in the dark so the copper coins could be gathered after him. His grave outside the land would become a pledge for those who had never reached it.

He had walked through punishments where every limb answered for itself. He ended by giving his whole body to the wilderness, so the lost could one day follow him home. The Jordan stayed in front of him, a line made of water instead of flame, and he did not cross it.