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The Door in the Wall That Opened on Gehinnom

A rich man warns his wife never to open one door. The hand that pulls her through leads into Gehinnom, the afterlife of judgment, and its burning floors.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Morning He Went Out
  2. The Hand That Came Through
  3. Down Past the Water
  4. The Golden Room
  5. The Ring Came Up

There was one door in the wall of that house, and the husband said what he had to say about it so often that his wife could have recited it back to him. The court had four good walls, and in one of them stood a door. "Whatever else you do," he told her, "do not go near that door."

The Door in the Wall That Opened on Gehinnom Click for full size

He never said what was behind it, and she never asked, because in a house where the money came from nowhere anybody could name there were a number of things nobody asked. They were rich and she was beautiful, and by every measure that counts they were both bad people.

The Morning He Went Out

Years went by with the door shut. Then he tied up his pack and went out on the road, and the house was hers.

She did the ordinary things first. She ate, she gave orders, she walked the court, and each time she came around the court she passed the door. A warning repeated for years is not a warning anymore, it is furniture, and furniture stops being visible. But the house was empty now, and an empty house makes an old sentence loud again.

She stood in front of it. She thought about her husband's face when he said it and about how he had never once explained it, and she thought about the fact that he was days away on a road and there was nobody in the whole court but her. Then she put her hand on the door and pulled it open.

The Hand That Came Through

A hand came out of the opening and closed on her, and it did not have to drag her, because it took her through her own wall in one motion. The door shut behind her.

The court stayed exactly as it was. Nothing had been knocked over, so no servant heard anything and there was nothing for anybody to report, and the wall stood there whole with the door in it while the food went cold on the table.

The husband came home to that. He went through the rooms and the yard and out onto the road calling her name, and when the road gave him nothing he went into the forest. A figure came down to meet him there, enormous, black from crown to foot, and told him there was one way to learn where his wife had gone. Send a faithful servant. The servant would be shown her, and shown was all.

Down Past the Water

The servant went, and the way down ran longer than any cellar on earth.

Rabbi Joshua put the width of the earth at a journey of sixty years, and he said that one of the depths lying near Gehinnom (the fiery place of punishment below) bubbles with water and produces it for the delight of the sons of man. Once a month the ducts come up out of that depth and wet the whole face of the ground. The clouds make the seas hear the sound of their waterspouts, and the seas make the depths hear theirs, until deep is calling to deep. The servant walked down past all of that calling, and the water noise thinned out behind him, and he kept going.

A noble matron had once put the hard verse to Rabbi Yose ben Halafta: who knows whether the spirit of a man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth. He gave it to her straight. The souls of the righteous are put in a treasury and kept there, bound up the way a king binds what he does not want loose. The souls of the wicked get slung out of the hollow of a sling, and they go down.

The servant was walking the road they land on.

The Golden Room

At the bottom the place opened out, and it was not what he had braced himself for, because there were no chains anywhere in it and no pit. His mistress sat in a golden apartment at a golden table with beautiful food laid out in front of her, dressed as well as she had ever been dressed in the house above.

He stopped in the doorway. "Why do they call this a punishment?" he asked.

Because every single thing in that room was burning red hot. The gold of the chair was cooking the backs of her legs where she sat on it, and the gold of the table took her hands each time she set them down, and the food went into her mouth as fire and stayed fire all the way down and never once filled her. She had been eating that meal since the door shut behind her.

Nobody was coming for her, either. She had left no son behind to stand up and say Kaddish, no child to answer Baruch Hu u'Varuch Shemo after the Name, so there was no hand anywhere above that could reach in on her account. She had committed every sin a person can commit, and the one thing that might have lifted her out of that chair had never been born.

She worked a ring off a finger the fire was still working on and held it out to him. "Take this to my husband."

The Ring Came Up

The servant climbed back into the world and put the ring in the husband's hand.

He knew it. He had seen it on her a thousand mornings, and here it came up to him out of the ground. Everything he had spent a whole married life not looking at arrived at once and all the way, so he tore his clothes and wept. Then he went into teshuvah, full repentance, and did not come back out of it, and it saved him, because he was still on the living side of the wall where repentance is something a man can do for himself.

The door stayed in the wall. So did the well in the yard and the cup on the table and every drink either of them had ever taken in that house, all of it water that comes up once a month out of the depth beside the burning to wet the face of the ground.

GehinnomJudgmentRepentanceKaddishMidrashExempla
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 5:4Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, trans. Rabbi Gerald Friedlander, London (1916) · CC-BY

Ancient Jewish texts are full of fascinating cosmologies, attempts to understand the workings of the universe, often blending science, poetry, and a deep sense of the divine. And one of the most intriguing explanations comes from Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a text whose origins scholars debate but which likely took shape sometime in the early Middle Ages. It's brimming with imaginative interpretations of Biblical narratives and offers glimpses into the worldview of its time.

So, what does Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer have to say about the source of all water?

Well, Rabbi Joshua, in this text, paints a picture of a world far grander than perhaps we imagine. He states that the diameter of the earth is equal to a journey of sixty years. A poetic way of saying it's HUGE. But more importantly, he reveals that near Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) – often translated as hell, but perhaps better understood as a place of purification – one of the depths bubbles with water. And this water, remarkably, is the source of delight for humankind. the very water we drink, the water that sustains life, originates from a place near… well, near Gehinnom. It suggests a constant interplay between darkness and light, between judgment and grace.

The story doesn’t end there. Rabbi Jehudah expands on this, detailing a fascinating hydrological cycle. He explains that once every month, ducts rise from these depths to irrigate the entire face of the earth. He anchors this idea in the biblical text, quoting (Genesis 2:6): "And there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground." It's a reminder that even in the earliest moments of creation, water was understood as essential, as a gift flowing from a mysterious source.

And then it gets even more intricate. According to Rabbi Jehudah, the clouds cause the seas to hear the sound of their waterspouts, and in turn, the seas cause the depths to hear the sound of their waterspouts. It's a cascading effect, a chain reaction of watery communication. Then, the deep calls to the deep, as (Psalm 42:7) puts it, "Deep calleth unto deep at the sound of thy waterspouts", to bring up waters and give them to the clouds.

It’s a beautiful, almost musical description of the water cycle. You can almost hear the echoes and responses as water moves between realms.

What are we to make of all this? Is it a scientific explanation? Probably not in the way we understand science today. But it is a profound statement about interconnectedness. Everything is linked. The depths, the seas, the clouds, and ultimately, us. We are all part of this intricate, divinely orchestrated system. To realize that the water we drink has traveled through such a complex and mysterious journey.

And perhaps, just perhaps, it invites us to treat this precious resource with a little more reverence and a little more awe.

Full source
Kohelet Rabbah 3:21Kohelet Rabbah

Translation of the source text.Midrash Rabbah -- TE · Public Domain

"Who knows the spirit of the children of men" and so forth (Ecclesiastes 3:21). It was taught: Both the souls of the righteous and the souls of the wicked all ascend on high, except that the souls of the righteous are placed in a treasury, while the souls of the wicked are flung about upon the earth. For Abigail said to David through the Holy Spirit (1 Samuel 25:29): "And the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living." One might think this applies even to the souls of the wicked; therefore the verse states: "And the souls of your enemies, them shall He sling out, as from the hollow of a sling."

A noble matron asked Rabbi Yose ben Halafta. She said to him: What is the meaning of that which is written, "And who knows the spirit of the children of men, whether it goes upward"? He said to her: These are the souls of the righteous, which are placed in a treasury, for thus Abigail said to David through the Holy Spirit: "And the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living," and so forth. One might think this applies even to the souls of the wicked; therefore the verse states: "And the souls of your enemies, them shall He sling out, as from the hollow of a sling."

She said to him: And what is the meaning of that which is written, "and the spirit of the beast, whether it goes downward to the earth"? He said to her: These are the souls of the wicked, which descend to Gehenna below, as it is said (Ezekiel 31:15): "On the day when he went down to the grave I caused mourning; I covered the deep over him," and so forth.

Full source
Gaster, The Exempla of the Rabbis (1924), no. 338 (Codex Gaster 185)The Exempla of the Rabbis (1924)

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Exempla of the Rabbis, Moses Gaster (1924) · PD-US-pre-1929

A ma'aseh preserved among the Gaster manuscripts tells the story of a rich man and his wife who were, by every measure, bad people. Their house had four walls, and in one of those walls stood a door. The husband, who had mysterious knowledge of the place, warned his wife: "Whatever you do, never open that door."

One day he left for a journey. His wife, as curious people in stories always do, opened the door. A hand reached out. It grasped her and pulled her through. The door slammed shut behind her.

The husband came home and found her gone. He searched everywhere. In the forest, a towering dark figure met him on the path and told him that if he sent a faithful servant, the servant would be allowed to see where his wife was. The servant was led down through a long darkness into Gehinnom. There he saw her, not chained, not whipped, not visibly tormented. She was sitting at a golden table, in a golden chamber, with beautiful food in front of her. The servant, confused, asked why this was called punishment.

A voice explained. Everything she saw, the gold, the chamber, the food, was burning red-hot. The golden chair was scalding. The golden table was searing her hands. The food was fire in her mouth. And there was no one to save her, because she had left no son behind to say Kaddish or to respond Baruch Hu u'Varuch Shemo on her behalf. She had committed, the voice added, every major sin. There was no lever of mercy left for anyone to pull.

But before the servant left, she slipped a ring from her finger and pressed it into his hand. "Take this to my husband."

When the servant returned and placed the ring in the husband's palm, the husband broke. He recognized it. He understood, at last, what kind of life they had been living together. He wept. He tore his clothes. He entered teshuvah, full repentance. And was saved from his wife's fate. The ring, preserved as exemplum no. 338 in Moses Gaster's 1924 The Exempla of the Rabbis, became his reminder for the rest of his life.

The story is relentless but careful. It does not say the wife was saved. The Kaddish that might have pulled her out had never been born. But it says, clearly, that the husband was still within reach of teshuvah, repentance, while he still walked on this side of the door. The opportunity does not last forever. What the Rabbis want the reader to understand is small and brutal: the door is real, and the time to change is now.

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