Rabbi undefined ben Levi wanted to see Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death). The Messiah refused. "It is not fitting for the righteous to see it," he said, "for there are no righteous people in hell." But Rabbi Joshua pressed the matter, and eventually the angel Qipod escorted him to the fiery gates. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by undefined Gaster in 1899, what he found was a system of seven compartments, each more terrible than the last.
The first compartment measured one mile in length and breadth, filled with open pits containing lions made of fire. Two brooks ran through it—when the wicked fell in, the fire-lions standing above cast them back into the flames. When the Messiah accompanied Rabbi Joshua to the gates, the wicked saw his light and rejoiced, crying, "This one will bring us out of this fire!"
The second compartment held nations of the world with Absalom presiding over them. The nations argued among themselves—"If we sinned because we rejected the Torah, what sin did you commit?" They challenged Absalom: "Your ancestors accepted the Torah. Why are you punished?" He answered simply: "Because I did not listen to my father." The punishing angel Qushiel struck the wicked with a rod of fire, cast them into flames, and burned them—seven times daily and three times nightly. But Absalom himself was spared each time, because he descended from those who declared at Sinai, "We shall do, and we shall hear."
This pattern repeated through all seven compartments. Korah in the third, Jeroboam in the fourth, Ahab in the fifth, Micah in the sixth, and undefined ben Abuya in the seventh. Each Israelite sinner was rescued from the worst punishments by the merit of their ancestors' covenant at Sinai. The darkness filling these compartments was the primordial darkness that existed before creation—so thick that no soul could see another.