Gaster's exemplum No. 348 preserves a Jewish folk tale about the strangest accounting in the heavenly court.
A wicked man died and was brought before the Holy One for judgment. The decrees against him were grave. But he pleaded: "Send me back to life. Let me repent. I will use the time."
He was granted the chance. He returned to life — and was worse than before.
He died a second time. Again he begged. Again he was returned. Again he was worse.
A third time the same pattern played out. Three times given life; three times squandered. The court of heaven had reason to close the book.
But one day, before his final death, the man was walking through his town and came upon a small gathering of Jews trying to pray. They were nine men. They needed a tenth for a minyan, the quorum required for public prayer. The wicked man, not thinking much of it, stepped into the doorway and stood there. They counted him, and the service began. The Kaddish was said. The Torah was read. The minyan held because of him.
He died shortly after and was brought to judgment alongside a genuinely pious man who had died that same day. The pious man was sentenced — for some trivial lapse — to one hour in Gehinnom before entering Gan Eden. The wicked man was granted, for the minyan he had completed, one hour in Gan Eden before descending to his sentence.
Then the wicked man did something that changed the ledger. He said to the Holy One: "Let me trade. Let me serve the pious man's hour of Gehinnom in his place, and give him my hour of Eden."
The court was stunned. The request was selfless — the kind of generosity the wicked man had never shown in life. And the Holy One, the exemplum concludes, was moved to mercy. He allowed both to enter Gan Eden permanently, side by side.
The theology is startling and pure. Completing a minyan was almost nothing. Offering to take another's suffering was everything. Sometimes teshuvah takes a lifetime; sometimes it happens in an hour at the gate.