Acheer once pressed Rabbi Meir with a hard verse: God also has set the one over against the other (Ecclesiastes 7:14). What did it mean?
Rabbi Meir offered the simple answer. The Holy One never made a thing without also making its opposite. Mountains and seas. Hills and rivers. Day and night. The world is stitched together from pairs.
Acheer shook his head. His own teacher, Rabbi Akiva, had taught something stranger. God created the righteous and the wicked. He created paradise and Gehinnom. And every soul was given two portions, one in each. When a righteous person dies with merit intact, he carries off his own share of paradise and the share his wicked neighbor forfeited. When a wicked person dies, he drags down his own share of Gehinnom and the share his righteous neighbor was spared from needing.
Rav Mesharshia asked for scripture. The sages pointed to Isaiah's promise to the righteous, they shall possess the double (Isaiah 61:7), and Jeremiah's warning against the wicked, destroy them with double destruction (Jeremiah 17:18).
The Talmud preserves this exchange in Chagigah 15a. Your portion is never only yours.
" Every one has two portions, one in paradise and another in hell." Acheer asked Rabbi Meyer, "What meaneth this that is written (Eccl. vii. 14), God also has set the one over against the other? Rabbi Meyer replied, " There is nothing which God has created of which He has not also created the opposite. He who created mountains and hills created also seas and rivers. But said Acheer to Rabbi Meyer, " Thy master, Rabbi Akiva, did not say so, but spake in this way: He created the righteous and also the wicked; He created paradise and hell: every man has two portions, one portion in paradise, and the other in hell. The righteous, who has personal merit, carries both his own portion of good and that of his wicked neighbor away with him to paradise; the wicked, who is guilty and condemned, carries both his own portion of evil and also that of his righteous neighbor away with him to hell. • When Rav Mesharshia asked what Scripture guarantee there was for this, this was the reply: " With regard to the righteous, it is written (Isa. lxi. 7), 'They shall rejoice in their portion, therefore in their land (beyond the grave) they shall possess the double. Respecting the wicked it is written (Jer. xvii. 18), (And destroy them with double destruction.}>>
