70 myths · Page 2 of 3
The Angel of Death came with orders to be generous. Rabbi Joshua ben Levi borrowed the angel's blade, vaulted the wall of Eden, and made heaven honor his oath.
Noah had three sons. He also had twelve months of waking in the dark to feed every animal in the ark at its own hour, and he came out emaciated.
God sent the archangel Michael to fetch Abraham's soul. Michael could not do it. Then came the tour of the judgment hall and a man struck dead by a look.
Saul spared Agag and lost the throne. Solomon multiplied wives and gold for forty years and kept it. The rabbis traced the difference to a single word.
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi descended through all seven chambers of Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment) and returned. Solomon never went himself, but he sent his.
Rabbinic legend describes a city outside the Angel of Death's jurisdiction, built where Jacob slept, guarded by a bone that cannot be destroyed.
At the gates of Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment), two angel bands call out a single word forever, and beyond them lie seven named compartments of fire.
Chronicles of Jerahmeel says the righteous dead emerge from their graves each Shabbat eve to eat, drink, and praise God, then return before nightfall.
The emperor's nephew called Titus and Balaam up from the dead. He asked which nation is honored in the world to come. Both enemies said the Jews.
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi asked who would sit beside him in the World to Come, and the answer was a butcher who cared for his aging parents.
Standing over the graves, Baruch demands to know whether the dead rise in wounded bodies or transformed ones, and receives a precise answer.
Death comes to Abraham dressed in beauty and light. Abraham does not believe the disguise and insists the angel show what it actually is.
At death an angel names each limb and mourns the acts it performed. Then a farmer, a goldsmith, and a Torah scholar face what they actually own.
A man gathering firewood in the forest was dead. He burned in Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment) because of a shared sin, and only his son's voice in the.
Two thousand scorpions crossed the backs of the sinners, each sting matched to a different sin. Higher up, angels bathed in a river of fire and came out new.
Seven fiery chambers where lions eat the dead and begin again, traitor-kings warden the nations, and scorpions with countless mouths lash the prostrate.
An angel walks a trembling soul down seven descending floors of fire, where the gates lock the feet and each punishment is cut to fit the sin.
Angels stood by the bed before the man knew he was dying. His soul came loose at the feet, and his sight got sharper as it rose.
The elders who had thrown him out came back begging for a chief. He went. He died in pieces, a limb dropping as he walked, buried across the cities of Gilead.
Two robbers cry favoritism, a wicked man buys eternity with one hour, and in Ashkelon two funerals carry the wrong men to the wrong graves.
The dogs howled when the Angel of Death came through the door, covered in eyes. Then God asked the dead man what Torah he had studied.
A blind man and a lame man strip the kings figs, then each blames the other. The soul tries the same defense and learns it grew up at court.
Two scribes write every name over a place in fire and in the garden before the soul is judged, and the verdict only decides which room you keep.
A nation that kindles a great stake at dawn and dusk meets the demon their fire was feeding, and Samriel opens the gate.
A doorway with a will of its own waits three fingerbreadths from paradise, while a father mourns a son the empty pit had already spared.
Jacob offered Esau the whole of this world for a share of the next, and Esau's friends counted the price in someone else's four hundred years.
A dying man summoned before the King runs to his three lifelong friends, but only his good deeds pass the gate and walk in at his side.
A dead soul faces Adam at Machpelah, the flaming sword at Eden, and the climb toward Arabot where the righteous become angels.
An angel walks a new soul past fire-lions and scourges in Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment), naming the damned as once-living people who ignored Torah.
A guide who would not give his name asked the soul what it had loved most. It answered with one week: a coin given quietly, a page learned while tired.
