Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
In the evening, the angel takes the soul to hell, and there points out
the sinners whom the Angels of Destruction are smiting with fiery
scourges, the sinners all the while crying out Woe! Woe! but no mercy
is shown unto them. The angel then questions the soul as before, "Dost
thou know who these are?" and as before the reply is negative. The
angel continues: "These who are consumed with fire were created like
unto thee. When they were put into the world, they did not observe
God's Torah and His commandments. Therefore have they come to this
disgrace which thou seest them suffer. Know, thy destiny is also to
depart from the world. Be just, therefore, and not wicked, that thou
mayest gain the future world."
Between morning and evening the angel carries the soul around, and
shows her where she will live and where she will die, and the place
where she will buried, and he takes her through the whole world, and
points out the just and the sinners and all things. In the evening, he
replaces her in the womb of the mother, and there she remains for nine
months.
When the time arrives for her to emerge from the womb into the open
world, the same angel addresses the soul, "The time has come for thee
to go abroad into the open world." The soul demurs, "Why dost thou want
to make me go forth into the open world?" The angel replies: "Know that
as thou wert formed against thy will, so now thou wilt be born against
thy will, and against thy will thou shalt die, and against thy will
thou shalt give account of thyself before the King of kings, the Holy
One, blessed be He." But the soul is reluctant to leave her place. Then
the angel fillips the babe on the nose, extinguishes the light at his
head, and brings him forth into the world against his will. Immediately
the child forgets all his soul has seen and learnt, and he comes into
the world crying, for he loses a place of shelter and security and
rest.
When the time arrives for man to quit this world, the same angel
appears and asks him, "Dost thou recognize me?" And man replies, "Yes;
but why dost thou come to me to-day, and thou didst come on no other
day?" The angel says, "To take thee away from the world, for the time
of thy departure has arrived." Then man falls to weeping, and his voice
penetrates to all ends of the world, yet no creature hears his voice,
except the cock alone. Man remonstrates with the angel, "From two
worlds thou didst take me, and into this world thou didst bring me."
But the angel reminds him: "Did I not tell thee that thou wert formed
against thy will, and thou wouldst be born against thy will, and
against thy will thou wouldst die? And against thy will thou wilt have
to give account and reckoning of thyself before the Holy One, blessed
be He."[20]
THE IDEAL MAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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