The Holy Scripture
Chapter XLIV
Come and I will show thee the spirits of the wicked ?and the spirits of the intermediate where they are standing, and the spirits of the intermediate, whither they go down, ?and the spirits of the wicked, where they go down,
And he said to me: The spirits of the wicked go down to She’ol by the hands of two angels of destruction: ZA'APHIEL and SIMKIEL are their names.
SIMKIEL 1s appointed over the intermediate to support them and purify them because of the great mercy of the Prince of the Place (Magóm). ZA'APHIEL is appointed over the spirits
And I saw the spirits of the Patriarchs Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the rest of the righteous whom they have brought up out of their graves and who have ascended to the Heaven (Ragia‘). And they were praying before the Holy One, blessed be He, saying in the wicked as compared with that of the intermediate), and the same is repeated in the Treatise on Hell’ which appeared in translation by Gaster, RAS’s Journal, 1893, p. 602: "(three sins cause those who commit them to go down to Gehenna and never return :) blaming one's neighbour in public, slandering him and adultery ". Masseket Gehinnom, i. The béndniyyim acc. to this view are those who have endeavoured to fulfil the Law but have failed to keep all the statutes. A third view identifies the benöniyyim with those who have kept the negative statutes only, the fully righteous with those who have kept all the positive statutes as well as the negative ones. As to the length of the period of purification assigned for the intermediate it is probably here conceived of as proportionate to the degree in which the sins have tainted them: they are kept in the purgatory until ‘they have become cleaned from their iniquity. Cf. the passage Rosh ha-shSHana etc. above note on vs. 2 and the transl, in Box, Ezra Apocalypse, p. 155, where it is pointed out that the béndniyyim were thought to go up after screaming in prayer for one hour, acc. to Yalqut on Zech. xiii. 9. Rashi likewise (ad loc. Rosh ha-shSHana) puts as an explanatory remark on the difficult word ‘mesafsefim: “it means: they cry and weep in their agony for one hour and then (are permitted to) come up again". Cf. Se‘uddath Gan ‘Eden, BH.v. 45, OM. i. 89 b: the wicked of Israel tormented in Gehenna are brought up from Gehenna to partake in the Feast of the Righteous ”. their prayer: ‘‘Lord of the Universe! How long wilt thou sit upon (thy) Throne like a mourner in the days of his mourning with thy right hand behind thee "and not" deliver thy children and reveal thy Kingdom in the world? ®And for how long wilt thou have no pity upon thy children who are made slaves among the nations of the world? Nor upon thy right hand that is behind thee wherewith thou didst stretch out !? the heavens and the earth and the heavens of heavens? When wilt thou have compassion? ”
Then the Holy One, blessed be He, answered every one of them, saying: ‘‘Since these wicked do sin so and so, and transgress with such and such transgressions against me, how could I deliver my great Right Hand in the downfall by their hands (caused by them)".
In that moment Metatron called me and spake to me: ‘‘ My servant! Take the books, and read their evil doings!” Forthwith I took the books and read their doings and there were to be found 36 transgressions (written down) with regard to each wicked one “and besides, that they have transgressed!? all the letters in the Tora, as it is written (Dan. ix. 11): ‘‘ Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy Law”. It is not written ‘al torateka but ’et (NN) torateka, for they have transgressed from ’Aleph (8) to Taw (N), 409? statutes have they transgressed for each letter.
Forthwith Abraham, Isaac and Jacob wept. Then said to them the Holy One, blessed be He: “Abraham, my beloved, Isaac, my Elect one, Jacob, my firstborn! How can I now” deliver them from among the nations of the world?" And forthwith MIKAEL, the Prince of Israel, cried and wept with a loud voice and said (Ps. x. 1): ‘“Why standest thou afar off, O Lord?”