Last month I mentioned a Talmudic ghost story about a son seeking to restore the reputation of his late father. The story moved me deeply when I encountered it many years ago and, when I was writing The Hidden Saint, inspired what became one of the most arresting scenes in the book.
What’s so special about this story? Last month I mentioned the story’s focus on justice, specifically the son’s determination both to rescue the wrongly tarnished reputation of his father and to rescue the spirit of his departed friend so it can rise to “the heavenly yeshiva.” But there’s another aspect of the story that I find fascinating, and which inspired me in my writing:
We speak of “the silence of the grave,” but the cemetery in which this story takes place is anything but silent. It’s alive, so to speak, with the souls of the not-so-very-departed. And it must be quite a crowd, given that they have some difficulty in identifying the particular spirit that the protagonist seeks. The story doesn’t make a point of this. It doesn’t even explain why these souls aren’t in heaven, or what theological importance to place on that fact. It just takes it as a given.
But that image, of a cemetery full of spirits, stuck with me. What were all those spirits still doing? Did they know they were dead and, if so, how did they live—so to speak—with that knowledge? Perhaps most importantly, what would it take for them to ascend to their heavenly reward?
Read The Hidden Saint for one set of answers to those questions. Meantime, here’s the story as it appears in the Talmud (Berachos [Blessings] page 18A):
Come and hear, as it is told: They would deposit the money of orphans with Shmuel’s father for safekeeping. When Shmuel’s father died, Shmuel was not with him, and did not learn from him the location of the money. Since he did not return it, Shmuel was called: Son of him who consumes the money of orphans.
Shmuel went after his father to the cemetery and said to the dead: I want Abba. The dead said to him: There are many Abbas here. He told them: I want Abba bar Abba. They said to him: There are also many people named Abba bar Abba here. He told them: I want Abba bar Abba, the father of Shmuel. Where is he? They replied: Ascend to the yeshiva on high.
Meanwhile, he saw his friend Levi sitting outside the yeshiva, away from the rest of the deceased. He asked him: Why do you sit outside? Why did you not ascend to the yeshiva? He replied: Because they tell me that for all those years that you didn’t enter the yeshiva of Rabbi Afes, and thereby upset him, we will not grant you entry to the yeshiva on high.
Meanwhile, Shmuel’s father came and Shmuel said to his father: Where is the orphans’ money? He said to him: Go and retrieve it from the millhouse, where you will find the uppermost and the lowermost money is ours, and the money in the middle belongs to the orphans. Shmuel said to him: Why did you do that? He replied: If thieves stole, they would steal from our money on top, which the thief would see first. If the earth swallowed up any of it, it would swallow from our money, on the bottom.
Shmuel saw that his father was crying and laughing. Shmuel said to his father: Why are you crying? His father replied: Because you will come here soon. Shmuel continued and asked: Why are you laughing? His father replied: Because you are extremely important in this world. Shmuel said to him: If I am important, then let them grant Levi entry to the yeshiva. And so it was that they granted Levi entry to the yeshiva.