A soul that needs this cleansing will run to Gehinnom to get it. The worst punishment is when they don’t let you in. The story of Elisha ben Avuya is a case in point:
Elisha ben Avuya is a dark character in Talmudic lore. He is often referred to as simply “the other.” He had been one of the most learned of the sages, and then turned to heresy. His student, Rabbi Meir, tried repeatedly to pull him back, but to no avail. He claimed he had heard a voice calling from the Holy of Holies, “Return, wayward children! Return—except for Elisha ben Avuya. For he knows My glory and nevertheless rebels against Me!”
They tell that when this “other” died, he could go neither up nor down. The heavenly court refused to deal with him.
“We cannot sentence you,” they told him, “because the Torah you learned and taught will protect you from the fires of Gehinnom. But without going through those fires, neither can you enter the Garden of Eden above.”
Rabbi Meir, however, disagreed with their ruling. He reversed their logic: “Better that he be sentenced and endure those fires,” he argued, “so that he could receive the reward for all his Torah.”
“When I die,” Rabbi Meir concluded, “a pillar of smoke will rise from his grave.”
And so it was that when Rabbi Meir’s soul came to rest, smoke began to rise from the grave of his teacher.
How long did “the other” burn? Rabbi Meir was the teacher of Rabbi Yehudah, the Nasi. Rabbi Yehudah was the teacher of Rabbi Yochanan, who lived a long life. Throughout Rabbi Yochanan’s life, the grave of Elisha ben Avuya continued to smoke.
“If Job’s suffering would last for seventy years,” wrote Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, “it wouldn’t reach the pain of one hour in Gehinnom.” And here, this “other” endured perhaps a hundred years of such pain.
Until Rabbi Yochanan declared, “Is this the great favor that Rabbi Meir brought upon his teacher, that he burns all these years? One among the students of Torah stumbles and none of us can save him? I will enter Gehinnom, grab him by the hand, and pull him out from there! Who will be able to take him from me?!”
And so it was that when Rabbi Yochanan died, smoke ceased to rise from the grave of Elisha ben Avuya. Indeed, they eulogized Rabbi Yochanan, saying, “Even the guard at the gate of Gehinnom could not stand before you, our rabbi!”
Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, the “Ben Ish Chai,” asked, “How is it possible that Rabbi Yochanan could simply grab someone by the hand and pull him out of Gehinnom? How will the cleansing process ever be completed?”
And so, he explains: It must be that the fires of Gehinnom were not able to complete the process. As the heavenly court had originally stated, the Torah that Elisha ben Avuya had learned shielded him from those fires. And so, it is with every student of Torah. Which is why the Arizal taught that the souls of Torah students can only be cleansed through reincarnation.
That is what Rabbi Yochanan did. He took Elisha ben Avuya by the hand and guaranteed that he would continue holding his hand, coming with him through every incarnation, to ensure that he would not stumble again, until he could receive his portion in the World to Come.
Eventually, Elisha ben Avuya was admitted to the lowest level Garden of Eden above. It cost him a hundred years or so of unimaginable hell. But even to enter that lowest level, it was well worth it. There is no way we can begin to imagine the bliss of a cleansed and pure soul in that higher world.
