110. “To David, bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.” How must one observe and know the work of his Master, since each and every day, the clarion calls out and says, “How long, you fools, will you love foolishness?” “Repent, mischievous children; I will heal your mischief.” But no one lends his ear. The Torah calls out before them but no one notices.
111. A person walks in this world and thinks that it is always his, and he will remain in it for generations to come. While he walks in the world, he is placed in shackles, he is sickened and tied to his bed. And while he sits this way, he is sentenced among the rest of those who are sentenced. If one who speaks in his favor is found, he is saved from the judgment, as it is written, “If there is one angel out of a thousand who speaks in his favor, to declare a person’s integrity, he will be pardoned,” and he will say, “Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom.” The speaker in his favor are good deeds, which stand for a person when he needs them.
112. If a speaker in his favor is not found, he is judged to depart from the world. When he lies tied by the king’s shackles, when he raises his eyes, he sees that two are coming for him. They write before him everything he did in this world and everything he uttered from his mouth, and he is sentenced for everything, and they write before him, as it is written, “For behold, He who forms mountains and creates the wind, who declares to man what his speech is,” and he confesses to them.
113. What is the reason he confesses to all his actions? It is because that deed that he did rises and stands before him to testify about him, and all the actions stand above to testify about him. They all descend and are registered before him and stand before him, and do not move away from him until the time when he is sentenced for them in that world.
All those things that a person did in this world are all ready and poised to testify about him, and are not lost from him. When he is taken out to the grave, they all convene and walk before him, and three clarions call out, one in front of him, one to his right, and one to his left. They say, “This is so and so, who rebelled against his Master, rebelled above, rebelled below, rebelled against the Torah, rebelled against his commandments, look at his actions, look at his words, it would be better had he not been created.
114. By the time they reach the cemetery, all the dead are angry with him from their place and say, “Woe, woe that this one is buried among us.” His actions and words come first into the grave and stand over that body, and his spirit goes and roams and mourns over the body. When a person has been covered in his grave, Angel Dumah emerges first, and in his hand are three courthouses appointed over the judgment of the grave, with three scepters of fire in their hands, and they judge the spirit and the body together. Woe to that judgment or to his actions.
115. While he is captured by the king’s shackles, meaning when he is sick and tied to his bed, and he is sentenced and found guilty since no one was found to speak in his favor, the appointee of the King, the angel of death, comes down and stands before him, by his feet, with one sharp sword in his hand.
116. A person raises his eyes and first sees the walls of the house blazing with fire because of him. In the meanwhile, he sees him, standing right in front of him, full of eyes and dressed with blazing fire, standing in front of the person. Although the others who are standing there do not see him, so it is indeed, since several people see an angel in the market and stand before him, and the rest of the people do not see him.
117. It is written, “Who makes His angels spirits.” How can they be seen in the land? However, when an angel comes down to the earth, he dresses in a body and appears to whom he appears in that garment that he wore. Had he not worn that garment, the world would have been unable to tolerate him or that he would be visible. It is all the more so with the angel of death, whom all the people in the world need.
118. Three drops are in his sword. When he sees him, his whole body and spirit are shaken and his heart is not at ease, since he is the king of the whole body. His spirit walks through all the organs of the body and he parts from them as one who parts from his friend to go to another place. Then he says, “Woe to me for what I had done,” but it helps him only if he took the healing of repentance first, before that time arrived.
119. The person is afraid and wants to hide, but he cannot. When he sees that he cannot, he opens his eyes and looks at him with open eyes, and then gives up himself and his soul. That time is the time of the great judgment, when a person is sentenced in this world, and then the spirit goes through all the organs of the body and parts from them, and roams through all the organs and rattles to all sides.
120. When the spirit comes to each organ and parts from it, sweat falls on that organs and the spirit leaves him, and that organ immediately dies. So it is with all the organs.
121. When the spirit comes to leave, since it has already parted from all the organs of the body, the Shechina stands over it and the spirit promptly flees from the body. Happy is he who had adhered to the Shechina; woe to those wicked ones who are far from her and did not adhere to her.
122. A person goes through several courthouses when he exits this world: 1) the upper courthouse, when the spirit leaves the body, 2) the judgment when his actions and words walk before him and the heralds call him out, 3) the judgment when he enters the grave, 4) the judgment of the grave, 5) the judgment of the worms that eat his flesh, 6) the judgment of Hell, 7) the judgment of the spirit that walks and roams the world, and does not find a place until he completes his actions.
Indeed, he goes through seven times. This is why a person must fear his master, while still in this world, and examine his actions each and every day, and repent on them before his Master.
123. When King David looked at those judgments of a person when he passes away from this world, he hurried and said, “Bless the Lord, my soul,” before she leaves the world. Now, while you are still with the body.
“And all that is within me, bless His holy name,” you, the organs that are connected to the spirit, now while the spirit is still with you, hurry to bless the holy name before the time comes when you cannot bless Him and thank Him for you.