Kabbalah Library
Zohar for All, Volume 7
The Members of the Seminary Gathered to Review His Judgment
19. Yehoshua Ben Yehotzadak was a complete righteous, a man who would enter the inside of the inside, who was elevated to the seminary of the firmament. All the members of the seminary gathered to review his judgment. Such are the ways of that seminary of the firmament when a person’s spirit is brought in for judgment; a herald comes out and declares, “Come in, all the members of the seminary, to a hidden room,” and the courthouse assembles.
20. That spirit of the person rises through two appointees. When it enters, it approaches one pillar of a blazing flame that stands there, and dresses in the wind of the air that blows in that pillar. Many are those who rise there, since all those who engage in Torah and make innovations in it, these words are immediately written to the members of the seminary. At that time, all the members of the seminary come to see him, and those two appointees come out and raise him to the seminary of the firmament, and he immediately approaches that pillar, where he dresses in a clothing.
21. After he is clothed, he enters the seminary and the members of the seminary see him. If the matters that he innovated are appropriate, happy is he, since the all the members of the seminary crown him with several shining crowns. If it is another matter, which is not according to the ways of holiness, woe to him because of that shame; he is repelled outside and stands by the pillar until he is admitted in to judgment.
22. There are also others who are raised there when the Creator is disputed with the members of the seminary, whether that matter is permitted or forbidden. They say, “Who will prove the rule? The wise so-and-so in this world will come and prove the matter, what the rule is like.” At that time, that wise one is raised there and proves that rule between the Creator and the members of the seminary. There are still others who are raised there for judgment, and they are sentenced there to sort them and to scrutinize them.
23. It therefore follows that the person passes away and departs from the world without judgment. If he departs with judgment, for he has already been sentenced above, why is he judged a second time, in the seminary of the firmament? It is because of course a person leaves this world in judgment, but before he enters the presence of the righteous, he is raised to judgment a second time, where he is sentenced in that seminary of the firmament.
24. That appointee of Hell stands in the seminary of the firmament, in order to slander. Happy is one who is acquitted in judgment. If not, that appointee over Hell takes him. When he is given into his hand, he slings him from there down as one slings a rock in a slingshot, as it is written, “And the souls of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling.” He throws him to Hell and he receives his punishment according to what he had been sentenced.
25. “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord,” for he was raised to judgment into that seminary of the firmament when he passed away from the world. “Standing before the angel of the Lord,” before that youth, the angel Matat, head of the seminary in the seminary of the firmament, who cuts the judgment over everything.
