As a child, Der Nister had once heard a story that the head of the rabbinic academy in Volozhin used to tell his students. One night when he was still a young man, the headmaster dreamed that he had died, and had arrived in the next world. When it was the headmaster's turn to appear before the divine throne, the Holy One took him by the hand and brought him to a small door. The door opened, and the headmaster found himself in a luminous room filled with books: shelves and tables loaded with books, manuscripts in high stacks all over the floor. The headmaster looked around the secret library and smiled. He was sure this room was the place that had been reserved for him in paradise. But as he reached to take a volume off the shelf, the divine hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder and held him back. "These are all the books you were supposed to have written," the Holy One said. "Why didn't you write them?"
– from The World To Come by Dara Horn
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