This was the story my friend the Arkansas rabbi told. It is from the folk-lore of Russia:
A woman who had lain in torment a thousand years lifted her face toward heaven and cried to the Lord to set her free, for she could endure it no longer. And he looked down and said: “Can you remember one thing you did for a human being without reward in your earth life?”
The woman groaned in bitter anguish, for she had lived in selfish ease; the neighbor had been nothing to her.
“Was there not one? Think well!”
“Once—it was nothing—I gave to a starving man a carrot, and he thanked me.”
“Bring, then, the carrot. Where is it?”
“It is long since, Lord,” she sobbed, “and it is lost.”
“Not so; witness of the one unselfish deed of your life, it could not perish. Go,” said the Lord to an angel, “find the carrot and bring it here.”
The angel brought the carrot and held it over the bottomless pit, letting it down till it was within reach of the woman. “Cling to it,” he said. She did as she was bidden, and found herself rising out of her misery.