SCHAR V'ONESH-----gehinnom

Q: Do Jews believe in hell??

A: Not the Hell that the Christians believe in. "Gehinnom" is what happens to a sinner when he dies. That is, his soul is as yet unfit to attach itself to G-d, and it feels the excruciating pain of not being able to find its fulfillment by connecting to G-d.

This pain is the punishment for its sins, and also its purification. Eventually, the soul is purified and can connect to G-d to whatever degree it has earned the ability to do so. (There are exceptions: Some souls are so corrupt that they can never attach to G-d and flounder unattached forever. Still other souls are commanded to return to this world in a reincarnated state to fulfill themselves. The pain a soul experiences in returning to this world is worse that the pain of Gehinnom).

Distance from G-d is called "hell"; connection to G-d is called "heaven".

Gehennom is not a specific place, but rather the pain that comes from your soul being so unable to connect to Hashem because of its sins.

Gehennom is not run by any devil - there is no devil. Hashem runs the whole world.

The Yetzer Horah does not want people to go to Gehennom. The Christian fictional devil is our enemy who wants us to fall. The Satan is our sparring partner who wants us to beat it, even though it fights hard against us to train us to fight. When we go to heaven, the Satan is the first to rejoice, just as the sparring partner is the first to have Nachas when his client becomes world champion.

Gehinnom is a cleansing process of the soul. The pain purifies the soul. After the soul is sufficiently cleansed of its sins, it then goes to heaven (Gan eden) to collect its reward. it does not go "either to heaven of hell."

There rally is zero similarity between the idolatrous idea of purgatory, and Gehinnom.

Q: So you are saying Gehenom isn't a bad place? So if we beat the yetzer hara, it means we get to gan eden faster and if we can't beat the yetzer hahra that we'll just have to spend some time cleansing ourselves in gehenem and that we won't be burning in hell like the Christian devil?

A: "Some time cleansing ourselves" is a lot more serious than you make it sound. Imagine, for instance, spending an hour straight in the dentist's chair, your teeth being drilled with NO NOVICANE. Then imagine it for like a year straight.

Then intensify that pain a thousand fold. And more.

Now we're going in the direction of understanding what it means to be "cleansed for a little while". The pain of Gehinnom is unimaginable.

Know what I mean?