Third Afterlife Class - Do Jews Believe in Hell?
Video Link - https://www.facebook.com/aaron.benson.9210
Introduction: One night, God visits a rabbi. The rabbi has one question, "What is
Heaven like?” God replies, "Heaven is like a city. It has the best of
everything. For example, the French are the chefs, the Italians are the lovers,
the English are the policeman, the Dutch are the politicians and the Germans
are the mechanics."
"What is Hell like?" he asks. "Well," God sighs, "the French
are the mechanics, the Italians are the politicians, the English are the chefs,
the Dutch are the lovers and the Germans are the policemen."
Review, Origin of
Concept
Gehenna
i. Valley south of Mt. Zion
(Jerusalem)
ii.
Border
of Judah
iii.
References
in Former Prophets at idolatrous site
iv. Garbage dump
Daniel 12:2 "And many of those who sleep in the dust of
the earth shall awake, Some to
everlasting life, Some to shame and everlasting contempt."
Talmud,
Rosh Hashanah 16b-17a R. Isaac further said:
Three things call a man's iniquities to mind, namely, a shaky wall, the
scrutinizing of prayer, and calling for [Divine] judgment on one's fellow man.
For R. Abin said: He who calls down [Divine] judgment on his neighbor is
himself punished first [for his own sins], as it says, And Sarai said unto
Abram, My wrong be upon thee, and it is written later, And Abraham came to
mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.
R. Isaac further said: Four things cancel the doom of a man,
namely, charity, supplication, change of name and change of conduct…
R. Kruspedai said in the name of R. Johanan: Three books are opened
[in heaven] on New Year, one for the thoroughly wicked, one for the thoroughly
righteous, and one for the intermediate. The thoroughly righteous are forthwith
inscribed definitively in the book of life; the thoroughly wicked are forthwith
inscribed definitively in the book of death; the doom of the intermediate is
suspended from New Year till the Day of Atonement; if they deserve well, they
are inscribed in the book of life; if they do not deserve well, they are
inscribed in the book of death…
It has been taught: Beth Shammai say, There will be three groups
at the Day of Judgment — one of thoroughly righteous, one of thoroughly wicked,
and one of intermediate. The thoroughly righteous will forthwith be inscribed
definitively as entitled to everlasting life; the thoroughly wicked will
forthwith be inscribed definitively as doomed to Gehinnom, as it says. And many
of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting
life and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence. The intermediate will
go down to Gehinnom and squeal and rise again, as it says, And I will bring the
third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and
will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my name and I will answer
them. Of them, too, Hannah said, The Lord killed and makes alive, he brings
down to the grave and brings up. Beth Hillel, however, say: He that abounds in
grace inclines [the scales] towards grace…
Wrongdoers of Israel who sin with their body and wrongdoers of the
Gentiles who sin with their body go down to Gehinnom and are punished there for
twelve months. After twelve months their body is consumed and their soul is
burnt and the wind scatters them under the soles of the feet of the righteous
as it says, And ye shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be as ashes
under the soles of your feet. But as for the minim and the informers and the
scoffers, who rejected the Torah and denied the resurrection of the dead, and
those who abandoned the ways of the community, and those who ‘spread their terror
in the land of the living’, and who sinned and made the masses sin… these will
go down to Gehinnom and be punished there for all generations…
The Master said [above]: ‘Beth Hillel say, He that abounds in
grace inclines [the scales] towards grace’. [How can this be], seeing that it
is written, And I shall bring the third part through the fire? That refers to
wrongdoers of Israel who sin with their body. Wrongdoers of Israel who sin with
their body! But you said that there is no remedy for them? — There is no remedy
for them when their iniquities are more numerous [than their good deeds]. We
now speak of those whose iniquities and good deeds are evenly balanced, but
whose iniquities include that which is committed by sinners of Israel with
their body. In that case, they cannot escape the doom of ‘I shall bring the
third through the fire’, but otherwise, [in regard to them], ‘He that is
abundant in grace inclines towards grace’, and of them David said, I love that
the Lord should hear.
What is meant by ‘wrongdoers of Israel who sin with their body’? —
Rab said: This refers to the cranium which does not put on the phylactery. Who
are ‘the wrongdoers of the Gentiles who sin with their body’? — Rab said: This
refers to [sexual] sin. ‘Who have spread their terror in the land of the
living’: [who are these]? — R. Hisda said: This is a communal leader who makes
himself unduly feared by the community for purposes other than religious. Rab
Judah said in the name of Rab: Any communal leader who makes himself unduly
feared by the community for purposes other than religious will never have a
scholar for a son, as it says, therefore if men fear him, he shall not see
[among his sons] any wise of heart.
Medieval:
Maimonides, Mishneh
Torah, Laws of Repentance, 3:5: Similarly, all the
wicked whose sins are greater [than their merits] are judged according to their
sins, but they are granted a portion in the world to come for all Israel have a
share in the world to come as [Isaiah 60:21] states "Your people are all righteous, they shall
inherit the land forever." "The land" is an analogy alluding to
"the land of life," i.e., the world to come. Similarly, the
"pious of the nations of the world" have a portion in the world to
come. [He then details a parallel list
of those who do not enjoy the world to come as we found above.]
Zohar: At the hour of a man’s departure from the world, his father
and his relatives gather round him, and he sees them and recognizes them, and
likewise all with whom he associated in this world, and they accompany his soul
to the place where it is to abide. (Zohar I, 218a). The soul then journeys to Gehenna, “whoever
pollutes himself in the world draws to himself the spirit of uncleanness, and
when his soul leaves him the unclean spirits pollute it, and its habitation is
among them” (Zohar I, 129b). “In Gehenna
there are certain places [where] souls that have been polluted by the filth of
this world ... are purified by fire and made white” (Zohar II, 150b). “The fire
of Gehenna, which burns day and night, corresponds to the hot passion of
sinfulness in man” (Zohar II, 150b). “The body is punished in the grave and the
soul in the fire of Gehinnom for the appointed period. When this is completed
it rises from Gehinnom purified of its guilt like iron purified in the fire,
and is carried up to Gan Eden.” (Zohar III, 53a).
Modern Conceptions:
Hell can be an intense feeling of shame. When one has so deviated from the will of God, one is said to be in Gehinnom. This is not meant to refer
to some point in the future, but to the very present moment. The gates of teshuva are said to be always open, and so one can align his will
with that of God at any moment. Being out of alignment with God's will is
itself a punishment. – My Jewish
Learning
Value concepts such as Gehenna, hell, circulate in various
Jewish conceptions of afterlife but are never defined with precision or
authoritatively. Using the building
blocks of these value concepts, many different conceptions of life after death
abound within religious Jewish traditions.
Those options remain viable for a Jewish Process thinker.
Once our lives are finished and done, we continue to exist –
as we have lived – on multiple levels.
All the stuff of which we are composed continues in the world. The atoms that constitute us do not vanish
with our death. Our proteins are
recycled in the ongoing cycle of life.
Everything that we are gets reused and continues.
One possibility is that death marks the end of our individual
consciousness. Our energy patterns
continue unabated, but there is no governing central organization, no
self-reflective awareness that continues beyond death. In such a possibility, we merge back into the
oneness from which we emerged. We go to
sleep as discrete individuals and awaken as the totality of the cosmos.
A second possibility builds on the first, adding the
plausible hope that consciousness and identity continued unimpaired. As God is process, and as God is the One who
is supremely connected to everything, supremely related, and forgetting
nothing, we remain eternally alive in God’s memory, in God’s thought – which it
turns out, is what we have been all along.
- R. Bradley Artson, God of Becoming and Relationship: The Dynamic Nature of Process Theology
