Thread by @JYuter

1. Time for another Twitter shiur / class!

Today's topic: Hell in Judaism

2. One sentiment that comes up a *lot* on Twitter is that Jews don't believe in Hell or Judaism doesn't believe in Hell.

3. There's an important distinction between these two statements in that the former refers to the beliefs of people while the latter refers to dogma.

As any member of the clergy will confirm, what people believe does not always correlate with what dogma demands.

4. That said, Jewish texts have a wide range of opinions regarding what happens after death. One Biblical example that I will not be discussing here is "She'ol" which you can read more about here: jstor.org/stable/43723088 or here jstor.org/stable/3156568 or Google it.

5. Obviously, the word "Hell" is not going to appear in traditional Jewish sources. However, rabbinic texts speak of "Gehenom" that functions in a similar role to our conventional understanding of Hell as a place where wicked people are punished for their sins

6. The following is an updated version of a class I gave years ago. As always, this is not intended to be exhaustive or comprehensive, but only a survey of various opinions found in rabbinic literature.
joshyuter.com/2012/05/23/pod…

7. First, let's discuss where this place called, "Gehenom" exists. Unsurprisingly we find conflicting opinions including those that describe it as "down," another as "up," others w/entrances on earth, either east or west or even next to God

8. Wherever Gehenom is, it's supposedly really, really big.

9. Gehenom isn't just large in area, it also goes deep, either 7 or 14 levels

10. And as with popular conceptions of Hell, a key feature of Gehenom is fire

11. As far as who goes to Gehenom, the obvious answer is wicked people, but we find some variations on how this works.

Here is the opinion of R. Yehoshua b. Levi:

12. Reish Lakish disagrees with the process, or at the very least distinguishes between Jewish and non-Jewish sinners. In fact, acc to Reish Lakish, the fires of Gehenom have no effect on Jewish sinners

13. We also find a possibility of one's stay in Gehenom being temporary i.e. one could go down initially but rise up later.

14. For R. Hanina, everyone who goes down to Gehenom comes up with three exceptions.

15. And on this subject, we find several statements damning to Gehenom people who engage all types of actions.

16. And here are a few more for good measure

17. One fascinating source worth mentioning is the opinion of Reish Lakish in Nedaim 8b in which he states that there is no Gehenom in the World to Come.

18. This is obviously at odds with his other statements describing Gehenom seen above, unless of course, we redefine our conception of "World to Come" (at least in the thought of Reish Lakish) but that's a whole other conversation.

19. In conclusion, regardless of what Jews do or do not believe, rabbinic literature records plenty of statements that discuss a Jewish equivalent of what we conventionally call Hell.

20. The extent to which these sources play a prominent role in Jewish education or are prioritized as dogma will obviously vary based on one's community.

21. For further reading, try tracking down"Hell in Jewish Literature" by Samuel Fox. amazon.com/Hell-Jewish-li…

For those interested in comparative religious studies, see:
amazon.com/Resurrection-H… for antiquity or amazon.com/Hell-Its-Rival… for Early Middle Ages

21. Thank you very much for reading, and have a wonderful day!