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Posted on 08/27/2025 7:37:08 AM PDT by silent majority rising
Why Does Torah Talk About Punishment?
A Jew, the Torah says again and again, must connect to G‑d from the heart. When you serve G‑d out of fear of retribution, you may be better off than someone who does not serve G‑d at all, but you’re not serving Him from your heart. You are serving Him only to avoid pain.
If so, why do you need to know about punishment—whether in this world or in the afterlife and Gehinnom? Why do the classic works on Jewish ethics find it necessary to discuss these things?
Simply because you need to know who you are, where you are, how life works, and the power of your actions.
Who are you? A divine soul.
Where are you? In a very challenging world.
How does it work? It provides options at every turn, to go down or to rise up.
What are the consequences? One moment of sincere, good deeds, our sages say, is worth more than the highest heaven could provide.1 That alone makes a lifetime worthwhile. But, inevitably, you will also come in contact every day with all sorts of substances and situations very foreign to your soul. As they say, it comes with the territory.
You want to keep that to a minimum by always keeping in mind why you are here: To make whatever you can into a holy experience, and by avoiding those things that can’t be budged.2
When your soul leaves, she will rise upward to the blissful experience she has prepared for herself. But she will need to release all the baggage holding her down. That’s really all that the punishments of Torah are about: helping you drop the bad baggage.
Because G‑d does not punish for the sake of punishment. He’s not out to get back at you. That’s absurd. You can’t cause Him any harm, so why would He take vengeance? Rather, out of His great love and kindness, He provides the means to rid yourself of whatever prevents you from rising to the place where you truly belong.3
Why Must It Be Painful? Pain has a purpose: to protect you from getting hurt. There are people who don’t feel pain, and they are perpetually suffering severe burns, cuts, and other serious injuries.
Pain also has a vital role in the healing process. We know, for example, that chemically blocking the pain receptors in an animal’s nerves slows skin and bone healing. That’s because the same nerves that send pain signals to the brain are also busy dilating blood vessels, attracting immune cells, and stimulating tissue repair.4
The same with the soul. To the soul, any interruption of divine energy is like a stoppage of oxygen or blood to the body. So those unholy activities or words naturally cause her a lot of pain. If your soul is sensitive and feels the pain, she doesn’t allow such a thing to happen. If it slips by, the pain triggers an immediate response of remorse and the internal healing we call teshuvah.
But too often, the physical body desensitizes the soul and anesthetizes her pain. That’s how transgressions happen. You slip up and you can’t feel the consequences. Your soul’s lifeline is blocked, the current of life is set in disarray, and things cease to go the way they should. Hopefully, that’s a wake-up call and you get things in order. Then the final steps of recuperative healing can begin.
Is that healing a punishment? Certainly not in the common sense of the word. When your parents changed your diapers or bathed you and washed the sand and mud out of your hair, were they punishing you? They loved you and they wanted you to be clean and healthy. And, the truth is, had you not kicked and whined so much, it would have gone a lot easier.
So, too, in adulthood, if you can muster the strength to embrace whatever pain comes upon you, recognizing it as divine love and healing, you will lead a much happier life.
But what if you never pick up the call? That’s the real problem—when you don’t feel the pain. Or if you imagine that the pain is not telling you anything. Much illness, researchers are beginning to realize, comes from people lacking what’s come to be known as interoception,5 a perception of what is going on inside their bodies and what the pain they feel is trying to tell them. The roughness and toughness of life, it seems, can become its own anesthetic.
Upon leaving the body, however, the anesthesia wears off and your soul begins to ache from her wounds. No longer a denizen of this world, teshuvah is no longer on the menu. Now, the pain alone must do its healing.6
Before we describe that process, here’s a story to illustrate the problem:
It’s Just Dirt David Goldberg lived on an upscale street in a Michigan suburb. So upscale, they never paved the street, leaving it a bumpy dirt road. That way, nobody came by who didn’t belong there.
David told us about the luxury car he bought to commute to work every day. He thought it was a great deal, but after only two years or so, it was forever giving him trouble. The brakes, the transmission, the mileage—everything was substandard. David figured he’s been sold a lemon.
Before returning to the dealer, David went to see his mechanic. “Let me hoist it up,” the mechanic said, “and take a better look.”
As you may have guessed, the entire underside of the car chassis, inside and out, was caked over with several inches of dry mud. “The problem is not the car,” said the mechanic. “It’s just smothered with dirt!” After a good power wash, David’s car ran like new again.
“Only then,” David concluded, “did I understand why a soul, as pure as a soul may be, might need a cleaning.”
The Body Detox Your body is holy. It was chosen by its Creator as the sacred means by which the soul performs mitzvahs. That’s why it requires a sacred burial—just as we bury a Torah scroll.
By Jewish tradition, a group called the chevra kadisha prepares the body before burial by cleansing it and submerging it in a mikvah. We want to return our body to its Maker as pure as it was given to us.
But some of that cleansing is beyond the means of the chevra kadisha. Everything you ever ate left its trace in the body. If you ate like Rabbi Yehuda, the nassi, all that you ingested was good and pure. Otherwise, your body requires a detox.
How did Rabbi Yehuda, the nassi, eat?
Rabbi Yehudah was the foremost leader of the Jewish people in the period after the Bar Kochba revolt. He redacted the final, official version of the Mishnah, the first halachic compendium. The nassi was the chief justice of the supreme court of Israel, the most prestigious and powerful position at the time. He is also often referred to in the Talmud as “our holy rebbe,” or just “Rebbe.”
The Talmud relates:
At the time of Rebbe's death, he raised his ten fingers toward heaven and said, “Master of the Universe, it is revealed and known before You that I toiled with my ten fingers in the Torah, and I have not derived any benefit from the world even with my small finger.”7
Now, Rabbi Yehudah lived a grandly affluent life. People would say that his stable manager was wealthier than the Persian Emperor. He often hosted Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Emperor of Rome, who he matched in wealth. As far as austerity goes, the Talmud states that he had radish, lettuce, and cucumber on his table all year round, something quite rare in the centuries before refrigeration.
Yet, with all this wealth and condiments at his table, he never indulged in any of it for its own sake. To him, it was all a means to serve G‑d.8 All his food was therefore holy food.
True, that’s not easy. It’s a simple thing to live off bread and water or a bowl of rice and only eat for the “sake of heaven.” You’ll avoid that purging of the body after death. But G‑d created a variety of foods for a reason. It must be that we, like Rabbi Yehudah, are capable to some degree of consuming these, as well, for a higher purpose. Every detail of life, even its luxuries, can and must be used for a divine purpose.9
But let’s say you didn’t. Let’s say, once or twice in life you ate something with no higher purpose in mind. It was just time to eat. Or it looked good. Or it just happened to be there. So now your holy body has ingested food molecules that were never made holy like itself.
The body has to purge itself of this unholiness while it lies in the grave.10 That’s called a “thrashing of the body,” because it’s similar to hanging up a rug and thrashing the dust out with a stick. As the body decays in the soil, it is not completely dead. It is cleansing itself.
(There is an alternative way to give your body this cleansing: Make sure to speak words of Torah, whether that be Tehillim, Mishnah, Talmud, or any other Torah words, for one-sixth of your day, or four hours.11)
The Slingshot Cleanse As the body cleanses itself, so too the soul. Released from your physical bounds, you ascend into the ecstasy of a sublime, spiritual world. But you still haven’t let go of those thoughts, words, and activities of this world. They envelop your soul, throwing you back down into the experience of that same empty nonsense you were engaged in down here all over again, blocking the blissful experience you just tasted.
Now your soul truly feels the pain she underwent during her life in a body. That pain shakes off the aura of dust that surrounds her like a thick, dark coat.
Then you are slung back up again into the bliss of that higher world, only to discover that some residue of those ugly clothes persists. So you get pulled back down and the process is repeated until all the dust has been shaken off.12 You’re left with only the fine clothing of all your mitzvahs and good deeds.
Because, just as an astronaut needs a special suit to protect him from the intense cosmic rays outside the earth’s atmosphere, so your soul will need the luminous clothing of Torah, mitzvahs, and good deeds she has brought from this world. Without them, she would dissolve within the intensity of heaven’s light. But if it’s soiled with this other junk, it’s not going to operate so well.
Gehinnom Once done shaking off the dust, there may be some deeper cleaning left in order to enter that higher world, cleaning that your soul can’t shake off on her own. For this, she must enter for a short period into Gehinnom, a spiritual realm that provides tailored cleansing for every stain.
The Gehinnom of Fire burns out the fiery passions of the animalistic soul that pulled you into unholy places. The Gehinnom of Snow extracts the cold apathy of the animalistic soul that held you back from doing mitzvahs. Once done, the soul is healed and fully equipped to absorb the rays of divine light shining in a world beyond.13
Nevertheless, it’s only the externalities of your divine soul that require cleansing. Although she suffers the consequences of carrying a thick coat of muck and grime both in this world and the next, she herself remains pure and untainted.14
No matter how long you live and what you do with that life, every morning you can wake up and say a blessing that begins, “My G‑d, the soul You have breathed into me is pure…”
She is, after all, a “part of G‑d from above.”15
The Judgment and Rescue of Elisha ben Avuya A soul that needs this cleansing will run to Gehinnom to get it. The worst punishment is when they don’t let you in. The story of Elisha ben Avuya is a case in point:
Elisha ben Avuya is a dark character in Talmudic lore. He is often referred to as simply “the other.”16 He had been one of the most learned of the sages, and then turned to heresy. His student, Rabbi Meir, tried repeatedly to pull him back, but to no avail. He claimed he had heard a voice calling from the Holy of Holies, “Return, wayward children! Return—except for Elisha ben Avuya. For he knows My glory and nevertheless rebels against Me!”17
They tell that when this “other” died, he could go neither up nor down. The heavenly court refused to deal with him.
“We cannot sentence you,” they told him, “because the Torah you learned and taught will protect you from the fires of Gehinnom. But without going through those fires, neither can you enter the Garden of Eden above.”
Rabbi Meir, however, disagreed with their ruling. He reversed their logic: “Better that he be sentenced and endure those fires,” he argued, “so that he could receive the reward for all his Torah.”
“When I die,” Rabbi Meir concluded, “a pillar of smoke will rise from his grave.”
And so it was that when Rabbi Meir’s soul came to rest, smoke began to rise from the grave of his teacher.
How long did “the other” burn? Rabbi Meir was the teacher of Rabbi Yehudah, the Nasi. Rabbi Yehudah was the teacher of Rabbi Yochanan, who lived a long life. Throughout Rabbi Yochanan’s life, the grave of Elisha ben Avuya continued to smoke.
“If Job’s suffering would last for seventy years,” wrote Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, “it wouldn’t reach the pain of one hour in Gehinnom.”18 And here, this “other” endured perhaps a hundred years of such pain.
Until Rabbi Yochanan declared, “Is this the great favor that Rabbi Meir brought upon his teacher, that he burns all these years? One among the students of Torah stumbles and none of us can save him? I will enter Gehinnom, grab him by the hand, and pull him out from there! Who will be able to take him from me?!”
And so it was that when Rabbi Yochanan died, smoke ceased to rise from the grave of Elisha ben Avuya. Indeed, they eulogized Rabbi Yochanan, saying, “Even the guard at the gate of Gehinnom could not stand before you, our rabbi!”
Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, the “Ben Ish Chai,” asked, “How is it possible that Rabbi Yochanan could simply grab someone by the hand and pull him out of Gehinnom? How will the cleansing process ever be completed?”19
And so, he explains: It must be that the fires of Gehinnom were not able to complete the process. As the heavenly court had originally stated, the Torah that Elisha ben Avuya had learned shielded him from those fires. And so it is with every student of Torah. Which is why the Arizal taught that the souls of Torah students can only be cleansed through reincarnation.20
That is what Rabbi Yochanan did. He took Elisha ben Avuya by the hand and guaranteed that he would continue holding his hand, coming with him through every incarnation, to ensure that he would not stumble again, until he could receive his portion in the World to Come.
Eventually, Elisha ben Avuya was admitted to the lowest level Garden of Eden above. It cost him a hundred years or so of unimaginable hell. But even to enter that lowest level, it was well worth it. There is no way we can begin to imagine the bliss of a cleansed and pure soul in that higher world.21
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Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven.
He didn’t say anything about Hell, though.............
Every meeting there begins with a land acknowledgement.
Larson’s BEST!
ICWUDT
We Stand Between Two Eternities and One Person Conquered Death,Hell and the Grave.
Scotty with a ... red shirt?
Larson knew.
God provided a perfect Sacrifice to pay the price for our sins. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. Old Testament animal sacrifice was a foreshadow of the work of Messiah Jesus. We simply cannot ever be good enough on our own.
In my opinion, hell is just separation from God, it is all the evil people there that make it so miserable.
I saw a sign nailed to a light pole the other day. It read: “Good people go to Hell,saved people go to heaven.” Is this true?
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:
If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting Oh my God.
An endless date with Helen Thomas and Hillary Clinton while watching “The View”
An endless landscape of printers being run on lotus notes.
I counted 1, 563 angels dancing on the head of my pin. Does that help?
Thanks for the observation. Find it curious that they chose to dance in odd numbers. But, it is rumored that angels are androgynous. I guess that would explain it.
Just for the record, medieval theologians never discussed such a thing. It was a slur made up by "Enlightenment thinkers" in order to ridicule Christianity.
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