A comment and a question?
If people who are not totally righteous (and who among us is totally righteous?) go to purgatory, then why did the Lord tell the thief on the cross that he would be with HIM today in paradise? I don’t think that Jesus meant he was going to be hanging out with the guy in Purgatory.
Also, I noted that several of the statements in this piece are attributed to Jewish “legend.” I would not want to base any belief on a legend.
First, when Jesus uses the word "paradise,” He did not mean heaven. Paradise, from the Hebrew "sheol," meant the realm of the righteous dead. This was the place of the dead who were destined for heaven, but who were captive until the Lord's resurrection. Second, since there was no punctuation in the original manuscript, Jesus’ statement “I say to you today you will be with me in paradise” does not mean there was a comma after the first word “you.” This means Jesus could have said, “I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise” (meaning, Jesus could have emphasized with exclamation his statement was “today” or “now,” and that some time in the future the good thief would go to heaven). Third, even if the thief went straight to heaven, this does not prove there is no purgatory (those who are fully sanctified in this life – perhaps by a bloody and repentant death – could be ready for admission in to heaven).
Also, I noted that several of the statements in this piece are attributed to Jewish “legend.” I would not want to base any belief on a legend.
Legend = oral tradition. This is how the faith was passed down for generations until the printing press made it possible to finally transcribe and reproduce texts. Remember not everything Jesus said and did was written down. The same is true for the Old Testament. The Written Law is another name for the Torah. The Oral Law is a legal commentary on the Torah, explaining how its commandments are to be carried out. Common sense suggests that some sort of oral tradition was always needed to accompany the Written Law, because the Torah alone, even with its 613 commandments, is an insufficient guide to Jewish life.
Without an oral tradition, some of the Torah's laws would be incomprehensible. In the Shema's first paragraph, the Bible instructs: "And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes" (see Deuteronomy 6:4-8). ref.