Victor R. Claveau, MJ
The popular belief was that the souls of evildoers and sinners were condemned to live in the everlasting darkness and terror of Gehinnom, a place lit only by the infernal fires that raged and crackled there, each having a heat sixty times greater than that of ordinary fire. Gehinnom reeked with the stench of burning sulphur or brimstone (this, incidentally, was also a characteristic of the Greek Hades). Suffocating, acrid smoke arose from the “Fiery Pit” or “Pool of Fire” in which the wicked, expiating for their misdeeds in life, agonized while the winds of damnation shrieked and howled through the seven descending regions of Gehinnom. It was too late for the wicked who wished to escape their fiery torments -too late for remorse when remorse could no longer avail them! Their punishment was clearly written down in the Talmud: “The Holy One, blessed be He, judges the wicked in Gehinnom for twelve months. At first, He afflicts them with itching. After that [He roasts them] with fire. At this they cry out: ‘Oh! oh!’ and then He torments them with snow. Thereupon, they cry out: ‘Woe is me! Woe is me!”’
In Talmudic times, there were two differing opinions as to which category of souls would be flung into the Fiery Pit. The School of Shammai (first century B.C.E.) held that three classes of souls were judged after death: Those who had been perfectly righteous, those who had been completely wicked, and those who were merely “so-so” namely a “little” righteous and also a “little” wicked. The names of the righteous were instantly entered into the Book of Judgment; they were considered worthy of Eternal Life without any prior examination. The souls of the wicked were cast down into the dark caverns of Gehinnom to be tormented and finally consumed in the Fiery Pit. As for the “mediocre” sinners, namely, the run-of-the-mill men and women – they were obliged to go down into Gehinnom for a brief period of fiery purgation before being deemed sufficiently worthy of ascending and entering Gan Eden. The disciples of Shammai based these constructions on this prophecy: “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Daniel 12:2)
But the School of Hillel, which was contemporary with that of Shammai and was always at loggerheads with it, had a more humane conception of the fate of evildoers in Gehinnom. Because the Hillites considered God to be compassionate and just, they were sure that after the purification by suffering and remorse had been completed for the whole human race, “Gehinnom will cease!” They consoled the backsliding, the confused, and the straying with the assurance that, in the fires of retributive justice, all their impurities would be consumed. In this way there would be fulfilled the promise of the Prophet Zechariah had given Israel: that God “will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried.” (Zechariah 13:9.) That being done, the rehabilitated souls would be permitted to enter Gan Eden.
In Judaism, Gehenna is a temporary place for purification of one‘s sins, not a place of ―eternal damnation‖ as it is for the Christians.
The Zohar maintains the traditional seven-tiered scheme for Gehenna. In one place it teaches that the seven realms correspond directly with the seven names for the yetzer hara (evil inclination). Elsewhere it describes the seven regions of Gehenna as designated for particular categories of sinners. (Jewish Views of the Afterlife by Simcha Paull Raphael, Summary by Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff)
“Gan Eden“ is Hebrew for the “Garden of Eden.“
Reference: Ausubel, Nathan, The Book of Jewish Knowledge, (New York: Crown Publishers), 1964, p. 174.