08-02-2007, 07:43 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-02-2007, 07:46 PM by Director Michael.)
okiebennoach82 Wrote:When people die, do all of us go to the purging fires of Gehinom and then to heaven?
No. Those souls which are sufficiently righteous, meritorious or repentant can be spared from the purging process. Also there are other processes which can happen to the soul, such as reincarnation.
okiebennoach82 Wrote:I read that Jews don't believe anyone can go to Gehinom for longer than 12 months.
That is only talking about Jews, and in general. There can be longer stays in Gehinom for souls which were exceptionally sinful and unrepentant.
okiebennoach82 Wrote:But what about people like Hitler? What happens to them?
See for example Isaiah 66:24. Also there is punishment "midah k'neged midah" - measure for measure. Punishments are tailored to correspond to the unrepentant sins that were committed. For example, consider the case of Titus who desecrated and destroyed the Second Temple, and ordered the massacres of millions of Jews. Great numbers of Jews were also taken as slaves, or were killed for entertainment in the Roman forums. Titus ordered that when he died, his body was to be burned and the ashes scattered over all the oceans of the world, so that he could not be found for punishment, and this is what they did. The Talmud states that every day an angel gathers up his ashes, reconstructs him into his body, burns him to ashes, and rescatters his ashes.