Asking the Clergy: If Heaven's for real, what about Hell?

"Heaven Is for Real" is the provocative title of a Christian book that has sold more than 10 million copies since its 2010 publication. But what about the other place, which no one wants to go to. This week’s clergy discuss their faith’s visions of perdition.

Rabbi Shalom M Paltiel

Chabad of Port Washington

Hell is for real. It’s also for good. Judaism’s view of hell is a cleansing for the soul to allow it to enter paradise. Much as one would be embarrassed to enter an elegant wedding dressed in rags and muddy, virtually every soul, after its journey here on Earth, will require spiritual cleansing before it can enter into the divine feast, where the presence of God is felt and seen.

So rather than being seen as punitive, hell can be seen as rehabilitative. God loves every one of us as much as any parent loves their child — or infinitely more. No loving parent would want to punish their child out of vengeance. Judaism doesn’t believe in a vengeful, angry God but rather a God who loves each human being created in his own image as much as, and much more, than a parent loves their child. All punishment and all language of anger and wrath needs to be understood in this light. A parent who truly loves their child wants them to walk the correct path because they desperately care about the child’s well-being.

Hell is heaven’s bathhouse or dry cleaners. Judaism doesn’t believe in eternal stays in hell. It’s a rather short treatment, with the worst sinner requiring 12 months of cleansing and most souls far less (which is why the Kaddish prayer is observed for 11 months, to state unequivocally that our loved one isn’t in that “worst” category). It’s painful but loving, so that we can embrace our beloved father in Heaven. Forever.

The Rev. William McBride

Religious director, Interfaith Community Religious Education Program, Brookville Multifaith Campus

Since this question concerns the afterlife, I would like to respond to the quandary about hell’s existence with help from a rabbi at a Jewish-Christian dialogue series. The rabbi said, “I’m not certain about the existence of everlasting life, but I know about the existence of everlasting love thanks to my wife.”

In both Jewish and Christian traditions, the existence of hell is associated with a sense of hopelessness in reaching God’s everlasting love. In the translated words of Dante’s Inferno, “Abandon all hope, you who enter here.” For me as a child, hell was connected with the laws of the church. In my faith imagination, hell was a real place I would actually go if I failed to follow God’s Law of Love administered through church teaching. The teaching focused on the fear of absolute, eternal punishment and a fiery fate caused by mortal sin.

According to modern religious educators, the problem with this teaching is that it tends to develop a fear-based legalistic attitude toward faith. Rather than building hope of following a path leading to God’s everlasting love, it tends to destroy confidence and paralyze us in making adult faith decisions in a complicated world. “Does hell exist?” and “Where do we go when we die?” are questions for which we want answers. In response, we might follow Jesus’ teaching. Whenever disciples asked “The Rabbi” to guarantee their place in the next world, he pointed them toward serving others in this world.

The Rev. Henrietta Scott Fullard

Long Island District presiding elder, African Methodist Episcopal Church

In Revelations 20:13-15, verse 13, says, “and the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to their works.” Hell is a real place.

The Bible gives us options, which are opposites of each other: good and evil, heaven and hell, right and wrong, eternal life or eternal death. We need only to look at the perils of the world to see these comparisons in action. The Bible is the basis for the teaching behaviors that are expected and required of us so that we can live to avoid going to a real place called hell. We must live according to the rules God has given us in the Ten Commandments. When we abide by them with our hearts, mind and soul, he has promised to give us eternal life. Jesus came as a confirmation of the requirements of God for our Iives. Jesus came so that we may have eternal life. Jesus’ life on Earth was an example for us to follow. Jesus suffered, bled and died on a cross for the ultimate sacrifice so that we can be forgiven and have another chance to be saved from the burning hellfire.

Our beliefs, commitments and life should reflect Jesus in us at all times. The promise is that if we confess him with our mouth and believe him in our hearts, we shall be saved from damnation and the eternal pit of hell.