What is the Jewish thought on Hell? (read details)?

I will try to sum it up.

first off their is no concept of eternal damnation and suffering. Such a thing is simply illogical. Hell is more of a purgatory that is for our benefit. What hell dose is removes all the spiritual blemishes that we have left on our souls so that we may fully receive the rewards for our actions in this world.

being that hell is a spiritual place and cannot be described in physical terms its hard to explain what it is like. but basically it can be decirbed as a place that the soul is removed from G-d and it "sits" and reflects on all the transgressions of its life and suffers from shame realizing what it has done and what it could have done.

considering the fact that most people have not fully repented for all their transgressions before death they will likely spend some time in hell. At the most it usually lasts about one year.

this applies for 99.9% of the population.

for the most evil people on earth the Hitler and Stalin types their souls are punished for the sins they committed and after they are cleansed since they have been soo evil and corrupted their souls they do not merit any reward in the afterlife and so their being is simply extinguished rather than suffering for all eternity.

Ask three Jews and we'll give you four different answers. Basically, the idea of a Hell for punishing asocial behavior is not in Judaism's teachings.

However, "the righteous of all nations (meaning any religion) will find everlasting peace" is a standard quote to remind us to be appreciative of others' cultures, not to seek a cloud and harp and spit on the losers....

Jewish people don't believe in Hell.

I asked a simlar question. I posted the link so you can see the answers I got

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AoRAN...

Try here:

http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_s...