Overcoming Fear of Gehenna: Trusting God’s Love and Finding Inner Peace

Ortal (name changed) asks: "I’m very afraid of Gehenna, to the point where I feel that no matter what I do, there will be accusations and punishments against me. What can I do? I always remind myself that God loves us, but it doesn’t really sink in… Also, I constantly feel like there’s no point in investing in life because I could die any moment anyway. This feeling stops me from trying, from investing in myself, and from moving forward in life. How can I break free from this? Thank you in advance."

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Hello and blessings, Ortal,

First, it’s important to understand that Gehenna is not a physical place, and the depictions our Sages gave are allegorical — designed so that we can understand spiritual concepts within our human framework.

When you reach the World to Come at the age of 120, God willing, your entire way of perceiving reality will change. You will return to being a purely spiritual soul, without a physical body, and you will be able to understand Divine judgment and see truths that were hidden from you in this world. As a soul, you will have capacities and clarity that you don’t have now, and you will know without doubt that everything that happened to you was for your ultimate good, even if here on earth things seemed harsh or incomprehensible.

A woman in labor knows the pain will be intense, but she also knows that it leads to the most beautiful moment of holding her newborn child. That knowledge gives her strength to go through the pain. In life, people go through great struggles and make sacrifices to achieve meaningful goals. The same is true for the soul — the difficulties we face are part of our purification, growth, and development. What greater goal can there be than to come close to God and connect to His Divine Presence in Paradise?

To achieve this, God sometimes allows us to experience hardships that refine us and atone for our mistakes. Just as a surgeon may cause temporary pain to heal a patient — and the patient later thanks the surgeon, so too, spiritual challenges cleanse and elevate us for eternal happiness.

If someone were wheelchair-bound but could undergo a one-month painful surgery to walk for the rest of their life, they would choose the surgery, and they would thank the doctor afterward. Likewise, in the World to Come, we will understand exactly why we went through our struggles and will thank God even for the painful ones, because He is the Divine Surgeon who prepared us for eternal life.

We should therefore trust God’s mercy in all circumstances, accept everything with love, and place ourselves in His care like a baby in its mother’s arms. Even if the mother takes the child for a painful injection, the baby can trust her love. In the same way, we are God’s children, and our faith in Him can carry us through fear.

God gives us the opportunity to avoid Gehenna entirely by repenting in this world, through teshuvah (repentance), prayer, and charity. Yom Kippur is a yearly day of atonement, and many of the big and small challenges we face in life are intended to cleanse us here, so that we won’t need further purification later.

Your constant fear of death, which is holding you back from living fully, may be a deeper emotional or psychological issue that could benefit from speaking with a professional therapist, in addition to spiritual guidance.

Above all, do not despair. Trust that God always wants the best for you and is guiding you toward what will benefit you most. Strengthen your connection to Him through daily prayer and by feeling His love for you.