Hell in Judaism: Why a Merciful God Created It and How It Leads to Eternal Good

Orna asks: "If God is gracious and compassionate, why did He create Hell? There is no thought more frightening. Why punish? Why doesn’t God just let people do what they want without punishing them? Doesn’t punishment contradict free will, forcing a person to choose good? Please clarify this for me."

* * *

Hello Orna, and thank you for your question.

All evil, as we know, comes from lack. Perfection, on the other hand, comes from goodness, abundance, and the desire to benefit others. Mercy and love therefore express themselves in giving. God is infinite and perfect — He has no limits and no deficiencies, and there is nothing He can gain from us. This means everything God does is only for our benefit, including suffering and even Hell. In fact, our sages taught that Hell itself is called “very good” (Bereishit Rabbah 9:9–11).

God certainly doesn’t punish sins out of revenge. His sole purpose is to do good for a person, like a loving father who wants to guide and help his children grow. Any child could ask: “Why should my father care whether I go to school instead of playing all day outside? Why does he take away my toy? Why does he make me get a painful shot?” Even a child can understand that his parents act from love and concern. As the verse says: “Know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you” (Deuteronomy 8:5).

When a person sins, he harms his soul. Suffering is intended to cleanse the dangerous stains and flaws that attach to the soul and block it from receiving divine light. The sages taught that in the future, everyone will bless God for the bad just as they bless Him for the good (Pesachim 50a), because we will finally understand how even suffering was for our benefit. In the World to Come, every soul will see how God lovingly healed and elevated it from every imperfection.

Judaism doesn’t see Hell as a place for senseless torture, but rather a place for the soul’s repair. Hell is like surgery. Imagine a man who is disabled but could be cured by a painful one-month operation, after which he could walk for the rest of his life. Of course, he would agree to the surgery and even thank the doctor for “hurting” him, because he knows it was for his benefit. In the same way, after death every soul sees that its suffering was for correction and atonement, and thanks God for it, because He is the “Healer of all flesh” who prepares the soul for eternal life in Heaven.

It is not necessary to suffer in Hell. A wicked person suffers only because he resisted his divine nature, like someone who sticks his hand in fire and then gets burned. Indulgence in sin wounds the soul, and Hell is the operating room where those wounds are treated. Out of mercy, God gives us the ability to repent at any time in our lives, and even after death He created Hell and reincarnation as ways for the soul to be cleansed and enter Heaven.

God also gave us the tools to repair our sins here and now through repentance, prayer, charity, and Yom Kippur, which wipes away sins each year. Many difficulties and hardships in life are actually part of this cleansing process, so that in the World to Come we can arrive as whole and healed as possible. Everything is for our benefit.

Free will is not taken away. Every person chooses whether to harm himself or listen to the Father. It’s like the smoker who ignores the doctor’s warnings; the choice is still his. The Torah is our Creator’s instruction manual, teaching us how to live in a way that protects our souls and our happiness, here and forever.

Some people choose to live an average spiritual life, while others invest more deeply in learning Torah, heartfelt prayer, doing mitzvot, and helping others. The more we invest, the greater our reward and closeness to God in the World to Come — the true source of the soul’s joy.

Most of us can, to some degree, imagine Hell, because its concepts of pain, cleansing and consequences are rooted in this world. However, can anyone really picture Heaven? Our sages described it as “The righteous sit, their crowns upon their heads, and delight in the radiance of the Divine Presence” (Berachot 17a). Such joy is beyond human imagination.

Hell deals with the process of repair, which our minds can relate to. Heaven, however, is the final destination, utterly beyond the limits of this world. As the prophet said: “No eye has seen it, God, except for You, what You will do for those who wait for You” (Isaiah 64:3). King David expressed his longing: “One thing I ask from the Lord, that will I seek — that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to visit His Temple” (Psalms 27:4). And our sages taught: “One moment of bliss in the World to Come is greater than all of life in this world” (Pirkei Avot 4:17).

May we merit to reach that eternal joy with as few sins and as little suffering as possible.