Does Hell Exist? Can Anxiety And Depression Feel Like Hell?

0:06who are an idol worshiper, someone who does not work on his anger. What does it mean? One of the commentaries says it is impossible for an idol worshiper to avoid going to Gehinnom permanently. Now, I have a shiur about Gehinnom. It's not for everybody. It's not for everybody. Why? Most people would probably get a heart attack within the first 10 minutes once they understand what actually happens. Because we live in a generation where, unfortunately, people that look like me and call themselves rabbis lie to people. They tell them that Gehinnom doesn't exist. Hell doesn't exist. They tell them, "No, no, everybody's okay, don't worry," even though the Torah says otherwise in many places, including this week's parashah. says, what happened to the Meraglim that lied about Eretz Yisrael, that spoke against Eretz Yisrael, says they have no share of the world to come. So what does it mean they have no share of the world to come? It says, first of all, they were punished in this world. They spoke against the Land of Israel. Hashem took their tongue and connected it to their belly button and let them rot in front of everybody. A vicious, horrible, disgusting death. This is this week's parashah.

1:25But aside from that, after they died, he says they have no share in the World to Come. What does "no share in the World to Come" mean? It means Gehinnom. What does Gehinnom mean? Anyone who wants to know a lot of details should watch my shiur about Gehinnom. It just hit over 10,000 views. So apparently, a lot of people want to know about Gehinnom. A lot of people want to know about Gehinnom. But it will scare you. It will scare you. And the reason why is because it's real. And you need to know a little bit about it. Anyone that knows a little bit of Hebrew, I brought a book, you can read a little bit about it. I can't give it to you because it's my book, but I can show you. And I give you a verse. A verse in the Torah where Yehoshua ben Levi, one of the greatest tzaddikim that ever lived, one of the ten people that never died, went to Gan Eden with his suit on. Ten people in history never died. Hashem decided to take them from this world into the next world. One of them is Eliyahu HaNavi. One of them is Yehoshua ben Levi. One of them is Binyamin. One of them is Eliezer, the helper of Avraham Avinu, and so on and so forth. Yehoshua ben Levi, he had a good friend. Who was it? Eliyahu HaNavi. Eliyahu, the prophet, he was his friend. They were friends. So Eliyahu HaNavi comes to him and he says...

2:48Are you interested in seeing Gehenom? And he says, yeah. Sure, why not? Why not? I want to see it. Anybody interested in seeing Gehenom? Not so much, right? I promise you, you don't want to see it. But I'll tell you a little bit about it, just so you know a little 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% what it sounds like. So you understand? This is real. Why do you need to know it's real? Because if we continue driving on Shabbat, if we continue being idol worshippers, if we continue eating treif, if we continue going against Hashem, if we continue being immodest and causing guys to sin, this is the option. Hashem doesn't want to send you there. I promise you, He doesn't want to send you there. If He wants to send you there, He'll take you there right now. First class. It's not a hard land. But if a person knows, if I drive really fast, I could potentially die, most likely they're not going to drive really fast. If a person knows, if I drive really fast, I'm guaranteed to die, they're definitely not going to drive fast. That's the point of Gehinnom. Hashem says it's there, it's available. A lot of people are there. Some are not ever leaving. Unfortunately, their sins were too great to the extent where they have to be destroyed. It's real.

4:07And anyone that tells you otherwise is considered 100% a heretic, meaning you cannot count them as a Jew. Even if they have a beard longer than mine, even if they call themselves a rabbi, even if they're a famous rabbi. Why? Because this is one of the ikarim of Judaism. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says, one time I was walking around and I saw Eliyahu HaNavi. And Eliyahu HaNavi said to me, do you have any interest in seeing Gehenom? I said, sure. So he took me there. He took me there. And what did he say? He said he showed me people in Gehinnom that are being hung by their nose. Why are they hung by their nose? You guys know sometimes women wear a lot of perfume, right? You enjoy that perfume and she's not your wife? That's the punishment.

5:22Some people are hung by their hands. Why are they hung by their hands? You ever take something that's not yours? That's what happens. You ever say something that you're not allowed to say? You lied? You lied? You said something about somebody? That's what happens. Some people are hung by their legs. You ever go somewhere that you're not really supposed to go to? Instead of going to a shiur Torah, you went to the bar? You went to the pub? You went to a nightclub? You went to one of those places? That's part of the process. He showed me women hung by their chests. You know, sometimes a woman, she likes to get attention. She wants all the guys to look at her. So she wears a shirt that perfectly shows everything, meaning it's almost like it's not there. She shows everything. It's almost like it's not there. Or, better yet, she calls herself a Rabbanit because she covers everything, but it's so tight, it might as well not be there. Because with the clothes, without the clothes, you're not really sure if she's wearing anything. It's so tight.

6:46So Eliyahu HaNavi says, those people, they're going to have a special section, they're hung by that. You want to show your chest? No problem. We're going to show everything to the whole, every single person that goes is going to see you hanging by what you want to show the whole world. He showed me people that are hung by their eyes. You know, some guys, they like to look at those girls. They like to look at those girls. Hashem says, you want to look at them? No problem. That's what you do. They hung them by the eyes. We're almost done with this section because I'm already seeing that you guys are scared enough. And he says, he showed me people that Hashem fed them their own flesh. Why did they eat, Neville? You ate non-kosher food. I said eat kosher food. No, you ate non-kosher because you liked a little pepperoni on your pizza. You liked a little worms in your salad from Subway because you thought it was kosher even though it doesn't say kosher on the door. The only thing that was kosher is something that you thought about but not in the restaurant. So I'll feed you something else: yourself. Why did they eat neveilah? You ate non-kosher food. I said eat kosher food. No, you ate non-kosher because you liked a little pepperoni on your pizza. You liked a little worms in your salad from Subway because you thought it was kosher, even though it doesn't say kosher on the door. The only thing that was kosher is something that you thought about, but not in the restaurant. So, I'll feed you something else. Who? Yourself.

8:04Now someone's going to tell you, wait a minute, once you die, there's no body anymore. There's no body anymore. So what happened? How could the body, how could the neshama suffer all of this stuff? Well, rabbotai yekarim, the neshama, according to the Gemara, feels 60 times more than the body does. Our perception of what the neshamah is, as something that feels nothing, as some, you know, ghost that just flies through the wall or something like you saw in movies, is incorrect. That's not what the neshamah is. The neshamah is actually restricted by the body. To the extent that once the neshamah leaves the body, the feeling is 60 times more. It goes into a lot more detail, but you get the point. If you want to know more, just watch my shiur about Ge'enom. Why do I tell you all this stuff? I don't necessarily want anybody to have nightmares, but you need to have a little bit. You need to have a little bit. Why? Because when a person does not watch his speech, does not watch his behavior, does not watch all the things that they're doing, they could simply become their own worst enemy.

9:25Now, on one end, they can become their own worst enemy by leading their own soul into a place that's called Gehenom, which is real, which is painful, which in some cases the Gemara says never ends. Some people go to Gehenom for a limited amount of time, a year, a month, five years, a thousand years, but then the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah in several places says that some people go there and never leave. Here the Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah, page 16b, says, "And many of those who sleep in the dusty earth will awaken. These for everlasting life and these for shame, for everlasting abhorrence." It says there are certain people that will get punished, but they'll be resurrected with the dead. They'll get out of Gehinnom. They'll eventually go to Gan Eden. But there are certain people that will never leave Gehinnom because they died as a Mechalel Shabbat, because they died as idol worshipers, because they died as someone that did not do Teshuva. One of the sources for that is the last verse in the book of Isaiah.

10:39last verse of the book of Isaiah, you can look at it. Isaiah says to Am Yisrael, and they will go out and see the corpses of the men who rebelled against Hashem, against Me. For their decay will not cease, and their fire will not be extinguished. They will lie in disgrace before all mankind. Here we see that the prophet Isaiah literally says there's a place of, unfortunately, eternal suffering. Now, Gehinnom doesn't necessarily need to just be what I just described, meaning this eternal, horrible, horrific place. Anybody here ever see a scary movie? You guys saw scary movies before? Okay, this is worse because it's real. The movie ends at some point. Now, it doesn't have to be this way. Gehinnom can sometimes be in this world. How? Somebody that lives with anxiety constantly. Someone that's constantly depressed. Someone that's constantly angry at everything that moves. That's an emotional Gehinnom. That person is constantly suffering. It's not fire per se. They're not being hung. They're not suffering physically, but they're suffering emotionally.

12:05They're constantly depressed. They're constantly thinking negatively. They're constantly thinking things are going to work out in a bad way. They constantly look at everything in a bad way. They have no hope. They have no dreams. They have no aspirations. They simply can't wait to die because they think their troubles will be over. David HaMelech said in Tehillim 30, verse 4, "Hashem, You've raised my soul up from Sheol. You took my soul out of Gehenom." Now, David HaMelech was alive when he said this. Meaning that, what is David HaMelech saying? He said, "Hashem, I was down, You took me out." Meaning that even being in a depression, even being in a horrible state of mind, that's also a section of Gehenom. It's just you put yourself in there. Hashem, You've raised my soul up from Sheol. You took my soul out of Gehenom. Now, David HaMelech was alive when he said this. Meaning, what is David HaMelech saying? He said, Hashem, I was down, You took me out. Meaning that even being in a depression, even being in a horrible state of mind, that's also a section of Gehenom. It's just you put yourself in there. You put yourself in there. The genome in this world, we put ourselves in. The genome in this world, we also put ourselves in, but we don't realize it. If a person thinks about their actions, thinks about their behavior, thinks about what they're doing, they'll realize that most of the problems that they have in their life are actually within their hands.

13:27They brought it on themselves. And Rabbi Flaim says, my Rav, he says, if somebody told you, do you want cancer? How many people here, by a show of hands, how many people here say yes, you want cancer? Anybody here want cancer? Once, twice, three times? No? Same price, no? Anybody here want diabetes? Diabetes maybe? Anybody here want AIDS? Anybody here want... Heart attack? No, right? With the exception of AIDS, the other three, people bring on themselves. AIDS also. But the other three, they bring on themselves without even realizing it. And if somebody told you, do you want any one of these horrible, deadly diseases, if I paid you a million dollars, how many people would say, you know what? I'll take a little chemo for a million bucks?

14:28How many? How many people? Two million dollars. Two million dollars to get a little cancer. No? How many? Two million dollars for cancer. Two million dollars for diabetes. Two million dollars. You're actually thinking about it? You have to come to every shiur. You have to come to every shiur. Two million dollars for cancer. No? Who? Anyone who is actually contemplating it, you should go to the cancer unit and tell them, I want to see what a cancer patient looks like. No, you need to see it because then you realize that you don't want it. Now, of course, no one here would take cancer for any price. Not one million, not two million, not two billion. No one here would take diabetes for any price. No one here would take a heart attack for any price. Now, if Chaim asks us, then why are we giving it to ourselves for free? If you're not going to take it for 2 million, for 5 million, for 100 million, why are you giving it to yourself for free? By living a life full of anger. You know how many people die all the time because they got so angry they had a heart attack? You know how many people lose their minds to the point where they literally make themselves sick? The truth is that it's the majority of people.

15:52What we wouldn't take for an endless amount of money, or if one reminds us, we unfortunately sometimes give it to ourselves for free. We give ourselves Gehinnom in this world, even though we didn't want it, by simply not paying attention.