Joseph: “The gehenom both of you described sounds pretty easy on reshaim like Hitler and Arafat.”
Not so sure about that. Hard as it is to believe, they have Neshamas too, and in the World of Truth, their Neshamas also suffer when they realize how they have destroyed themselves.
It doesn’t sound so bad because we don’t understand what it means for a Neshama to suffer at the realization of how it has distanced itself from its Source (Hashem), but it is much worse than all of the suffering in this world put together (even worse than having a fly in your ear, and that is pretty bad!). That’s why we want to try to avoid it!
In any case, I wonder if there is a difference between the type of punishment given to complete reshaim who have no cheilik in olam haba and the type given to those people who require a tikkun before receiving their reward.
However you slice it, every type of Gehinom is really bad and something to be avoided at all costs!!!