[Dov]

As I undestand it, according to Judaism (Kabbalistic), heaven and hell are supposed to work like this:

While you are in your physical form, you are automatically filtering a significant portion of the 'divine light' which sustains everything. This is because if you experienced it directly, it would overwhelm you and you would die.

Now, this world is supposed to be used to 'strengthen' or improve your ability to absorb divine influence which is expected for you in the afterlife.

In spiritual terms, there are no distances, as that would be silly. So when you say that something is 'close' to something else, what you are actually saying is that the 2 things are similar. Being 'close to God' means being similar to God. The more similar you are to God, the more divine energy you can absorb.

Since God is infinitely good, his energy is also good. Therefore, the closer you are to God, the better you will feel in the afterlife.

After you die, you will no longer have the 'filter' of your physical body, and your 'soul' will have a clear comprehension of the events that have occured to it. It will become extremely obvious what your actions were and there will be no excuses for anything that you did to further yourself from God.

Since it is now so obvious how stupid that action was, you will feel an unfiltered form of shame and embarassment which is likened to what we call 'burning with shame' here on earth.

There is no actual fire, and this shame is not eternal. This is because even after death, the soul can improve its ability to absorb God's influence simply by existing. This process is supposed to be much slower, though.

(Admitedly, I have trouble with this whole thing, due in no small part to the fact that time should not exist spiritually either.)

Anyway, this is my basic understanding of the Jewish version of heaven and hell according to the Kabbalists. (The real ones. Not Madonna.)