[Nate]

The Jewish concept of heaven and hell is... vague, to say the least. No opinion is ventured in the bible - in fact many people in the early (B.C.) days of the religion didn't even believe in heaven or a messiah. And since then, there has been no person who has claimed to 'know' what the afterlife is like. However, the general understanding seems to be similar to what Searex said; that the maximum amount of time you can go to hell is 12 months, before which you get upgraded to heaven (though not the top-notch heaven that all the really good people get sent to). The theory being, that hell is so bad that 12 months is enough to atone for any sin at all.

This also leads on to an interesting theory of why good things happen to bad people. The theory goes that in this life you can do good or bad things and you can be rewarded either in this life or the next. Any reward or punishment is going to be more intense if given in the afterlife than in this one. Now, no person performs purely good or bad acts. So if you see a bad person having good things happen to them, it could be because they are getting all their reward out of the way in this life so they can get a really bad punishment in the next one. And, vice-versa, bad things happening to a good person can be his/her limited punishment in this world so they can get a purer reward in the next one.