'boiling excrement') in the Talmud and the Zohar is a location in Gehenna where the souls of Jews who committed certain sins are sent for punishment.
[7] Writing for the Jesuit America magazine, Gilbert S. Rosenthal wrote, "even if Jesus of Nazareth was the intended subject of some of these troubling passages, they reflect the opinion of one man, not the consensus of Jewish thought then or now.
"[8] Joseph Karo of Toledo (1488–1575), in his Kabbalistic work Maggid Mesharim "Sermonizer on Ethics", explains that just as in the human digestive order the liver, heart and other organs receive their sustaining nutrients from the ingested foods and whatever is of no need and "unworkable" is excreted to give fertility to works of low value (sitra achra "other side"), so too in heavenly judgment this soul is sent to the spiritual level equivalent of excrement and those that derive benefit thereof.
As to the concept of "boiling", Joseph relays as to imply during the time of heat and anger of that level (i.e. when the oven is hot), the soul is put there.
Karo goes on to compare the heresy of Peor as giving sustenance to this specific level of sitra achra.
Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague (c.1520–1609), in his work Netzach Yisroel ("Eternity of Israel"), provides an in-depth analysis as to this seemingly unconnected sequence of action and punishment.
Rabbi Lowe explains, as a rule of thumb, that the logic of Chazal is of an unrelated plane to that of common human intellect.
Thus, one who scoffs at it is judged in the opposite of this higher plane, i.e. Tzoah Rotachat, which is considered a matter of irrelation to the relatively superior human body (since it is released as waste) and the antithesis of godly knowledge and presence (as is brought in Talmud Sukka p. 42b that one is obligated to distance himself from the excrement of a child who has the ability of speech since this excrement produces an intense odor comparative to infant who cannot yet speak [citation needed]).
[9] This defined location is quoted in the Zohar; There is a place in Gehinom - and levels therein - that are called Tzoah Rotachat.
Nevertheless, some rabbinic texts maintain that God created Gehenna on the second day of Creation (Genesis Rabbah 4:6, 11:9).
Other texts claim that Gehenna was part of God's original plan for the universe and was actually created before the Earth (Pesahim 54a; Sifre Deuteronomy 357).
The original picture of Sheol is not the first-century "Eternal Lake of Fire" Gehenna as the place of punishment or destruction of the wicked and does not occur frequently in classic rabbinic sources.
It is noteworthy that this very midrashic fragment casts light upon the emphatic teaching of the Mishnah (Yoma, viii.