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"Yall" means "you all" -- it is a Southern US colloquialism. (TheXian: not all of our posters are native English speakers. The Professor is an Israeli. English is a second language to him and thus slang may be confusing to some).

There are 613 mitzvot (instructions) in the Torah for Jews. One of them says "don't consult with mediums." Saul did that and in doing so he sinned. What makes you think that Samuel's immortal soul was in a mythical hell or that the medium was associated with the mythical hell? Can you point to any quote in the Jewish bible that supports this assumption?

(I'll save you the time: there is none).

When your posts jump into multiple topics (Elijah, Samuel, messiah, hell. . .) it is nearly impossible to respond. You'll get better and more clear responses by sticking to one question per post. Start one on the messiah, one on Elijah, etc. Make sense?

1. What happens to the people that don't follow the commandments or believe in a Messiah, come or coming?

Non-Jews have seven mitzvot (more like "instructions" than "commandments"). Jews have those seven and an additional 606, or a total of 613. Some mitzvot only apply to kings, some to priests, some to men, some to women, some only to farmers farming in Israel, etc. Ergo the list of instructions varies by different people.

The Torah is G-d's instruction book and like a school book you get out of it what you put into it. If you study hard you may earn an "A." If you loaf around and ignore it you'll probably get an "F." It is all up to you.

The result of getting an "A" over an "F" in school is that you learn more. You gain knowledge and hopefully wisdom, and so it is with the mitzvot. People who don't observe the mitzvot don't learn and they lose from the lack of knowledge.

There is no hell, no damnation. G-d judges each of us based on our abilities (thus a simple person is judged differently than an Einstein) and our understanding of Torah. The better a person we can be the closer to G-d we become.

Some Chrstians think that Jews must keep every mitzvah perfectly or be damned to hell. Well, as we've already explained there is no hell. The T'nach makes it perfectly clear that no one is perfect and that G-d does not expect perfection. G-d wants us to try to do the best we can, and when we make a mistake or even do something on purpose that is wrong that we try to improve ourselves as a result and grow spiritually. Perfection is not required -- or expected.

As for the messiah, there is nothing in the T'nach that says we must believe in any man as the messiah. Quite the opposite -- the messiah must prove himself to BE the messiah. The onus is on the messiah! The messiah will be a servant of G-d, just like every person ever born. He has a role to fulfill, may he come speedily and in our days!

Do you believe that Elijah's body will be born again on earth, or will he descend from heaven?

How Elijah will return is unknown, but he will return to announce the messiah.

I discussed that in my last post. You might want to re-read it.

The Torah tells us that man has an immortal soul. The Torah tells us that when we die we are "gathered to our people."

The Torah is not any more specific than this. Judaism has various thoughts on what happens to the immortal soul (not to be confused with the life force, usually mistranslated as "soul" in English translations) after death. They include:

1. Reincarnation
2. Resurrection
3. Gan Eden (heaven)
4. Gehennon (a temporary place)
5. Souls being destroyed (very very rare)

But the main point to understand is that what happens post this world is not really important to Jews. G-d says we'll live eternally, so we take Him at His word. We don't worry too much about the incidentals, but focus on why He put us here and fulfilling the role He gave us here.