Suicide and the Jewish Community

It Is Never Too Late by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis

Facts from the American Association of Suicidology from 2011 Data:

• Girls are more likely to attempt suicide, but boys are 4.34 times more likely to die by suicide than girls.
• Suicide was the 2nd leading cause of death for 15-24 year-olds in 2011.
• The 2011 Youth Risk and Behavior Survey found that in the previous 12 months among high school students; 15.8% seriously considered suicide; 12.8% made a plan for suicide; 7.8% attempted suicide one or more times; 2.4% made a suicide attempt that had to be treated by doctor or nurse.

Teenagers face a host of pressures, from the changes of puberty to questions about who they are and where they fit in. The natural transition from child to adult can also bring parental conflict as teens start to assert their independence. With all this drama, it isn’t always easy to differentiate between depression and normal teenage moodiness. Making things even more complicated, teens with depression do not necessarily appear sad, nor do they always withdraw from others. For some depressed teens, symptoms of irritability, aggression, and rage are more prominent. From helpguide.org's Parent's Guide to Teen Depression

The difference between teenage and adult depression

Depression in teens can look very different from depression in adults. The following symptoms of depression are more common in teenagers than in their adult counterparts:

• Irritable or angry mood – As noted above, irritability, rather than sadness, is often the predominant mood in depressed teens. A depressed teenager may be grumpy, hostile, easily frustrated, or prone to angry outbursts.
• Unexplained aches and pains – Depressed teens frequently complain about physical ailments such as headaches or stomachaches. If a thorough physical exam does not reveal a medical cause, these aches and pains may indicate depression.
• Extreme sensitivity to criticism – Depressed teens are plagued by feelings of worthlessness, making them extremely vulnerable to criticism, rejection, and failure. This is a particular problem for “over-achievers.”
• Withdrawing from some, but not all people – While adults tend to isolate themselves when depressed, teenagers usually keep up at least some friendships. However, teens with depression may socialize less than before, pull away from their parents, or start hanging out with a different crowd. From helpguide.org's Parent's Guide to Teen Depression

Encouraging a depressed teen to open up

If you suspect that a teenager in your life is suffering from depression, speak up right away. Even if you’re unsure that depression is the issue, the troublesome behaviors and emotions you’re seeing in your teenager are signs of a problem.

Whether or not that problem turns out to be depression, it still needs to be addressed—the sooner the better. In a loving and non-judgmental way, share your concerns with your teenager. Let him or her know what specific signs of depression you’ve noticed and why they worry you. Then encourage your [teen] to share what he or she is going through. Your teen may be reluctant to open up; he or she may be ashamed, afraid of being misunderstood. Alternatively, depressed teens may simply have a hard time expressing what they’re feeling. If your teen claims nothing is wrong but has no explanation for what is causing the depressed behavior, you should trust your instincts. Remember that denial is a strong emotion. Furthermore, teenagers may not believe that what they’re experiencing is the result of depression. From helpguide.org's Parent's Guide to Teen Depression

From NFTY-TOR Advisor Handbook: Appropriate and Inappropriate Confidences with Participants

Building relationships with program participants is one of the most rewarding aspects of working with youth. Youth look for an adult who is a good person to talk to. But, we cannot permit participants to do anything which would allow them to hurt themselves or for others to be hurt by them. Adult hosts must remember that there are appropriate and inappropriate confidences with youth. Any time a program participant violates a Code of Conduct, talks about physical or mental abuse, speaks about suicide or hurting others, he (or she) must be immediately reported to NFTY Regional Advisor, the Regional Director of Youth and Informal Education, the youth’s advisor, and rabbi.

CONTEMPORARY REFORM RESPONSA, TO DISSUADE A WOULD-BE SUICIDE

QUESTION: How much effort does our religious tradition require of us to prevent a person from suicide? By words only, or even by force if necessary? (Asked by Rabbi Allen S. Mailer, Culver City, Calif.)

ANSWER: As far as I know there is no clear mention in the legal literature of the duty to exert strong effort to dissuade or prevent a person from committing suicide. Nevertheless, it is possible to answer the question asked here by way of analogy and by developing the implications of existing law.

… In Jewish law suicide is considered a most heinous offense. In fact, one may judge with what horror it was looked upon that in the long and often bloody history covered by the Bible there are only three clear suicides, Saul, his armor bearer, and Achitophel. Another indication as to what horror suicide aroused all through Jewish history, Bible and post-Bible, can be seen from the law governing the burial of suicides. The strict letter of the law as given in Semachos II is that we do nothing with regard to the funeral of suicides (Eyn Misaskin Bohem); but immediately the law as it developed came upon various ways of removing the stigma of suicide from the person who died. If the man was afraid, or if he changed his mind or, as some say, even if he repented at the last moment, he was said not to have committed the crime of suicide. Even as strict an authority as Moses Sofer (Resp. Yore Deah 32b) permitted such a man's relatives to observe full mourning for him so that a respected family would not have to bear the stigma of suicide (cf. Recent Reform Responsa, p. 114 ff.).

This shameful crime of suicide is considered analogous to murder. The Scripture in Genesis 9:6, speaking of murder, says: "He who sheds the blood of a man, his blood will be shed by man." And in the previous verse, 9:5, it says: "I will seek your blood from yourselves," which the Talmud (Baba Kamma 91b) says means a prohibition against suicide. (See Rashi and Midrash Rabba, Genesis 34:13.) The term used in the Talmud for doing oneself harm and suicide is Chovel, which means "to damage" or "to harm," and the Talmud says: Just as a person may not harm (Chovel) another person, so he may not harm (Chovel) himself….

Now there is a great deal of clear law about the efforts which must be expended to prevent a person harming others (Chovel). The law is given in detail in the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpot 425. There we are told what great efforts must be made to prevent a person harming another (Chovel). If he is pursuing somebody to harm him or to kill him, you must pursue after him. You must stop him somehow or other, even if you injure a limb of the potential murderer, or even if your pursuit to save the victim results in the death of the murderer. Clearly, then, we may make this analogy: Since the law uses the term "to harm" (Chovel) for suicide as it does for murder, and thus considers suicide equivalent to murder, it seems clear that we may make the same effort to prevent a man from suicide as we must make to prevent him from murder. Of course in his case, we avoid harming him in our efforts to save him.

So far our discussion of our duty toward would-be suicides was based upon a general consideration, namely, that since in Jewish law we are in duty bound to prevent a man from doing damage to another man, it would stand to reason that we are equally in duty bound to prevent a man from committing the sin of doing fatal damage to himself. However, beyond this general consideration, there are also some specific legal statements in the Halacha which bear more directly on the subject.

…. The basic commandment involved here is the statement in Leviticus 19:16: "Stand not idly by the blood (i.e., the bloodshed) of your neighbor." The Talmud (Sanhedrin 73a) on the basis of this verse says that if you see a man drowning or being attacked by a wild beast or by robbers, it is your religious obligation to come to his rescue, as Scripture commands: "Stand not idly by," etc. This obligation has become one of the regular 613 commandments. (Sefer Hachinuch: commandment 237; SA: Choshen Mishpot 426.)

Joseph Babad (19th century) wrote a large commentary on the Sefer Hachinuch. This commentary, Minchas Chinuch, has become a standard legal reference book. In his supplementary notes (Kometz Minchd) Joseph Babad comes to the conclusion that although the commandment, "Thou shall not stand idly by," impels us to come to the rescue of any one in danger, this duty does not apply when a person willfully and of his own accord puts himself into danger. As his reason for this conclusion, that the duty to help does not apply to suicides, he uses an inference based upon which proof texts are used and which are not used in the Talmud in the passage in Sanhedrin.

Yet actually there is another and a firmer ground for Babad doubting the duty to rescue a suicide. It is as follows: The duty to ransom captives is one of the prime obligations in the law. Cf. Shulchan Aruch, Yore Deah 251:1: "There is no Mitzvah greater than that of ransoming captives." Nevertheless, the Mishnah (Gittin IV:9) says that if a man sells himself as a slave, we should not rescue him. The Talmud (Gittin 46b) says that we do ransom him the first or second time because he might have sold himself because he was under some duress (poverty, etc.) but if he sells himself the third time, then his intention to enslave himself is clear and we are not in duty bound to help him further. But even so, we should ransom his children.

However, an opinion exactly contrary to that of Joseph Babad is given by the premier 13th-century authority, Meir of Rothenburg. In his responsa collection (ed. Budapest, #39) there is an especially interesting responsum because it deals with the ransoming of captives. He himself had been captured and held for ransom, and remained in prison for the latter part of his life. The Jewish communities would have raised money to ransom him, but he did not permit them to do so because he feared that the authorities would then imprison other leaders and force the community to ransom them. However, in cases of captives and ransom which did not involve the danger of mulcting the Jewish community, but were a private matter for private ransom money, he was of course strongly in favor of ransoming captives (as the commandment requires)….[He said] we must rescue a drowning man even if he cries out, "Do not rescue me" (I want to die). In other words, Meir of Rothenburg took the stand that we must rescue a person even if he does not want to be rescued; even if he wants to be a suicide.

… It would… be permissible to expose [one]self to minimum danger in order to save others who were in maximum danger. We might come to a similar conclusion. To put it pictorially: If the would-be suicide is standing on the ledge of the twentieth story of a building and threatens to jump, you are not required to risk your life by going out on the ledge also. You may stand in the window, or on the ledge near the window and hold on, but certainly you must make an effort to dissuade him. In this we follow the great authority, Meir of Rothenburg, that it is our duty not to "stand idly by" when a man is trying to commit suicide. We must try to save him even though he shouts, "I want to die," etc. But on the basis of the dubieties mentioned above, we are not in duty bound to endanger our own life. Nevertheless, we are still in duty bound to obey the commandment, "Stand not idly by," and must make earnest efforts to save him in spite of himself.

Teenage Suicide

Adopted by the CCAR at the 98th Annual Convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1987

WHEREAS there has been an alarming increase in suicides among our nation's young people in ages 11-21, and

WHEREAS this problem affects every socioeconomic and ethnic group, including the Reform Jewish community,

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the Central Conference of American Rabbis urges its membership to consider immediately the development of programs for the teenagers and parents whom they serve. Rabbis should seek out competent psychologists, psychiatrists, and educators to help in creating and supplying information to each program.

CCAR RESPONSA, American Reform Responsa

88. Burial from the Temple, also with Reference to Burial of Suicides,

(Vol. XXXIII, 1923, pp. 61-63)

.... According to Jewish law, one is considered a suicide only when there is absolute certainty that he premeditated and committed the act with a clear mind not troubled by some great fear or worry which might have beset him for the moment and caused him to lose his mind temporarily. In the absence of such certain evidence, he is given the benefit of the doubt: we assume that some intense grief, fear, or worry caused him to lose his mental equilibrium, and that he committed the act in a state of mind when he could not realize what he was doing. Furthermore, consideration for his surviving relatives should, according to the Rabbis, not be ignored. And, whenever possible, we should try to spare them the disgrace which would come to them by having their relative declared a suicide. (See Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De-a 345.1-3, and responsa Chatam Sofer, Yoreh De-a 326.)

Can a person who committed suicide be buried in a Jewish cemetery?

ANSWER BY: RABBI MARK WASHOFSKY

Yes, a person who committed suicide may be buried in a Jewish cemetery. The ancient prohibition against doing so is based upon the conception of suicide as the conscious and willful taking of one’s life. Over time, however, Jewish tradition has come to view suicide as the result of mental and emotional desperation and, virtually by definition, an irrational, non-willful act. Jewish law puts an extraordinarily strict construction upon the definition of “suicide”; therefore, even if all evidence points to suicide and even if that evidence satisfies the investigative authorities as to the cause of death, our custom is to bury these individuals, to engage in mourning rituals for them, and to eulogize them appropriately.

CCAR RESPONSA: American Reform Responsa

90. A Eulogy for a Suicide (1980)

QUESTION: May a eulogy be delivered for an individual who has committed suicide?

ANSWER: An answer has already been provided by my honored predecessor. We might add that tradition has always considered depression, mental derangement, or other illness as removing some of the taint of suicide. Under these circumstances, it would certainly be permissible to provide a eulogy and to treat the death as any other in regard to the funeral ritual. Our tradition saw the death of King Saul (I Samuel 31:4; San. 74a; Git. 57b) as suicide which occurred under mental duress and, anyhow, realized that Saul had suffered from depressions. King Saul saw himself falling into the hands of the Philistines, which meant a cruel death, so he sought to end his life. Solomon Kluger, in the last century (Ha-elef Lecha Shelomo, Yoreh De-a 301), dealt with an individual who committed suicide because of great indebtedness. He insisted that the man had been depressed and under mental stress. Similarly, others dealt with Jewish criminals who had been sentenced to death and committed suicide while awaiting the sentence (Mordecai Benet, Parashat Mordechai, Yoreh De-a 25). All of these unfortunate individuals were to be given a normal funeral. This also was the point of view adopted by Epstein in his code (Aruch Hashulchan, Yoreh De-a 345)

It is possible to trace the development of the law regarding suicide from the Talmudic tractate Semachot through Maimonides to modern times. We then see that a greater understanding of mental derangement slowly evolved. Semachot and Maimonides insisted that no mourning be observed (Yad, Hil. Evel). A little later, Solomon ben Adret (Responsum #763) stated that we should provide shrouds and a normal burial, while Moses Sofer (Responsum, Yoreh De-a 326) added the permission to recite Kaddish. Many modern Orthodox authorities would still hesitate about a eulogy, but in the eighteenth century Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen (Keneset Yechezkel, #37) felt that a eulogy was also permissible. We would follow that more liberal statement and provide a eulogy (of course, adapted to the specific circumstances).

When our Burden Seems too Heavy

When our burdens seem too heavy, we come to You, O God, for Your gracious help. You dwell within our hearts, You feel our distress, You know our pain, and how burdened we are. Give us strength to bear our burdens with courage, wisdom, and grace. Help us to be true to our better selves, to discern our real work in life, and to do it with all our might.

When we struggle within our own hearts, stay by our side. Then shall we be able to say with the Prophet Isaiah "Those who hold fast to the Eternal shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

May the ties that bind us to family and friends make life rich in meaning for us, and may we live each day supported by You. Amen.

-Adapted from: On the Doorposts of Your House, CCAR Press