Jewish views on suicide

Jewish views on suicide state that suicide is forbidden by Jewish law. Judaism has traditionally viewed suicide as a serious sin. It is not seen as an acceptable alternative even if one is being forced to commit certain cardinal sins for which one must give up one's life rather than sin.

Assisted suicide

Assisting in suicide and requesting such assistance (thereby creating an accomplice to a sinful act) is also forbidden, a minimal violation of Leviticus 19:14, "Do not put a stumbling block before the blind," for the Rabbis interpreted that verse to prohibit any type of stumbling block: theological (e.g., persuading people to believe in false doctrine), economic (e.g., giving bad financial advice) or in this case moral stumbling blocks, as well as physical ones.

Talmudic opinions

The prohibition against suicide is not specifically recorded in the Talmud. The post-talmudic tractate Semahot (Evel Rabbati) 2:1–5 serves as the basis for most of later Jewish law on suicide, together with Genesis Rabbah 34:13, which bases the biblical prohibition on Genesis 9:5: "And surely your blood of your lives will I require." Rabbi Jacob Emden writes that a person who according to Jewish Law deserves the death penalty, can commit suicide to atone for his sin.

Chassidic philosophy

According to Chassidic philosophy, a soul descends into this world to perform a mission, which cannot be performed in the "spiritual worlds". This is the Chassidic interpretation of the Talmudic statement "One second in the World-to-Come is more pleasurable than the whole life in this world. But one good deed in this world is more important than the whole eternity of the World-to-Come" (Ethics of Our Fathers, Mishna). According to Chabad school of Chassidism, although spiritual beings (souls and angels living in spiritual worlds) have access to knowledge of God's existence, they have no access to God's Essence. During performance of Torah's Commandments, a person's body and soul gain access to the Creator's Essence (since Torah represents God's will, which is one with his essence) and purify both the body and the soul, as well as the physical world. The purification of the physical world through performance of Commandments leads eventually to Messianic Era, which is the goal and purpose of Creation. Therefore, life in the physical world presents a person's soul a unique opportunity, and to consciously and willfully break away from this opportunity is regarded as a grave sin.

Committee on Jewish Law and Standard

The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, the body of scholars of Jewish law in Conservative Judaism, has published a responsa on suicide and assisted suicide in the Summer 1998 issue of Conservative Judaism, Vol. L, No. 4. It affirms the prohibition, then addresses the growing trend of Americans and Europeans to seek assistance with suicide. The Conservative teshuva notes that while many people get sick, often with terminal illnesses, most people do not try to kill themselves. The committee believes we are obliged to determine why some seek help with suicide and to ameliorate those circumstances.

The Conservative response states:

"... those who commit suicide and those who aid others in doing so act out of a plethora of motives. Some of these reasons are less than noble, involving, for example, children's desires to see Mom or Dad die with dispatch so as not to squander their inheritance on 'futile' health care, or the desire of insurance companies to spend as little money as possible on the terminally ill."

The paper says the proper response to severe pain is not suicide, but better pain control and more pain medication. Many doctors, it asserts, are deliberately keeping such patients in pain by refusing to administer sufficient pain medications: some out of ignorance; others to avoid possible drug addiction; others from a misguided sense of stoicism. Conservative Judaism holds that such forms of reasoning are "bizarre" and cruel, that with today's medications there is no reason for people to be in perpetual torture.

Psychological roots of hopelessness

It then investigates the psychological roots of hopelessness felt by some patients, and asserts:

"Physicians or others asked to assist in dying should recognize that people contemplating suicide are often alone, without anyone taking an interest in their continued living. Rather than assist the patient in dying, the proper response to such circumstances is to provide the patient with a group of people who clearly and repeatedly reaffirm their interest in the patient's continued life ... Requests to die, then, must be evaluated in the terms of degree of social support the patient has, for such requests are often withdrawn as soon as someone shows an interest in the patient staying alive. In this age of individualism and broken and scattered families, and in the antiseptic environment of hospitals where dying people usually find themselves, the mitzvah of visiting the sick (bikkur Holim) becomes all the more crucial in sustaining the will to live."

Collective suicides in Jewish history

Judaism has many teachings about peace and compromise that present physical violence as one of the last possible options. Although killing oneself is forbidden under normal Jewish law as being a denial of God's goodness in the world, under extreme circumstances when there has seemed no choice but to either be killed or forced to betray their religion, Jews have committed suicide or mass suicide (see Masada, First French persecution of the Jews, and York Castle for examples).

Views on martyrdom

As a grim reminder of those times, there is even a prayer in the Jewish liturgy for "when the knife is at the throat", for those dying "to sanctify God's Name". (See: martyrdom). These acts have received mixed responses by Jewish authorities; some regard them as examples of heroic martyrdom, and others saying that while Jews should always be willing to face martyrdom if necessary, it was wrong for them to have taken their own lives.

Survival and conflict

Because Judaism focuses on this life, many questions to do with survival and conflict (such as the classic moral dilemma of two people in a desert with only enough water for one to survive) were analysed in great depth by the rabbis within the Talmud, in the attempt to understand the principles a godly person should draw upon in such a circumstance.