- Genesis 9:5: "And surely your blood of your lives will I require."
- 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)
- A soul descends into this world to perform a mission, which cannot be performed in the "spiritual worlds".
- "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)
- 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
- 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.
- It matters not whether he kills someone else or himself. His soul is not his to extinguish.
- "And surely the blood of your lives I will demand," that one may not wound his own body. All the more so, he may not take his own life.
- There is also a deep spiritual consequence to suicide. When a person commits suicide, the soul has nowhere to go. It cannot return to the body, because the body is destroyed. And it is not let in to any of the soul worlds, because its time has not come. This state of limbo is very painful. A person may commit suicide because he wants to escape, but in reality he is getting a far worse situation.
nov 13 2013 ∞
oct 20 2014 +
oct 20 2014 +