SUICIDE AND THE JEWISH LAW.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXVII, Issue 249, 21 October 1893, Page 2

SUICIDE AND THE JEWISH LAW.

— — — . — Mr Harold Frederic, contributing io the Daily Chronicle to the gruesome discussion, " Tired of Life," writes : " There is nothing t . my mind more savage than that borrowing of the Jewish notion of buryiag suicides after nightfall." Now, to take theSaulc.n Aruoh aa an a ithoritr, the custom does not seem to be essential // Jewish. No mention is made thero of the ourying after nightfall, although the law is explicitly stated as to tbe prohibition iv tbe case of suicides of the Week of Mourning, the Funeral Oration, and the R .nding of the Garment. Although the oustom may have prevailed in some countries in the pist, the Din has no suoh uno unpromising harshness t.wards the suicide, for it especially stickles for the customary reverence and Benediction at the grave-side. The accepted Rabbinical interpretation Genesis ix. 5, as prohibititing suicide, would in any cpse justify the institution of any cus.om that might operate as a preventive. Mr William Archer haa confessed to ignorance of what text Shakespeare had in mind when he made Hamlet speak ol the Eternal, •' fixing his canon against selfslaughter." It could have been no other than this text in Genesis, since reference of any kind to suicide iv the Old Testament is extremely rare. Rhabbi Jehuda Halevi in the Cuzari, in discussing the question of Free Will, mentions the suicide of Saul, accentuating at the same time his belief in the fact that suicide was so exceedingly rare as not to be worthy of consideration among the causes of death. The only authentic suicide in the Bible is that of Ahitophel. David (1 Samuel xxvi, lU)mentions three possibilities of death : " The Lord shall smite him ; " " His day shall come to die ; " "He shall descend in battle and peruh." He does not mention the suicide because (says the Cuzari) no sane man willingly deprives himself of life* an optimistic point of view peculiarly Jewish. The suicide of Saul, according to the Cuzari, was not to be taken into account, as Saul brought about his own death in order to escape the derision of his enemies, and in the opinion of the Israelitish warriors of old such a crisis would justify the suicide's act.— Jewish Chronicle.