Of course, only something important warrants an assifa, but importance is not the only factor.
Don't get me wrong, the WZO assifa was absolute foolishness. But those who believe the issue is important are not claiming it is more important than widening the 9. Merely that widening the 9 does not get dealt with through assifos.
Suicide awareness is probably not a positive thing. Many people who never thought of suicide may consider it an option. Even if it this wasn't a problem, an assifa would not be of any help.
I agree that it's not a positive thing. Read my article. A mental health asifa or just having mental health on call in BMG like YU has (bh we don't have the gay club bh) might be a good start
I really appreciated you translating this and bringing it to a wider audience. Really heavy stuff but really relate. When I eventually left the yeshiva world, I did it because if I stayed I would not stay alive. I think often about those who couldn't make it work and also couldn't leave. Feeling stuck with no way out is I think the biggest cause of suicide here.
Or you could have investigated other approaches to being religious. Instead you bought the Chareidi line that only Chareidim have the "Mesorah". You rebelled against what was the Chareidi thought while accepting it as the only way. That is irony. You didn't strike out on your own( or so it seems)to find your own way within the framework of the 13 Principles.Now you can't help but go on this blog to somehow feel.good about yourself even though you gave up some treasured Tradition.
Without the sarcasm, Ash, I wonder that you're not being libertarian enough about suicide. I sense an inappropriate religious bent behind your position, although I can't be sure, which was why I asked.
I would agree that suicide could be a problem when it becomes a quick fix to a somewhat insignificant problem, but I would disagree that suicide as a whole is a problem. What would you say your parameters are for acceptable suicide? How narrowly are you defining suicide? Is filing for a DNR included? Is your premise merely that life is precious? Is it that "Hashem needs every yid"?
The Torah requires one to give one's life rather than trespass certain religious requirements. Is that a problem, or are you giving religion a pass? If life is intrinsically important and amazing, then what could be more important? If someone's religious bubble does not approve of homosexuality, what is the homosexual to do? In a homosexual society, would you marry a guy and secretly tell him that you love girls and ask if he's ok with that?
So perhaps you thought I was being cute or snarky, but I wasn't. I was just wondering why you would choose to write a long piece on suicide.
I don't think you've really answered the question. How can you tell that the depression isn't warranted? It seems that the issue of suicide is at least superficially similar to the issue of abortion. There are ethical arguments on either side, and when you don't know the particulars of a situation, you can't even judge the case.
Is there a good reason to differentiate between "suicide is never the answer" and "abortion is never the answer"? I don't know, and so I was asking, but I have so far been met with nothing but sarcasm from both you and Ash, who seem incapable of having serious discussions about serious topics.
You cannot expect on a post discussint a tragedy of sixteen people committing suicide to write a comment justifying suicide and be taken seriously. Complaining about that shows a huge lack of social awareness.
How is that different than writing a post discussing the tragedy of 16 abortions and then when someone asks you why you think abortions are tragedies, you respond with sarcasm and say, "asking me this displays lack of social awareness"?
I wonder if this demonstrates a common thread with your posts on religion, you lash out in feigned outrage that someone could possibly deign to hold a contrary position to yours, but when asked to explain your position, you have nothing of substance to offer.
All I ask of you is to be open-minded and honest with yourself. You should have good reasons to maintain your positions, rather than assuming they all just stand on their obvious merits.
I'm sorry, it's called social awareness because it's based on social norms. There is a social difference between them whether or not there is a moral difference. It's not lashing out, it's you not understanding that this is not the place for this discussion. Feel free to write your own blog and have it there, or even to write a guest post here. But on this post it's not the place. .
(It's like I write a post telling me people not to piss ones pants in public and you ask why is it different than blowing ones nose. There may be no moral difference but people respond differently so it's still good advice)
>>>It's like I write a post telling me people not to piss ones pants in public and you ask why is it different than blowing ones nose.
I find this analogy to be very sloppy, so no, I don't think it's at all like wetting oneself and then someone comparing it to blowing one's nose.
I sense that you have tremendous moral and religious objections to suicide, which you do not have toward urination. I don't find that you sufficiently defended you religious position, and so as an extension, I wonder what justification you have for bemoaning suicide and then referring to 16 of them as a crisis. Do you know how many terrible things far outnumber 16 as a numerator, and yet you do not post about them? And when asked why you think suicide is a tragedy (and I suspect that it's religiously-based), you have no response and instead hide behind the veil of, "how dare you ask such a socially unaware question!"
I recognize that it's uncouth to visit the shiva house and tell the widow and the orphans that their father isn't in heaven because there is no heaven, but that doesn't mean that he's in heaven. It just means that there's a time and a place for everything. So, too, here. It seemed from your post that you were writing this as a citizen of Orthodoxy and not the brother or cousin of someone who committed suicide. Perhaps I am mistaken, though.
Can you articulate the reasons for your position against suicide, or is it just an ick factor that you can't explain? And if it is an ick factor, how do you differentiate that from abortion and homosexuality, where most of those who are against and would explain that it's "icky" do so primarily, if not completely, on the basis of religion, which you are then foisting on people when declaring one of them a tragedy and sixteen of them a crisis?
None of these questions are meant to be rhetorical. I am really asking. And just because many people think like you doesn't mean that many people shouldn't reconsider their views arrived at for bad reasons, if they are indeed discovered to be bad.
You write a public post about suicides and declare it a suicide crisis. But you haven't interviewed the people who committed suicide, so how can you decide whether this is a problem?
>>>There is a social difference between them whether or not there is a moral difference.
There may be, but isn't that what persuasive writing is about? In "The Righteous Mind," Jonathan Haidt asks if it's ok to kill and eat the family dog, and if negative feedback surrounds the idea that one ought not to kill the family pet, he asks what if the situation is that the dog already died.
He then asks what readers feel about a brother and sister who fall romantically in love with one another, if it's ok for them to marry. And he discusses how most of what people feel, the "ick factor" as he refers to it, is contingent on religion and culture and that if we change the way we arrive at our ideas, we might change our ideas, and that that could be a good thing.
Orthodoxy is often a very tight bubble, and it can be suffocating. Why is it a tragedy that people decide they no longer want to be inside but also don't want to be outside, and so decide that they just don't want to be? That's not a rhetorical question.
And if is a tragedy, what is the tragedy? That people feel they are forced to make these decisions, or that the religion compels them to make such a decision?
I understand I'm talking to a brick, but I'll give it a shot. If people are in such pain that they're willing to commit suicide, the question is what can we do get people out of such pain. Most suicides are not the result of an autistic atheist making a mathematical calculation that his continued existence is an unnecessary burden on the planet.
>>>More accurately, they should wonder why that is and see if it's possible they are wrong
It's because they've been indoctrinated and yes, they are most certainly wrong.
But these facts don't help the person stuck in a family of believers in a community of believers if they don't want to lose both their religion and their life as they know it. So some may choose to die and I think we should respect that.
Today there is a great deal of social mobility.There is no reason why a person can not create a life for himself in a community.that he is comfortable living in. Sometimes it requires some mental health assistance which is readily available.The anti - religiolus rant is childish and unwarranted.
>>>The anti - religious rant is childish and unwarranted.
So says the person who wants to maintain his cherished yet unjustified beliefs.
Those who question are in constant struggle with what to do with themselves because their overbearing religious friends and relatives coerce them to present in a certain manner or face backlash.
Meshenicnas wants to make it about Judaism. To him having suffered from non-acceptance and having given up religion now conveniently blame Judaism or "frumkeit". I sympathize with your predicament but it all comes down how you practice your "frumkeit".l personally am very religious Halachically( at least to my way of thinking) but not into "frumkeit". It is also important to find a religious community you are comfortable with.Some people do suffer with mental issues because they were raised in environments which were toxic to them. They extricated themselves from that religious environment but thatpp didn't mean that they became not religious.Their belief.and commitment was too important and they did not wish to give up that
part of themselves. I think that it is much healthier than the mental situation that mishenicnas finds himself. "Me thinks thou protesteth too much".
"Finally, many of these people were likely getting mental help. What drove them to suicide is usually a combination of many factors, and there usually isn’t stigma in getting the help."
Exactly. I love how everyone is throwing around "WE NEED MORE AWARENESS" and just assuming that make an iota of sense. There is nothing but mental health awareness nowadays. Can't open a paper without reading about some new mental disorder and some 23 year old therapist's brilliant insights into life. I've commented about this on the past here can't remember exactly where.
Now there may be a thousand other problems. Maybe the jewish therapists are out to lunch (Very likely). Maybe all therapists in general are out to lunch (Also very likely). Maybe the system is just too high pressured. Etc etc. But it ain't got nothing to do with mental health awareness.
One problem with suicide is that its determinantal to the human race. We can't continue as a species if we kill ourselves out. Even if only a few of us do this it lowers the morale for everyone. Study social sciences about this. (Animals don't commit suicide.)
>>>One problem with suicide is that its detrimental to the human race
I don't see this as a reason to avoid or discourage suicide, and I wonder that any mental health professional or religious authority would refer to that as the issue. My question was meant to split the difference here between mental health rationales and religiously-based rationales.
>>>We can't continue as a species if we kill ourselves out.
I also don't think this is a good argument because you could use this argument against birth control and arrive at the erroneous conclusion that birth control is not a good thing.
>>>Even if only a few of us do this it lowers the morale for everyone
This seems to be attacking the issue from a new direction, but it's an administrative reason, if you will. In other words, if no one is around to be affected, can a lone hermit commit suicide under this rationale?
>>>Study social sciences about this
I am a biologist, and do not know what psychology says about suicide. I thought there might be some expert opinions available here, but it seems you're the only one who's interested in talking, Hadasa.
>>>Animals don't commit suicide
I'm no ethologist, but I wonder if animals "commit" anything. They can learn, but I think most people erroneously think of vertebrate animals as people in animal bodies, and it sounds like this is the trap you might be falling into here. It's easy for us to observe vertebrate animal behavior and think of them as bored or angry, but do they ever experience these emotions?
------------------------
As an aside, I've had some conversations on the sidelines in the past day or so with a number of people (who requested to remain anonymous) and I was urged to make a few clarifications:
- My intentions were to stimulate a discussion about Judaism's position on suicide, thinking that this was an article about Judaism's position on suicide. But some may have seen this as me trivializing the death of 16 people. I apologize for the miscommunication there.
- This post was apparently intended to awaken people to the problem of suicide, and my comments might have been seen as tone deaf. And, again, I apologize for that.
- When I asked "why is suicide a problem?" some people thought I was condoning or even promoting suicide, neither of which were my intentions. And I would like to also say that I am not walking anything back here, but merely clarifying my initial position.
After the months-long conversation with Ash about the truth of Judaism, I saw this as a continuation of his perspective and mindset and wanted to know what his thoughts were, and in doing so, I was being philosophical, which people might have seen as unkind.
Insofar as I have something to say about suicide, it's this: I am not a formal counselor, but people come to me for help when it come to religion. They find me from their friend who found me from their friend. They come to complain and cry about how they feel lost or stuck. They are unsure of themselves, no longer believing and having been asked by too many rabbis if they've been reading about dinosaurs on the internet. They feel disillusioned. Their families are religious but they have come to see Orthodoxy as a house of cards built on a foundation of loose sand and the tide is in. They have questions about science and religion and how to navigate their marriages and their parents and siblings and their communities and their lives.
No one's ever mentioned suicide, but when they get to me, they want to know if they are crazy and they often don't know how to go on. I assure them that they can go on, and that it's really the other way around...that they can feel like they've finally arrived.
It's easy for people who feel stuck between their families and their communities and what they've come to see as the truth to not know what to do. So while I don't deal with suicide, if there's any suicide connected to the OTD phenomenon, I see it as a religious crisis, not a suicide crisis. I think this is similar to the shidduch crisis and the tuition crisis. The shidduch crisis is a problem because of the way Orthodoxy treats young men and women, and the tuition crisis is a problem with the way Orthodoxy trains young married couples to be reckless with how they (fail to) balance financial supply and demand. There aren't 3 problems here...the problem is singular and it's Orthodoxy. חלום פרעה אחד הוא
The solution is not to daven more and it's not to pay young men to date girls who are older and/or from Baltimore. It's to recognize that the harmful and unnecessary rules and guidelines placed on top of the rules of Orthodoxy need to be changed.
But I don't think Orthodoxy cares. And perhaps 50 years ago, Orthodoxy didn't care in a different way...in an aloof, indifferent way. Today, though, no matter how compassionate Orthodoxy might be (and things really have changed), there's just nothing Orthodoxy can do to adjust itself while remaining Orthodox. How can Orthodoxy make homosexuals and women feel welcome as equals? Open Orthodoxy might have tried, and it was immediately chided and dispatched. Instead of labelling it Open Orthodoxy so we can more easily discard it, we need Orthodoxy which is open, but it seems to me to be impossible. How can Orthodoxy accept those who don't believe in god? How can Orthodoxy accept those who believe women are actually equal? How can Orthodoxy accept homosexuals?
Orthodoxy prioritizes its rules more than its people and it's a bitter pill to swallow.
What are you a dictator! You don't like the neigborhood leave. You are arrogant and insulting! We don't owe you to change our opinions because you don't agree. Grow up!
Basically, the author goes through multiple stages whereby something starts as taboo and slowly progresses to become normalized. The recent uptick of suicides in the community isn’t necessarily the product of a mental health crisis, rather the progression from taboo to normalization of this concept.
See the article on the scoop...Amudim says there were 25 attempts and 16 suicide deaths in the last 7 weeks.
I am naming a party in the WZO "Suicide" so there is an asifa about it.
Lol. WZO is far more important than actual kehila matter...
Lakewood is what happens when leadership in a yeshiva is assumed to mean leadership for klal yisroel - but thats the rant for the next post
Why do people think that assifos are a sign of relative importance?
Does someone think that this issue warrants an assifa?
1) yes if they are interrupting learning
2) yes me
You skipped that important word 'relative'.
Of course, only something important warrants an assifa, but importance is not the only factor.
Don't get me wrong, the WZO assifa was absolute foolishness. But those who believe the issue is important are not claiming it is more important than widening the 9. Merely that widening the 9 does not get dealt with through assifos.
Suicide awareness is probably not a positive thing. Many people who never thought of suicide may consider it an option. Even if it this wasn't a problem, an assifa would not be of any help.
I agree that it's not a positive thing. Read my article. A mental health asifa or just having mental health on call in BMG like YU has (bh we don't have the gay club bh) might be a good start
Do you honestly trust the four on top to be in charge of a mental health ???? on call in BMG?
The less BMG does, the better.
In fact, we prefer them to occupy themselves with lacetop Peshuto shel mikras and Zionism than things that actually matter.
good points.
Link
Or at least then they wouldn't talk about WZO anymore...
I really appreciated you translating this and bringing it to a wider audience. Really heavy stuff but really relate. When I eventually left the yeshiva world, I did it because if I stayed I would not stay alive. I think often about those who couldn't make it work and also couldn't leave. Feeling stuck with no way out is I think the biggest cause of suicide here.
Or you could have investigated other approaches to being religious. Instead you bought the Chareidi line that only Chareidim have the "Mesorah". You rebelled against what was the Chareidi thought while accepting it as the only way. That is irony. You didn't strike out on your own( or so it seems)to find your own way within the framework of the 13 Principles.Now you can't help but go on this blog to somehow feel.good about yourself even though you gave up some treasured Tradition.
I will talk to anyone who needs a an ear.
Without the sarcasm, Ash, I wonder that you're not being libertarian enough about suicide. I sense an inappropriate religious bent behind your position, although I can't be sure, which was why I asked.
I would agree that suicide could be a problem when it becomes a quick fix to a somewhat insignificant problem, but I would disagree that suicide as a whole is a problem. What would you say your parameters are for acceptable suicide? How narrowly are you defining suicide? Is filing for a DNR included? Is your premise merely that life is precious? Is it that "Hashem needs every yid"?
The Torah requires one to give one's life rather than trespass certain religious requirements. Is that a problem, or are you giving religion a pass? If life is intrinsically important and amazing, then what could be more important? If someone's religious bubble does not approve of homosexuality, what is the homosexual to do? In a homosexual society, would you marry a guy and secretly tell him that you love girls and ask if he's ok with that?
So perhaps you thought I was being cute or snarky, but I wasn't. I was just wondering why you would choose to write a long piece on suicide.
Einstein, the issue is that there are people so depressed that they're willing to commit suicide.
I find your sarcasm unhelpful and childish.
I don't think you've really answered the question. How can you tell that the depression isn't warranted? It seems that the issue of suicide is at least superficially similar to the issue of abortion. There are ethical arguments on either side, and when you don't know the particulars of a situation, you can't even judge the case.
Is there a good reason to differentiate between "suicide is never the answer" and "abortion is never the answer"? I don't know, and so I was asking, but I have so far been met with nothing but sarcasm from both you and Ash, who seem incapable of having serious discussions about serious topics.
You cannot expect on a post discussint a tragedy of sixteen people committing suicide to write a comment justifying suicide and be taken seriously. Complaining about that shows a huge lack of social awareness.
How is that different than writing a post discussing the tragedy of 16 abortions and then when someone asks you why you think abortions are tragedies, you respond with sarcasm and say, "asking me this displays lack of social awareness"?
I wonder if this demonstrates a common thread with your posts on religion, you lash out in feigned outrage that someone could possibly deign to hold a contrary position to yours, but when asked to explain your position, you have nothing of substance to offer.
All I ask of you is to be open-minded and honest with yourself. You should have good reasons to maintain your positions, rather than assuming they all just stand on their obvious merits.
I'm sorry, it's called social awareness because it's based on social norms. There is a social difference between them whether or not there is a moral difference. It's not lashing out, it's you not understanding that this is not the place for this discussion. Feel free to write your own blog and have it there, or even to write a guest post here. But on this post it's not the place. .
(It's like I write a post telling me people not to piss ones pants in public and you ask why is it different than blowing ones nose. There may be no moral difference but people respond differently so it's still good advice)
>>>It's like I write a post telling me people not to piss ones pants in public and you ask why is it different than blowing ones nose.
I find this analogy to be very sloppy, so no, I don't think it's at all like wetting oneself and then someone comparing it to blowing one's nose.
I sense that you have tremendous moral and religious objections to suicide, which you do not have toward urination. I don't find that you sufficiently defended you religious position, and so as an extension, I wonder what justification you have for bemoaning suicide and then referring to 16 of them as a crisis. Do you know how many terrible things far outnumber 16 as a numerator, and yet you do not post about them? And when asked why you think suicide is a tragedy (and I suspect that it's religiously-based), you have no response and instead hide behind the veil of, "how dare you ask such a socially unaware question!"
I recognize that it's uncouth to visit the shiva house and tell the widow and the orphans that their father isn't in heaven because there is no heaven, but that doesn't mean that he's in heaven. It just means that there's a time and a place for everything. So, too, here. It seemed from your post that you were writing this as a citizen of Orthodoxy and not the brother or cousin of someone who committed suicide. Perhaps I am mistaken, though.
Can you articulate the reasons for your position against suicide, or is it just an ick factor that you can't explain? And if it is an ick factor, how do you differentiate that from abortion and homosexuality, where most of those who are against and would explain that it's "icky" do so primarily, if not completely, on the basis of religion, which you are then foisting on people when declaring one of them a tragedy and sixteen of them a crisis?
None of these questions are meant to be rhetorical. I am really asking. And just because many people think like you doesn't mean that many people shouldn't reconsider their views arrived at for bad reasons, if they are indeed discovered to be bad.
You write a public post about suicides and declare it a suicide crisis. But you haven't interviewed the people who committed suicide, so how can you decide whether this is a problem?
>>>There is a social difference between them whether or not there is a moral difference.
There may be, but isn't that what persuasive writing is about? In "The Righteous Mind," Jonathan Haidt asks if it's ok to kill and eat the family dog, and if negative feedback surrounds the idea that one ought not to kill the family pet, he asks what if the situation is that the dog already died.
He then asks what readers feel about a brother and sister who fall romantically in love with one another, if it's ok for them to marry. And he discusses how most of what people feel, the "ick factor" as he refers to it, is contingent on religion and culture and that if we change the way we arrive at our ideas, we might change our ideas, and that that could be a good thing.
Orthodoxy is often a very tight bubble, and it can be suffocating. Why is it a tragedy that people decide they no longer want to be inside but also don't want to be outside, and so decide that they just don't want to be? That's not a rhetorical question.
And if is a tragedy, what is the tragedy? That people feel they are forced to make these decisions, or that the religion compels them to make such a decision?
I understand I'm talking to a brick, but I'll give it a shot. If people are in such pain that they're willing to commit suicide, the question is what can we do get people out of such pain. Most suicides are not the result of an autistic atheist making a mathematical calculation that his continued existence is an unnecessary burden on the planet.
What if the problem is that everyone around them pretends that the most important thing in life is a god?
That is the problem I encounter the most.
Then they should probably kill themselves. (That is sarcasm). More accurately, they should wonder why that is and see if it's possible they are wrong.
https://open.substack.com/pub/benthams/p/arguments-for-god-tier-list?r=33pit&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
>>>More accurately, they should wonder why that is and see if it's possible they are wrong
It's because they've been indoctrinated and yes, they are most certainly wrong.
But these facts don't help the person stuck in a family of believers in a community of believers if they don't want to lose both their religion and their life as they know it. So some may choose to die and I think we should respect that.
Today there is a great deal of social mobility.There is no reason why a person can not create a life for himself in a community.that he is comfortable living in. Sometimes it requires some mental health assistance which is readily available.The anti - religiolus rant is childish and unwarranted.
>>>The anti - religious rant is childish and unwarranted.
So says the person who wants to maintain his cherished yet unjustified beliefs.
Those who question are in constant struggle with what to do with themselves because their overbearing religious friends and relatives coerce them to present in a certain manner or face backlash.
What makes my beliefs "unjustified",your weasley opinion.
Meshenicnas wants to make it about Judaism. To him having suffered from non-acceptance and having given up religion now conveniently blame Judaism or "frumkeit". I sympathize with your predicament but it all comes down how you practice your "frumkeit".l personally am very religious Halachically( at least to my way of thinking) but not into "frumkeit". It is also important to find a religious community you are comfortable with.Some people do suffer with mental issues because they were raised in environments which were toxic to them. They extricated themselves from that religious environment but thatpp didn't mean that they became not religious.Their belief.and commitment was too important and they did not wish to give up that
part of themselves. I think that it is much healthier than the mental situation that mishenicnas finds himself. "Me thinks thou protesteth too much".
MagenU.org
"Finally, many of these people were likely getting mental help. What drove them to suicide is usually a combination of many factors, and there usually isn’t stigma in getting the help."
Exactly. I love how everyone is throwing around "WE NEED MORE AWARENESS" and just assuming that make an iota of sense. There is nothing but mental health awareness nowadays. Can't open a paper without reading about some new mental disorder and some 23 year old therapist's brilliant insights into life. I've commented about this on the past here can't remember exactly where.
Now there may be a thousand other problems. Maybe the jewish therapists are out to lunch (Very likely). Maybe all therapists in general are out to lunch (Also very likely). Maybe the system is just too high pressured. Etc etc. But it ain't got nothing to do with mental health awareness.
Probably to me privately lol.
Why is suicide a problem?
Feel free to commit it and let us know.
is this sarcasm?
Yes.
One problem with suicide is that its determinantal to the human race. We can't continue as a species if we kill ourselves out. Even if only a few of us do this it lowers the morale for everyone. Study social sciences about this. (Animals don't commit suicide.)
>>>One problem with suicide is that its detrimental to the human race
I don't see this as a reason to avoid or discourage suicide, and I wonder that any mental health professional or religious authority would refer to that as the issue. My question was meant to split the difference here between mental health rationales and religiously-based rationales.
>>>We can't continue as a species if we kill ourselves out.
I also don't think this is a good argument because you could use this argument against birth control and arrive at the erroneous conclusion that birth control is not a good thing.
>>>Even if only a few of us do this it lowers the morale for everyone
This seems to be attacking the issue from a new direction, but it's an administrative reason, if you will. In other words, if no one is around to be affected, can a lone hermit commit suicide under this rationale?
>>>Study social sciences about this
I am a biologist, and do not know what psychology says about suicide. I thought there might be some expert opinions available here, but it seems you're the only one who's interested in talking, Hadasa.
>>>Animals don't commit suicide
I'm no ethologist, but I wonder if animals "commit" anything. They can learn, but I think most people erroneously think of vertebrate animals as people in animal bodies, and it sounds like this is the trap you might be falling into here. It's easy for us to observe vertebrate animal behavior and think of them as bored or angry, but do they ever experience these emotions?
------------------------
As an aside, I've had some conversations on the sidelines in the past day or so with a number of people (who requested to remain anonymous) and I was urged to make a few clarifications:
- My intentions were to stimulate a discussion about Judaism's position on suicide, thinking that this was an article about Judaism's position on suicide. But some may have seen this as me trivializing the death of 16 people. I apologize for the miscommunication there.
- This post was apparently intended to awaken people to the problem of suicide, and my comments might have been seen as tone deaf. And, again, I apologize for that.
- When I asked "why is suicide a problem?" some people thought I was condoning or even promoting suicide, neither of which were my intentions. And I would like to also say that I am not walking anything back here, but merely clarifying my initial position.
After the months-long conversation with Ash about the truth of Judaism, I saw this as a continuation of his perspective and mindset and wanted to know what his thoughts were, and in doing so, I was being philosophical, which people might have seen as unkind.
Insofar as I have something to say about suicide, it's this: I am not a formal counselor, but people come to me for help when it come to religion. They find me from their friend who found me from their friend. They come to complain and cry about how they feel lost or stuck. They are unsure of themselves, no longer believing and having been asked by too many rabbis if they've been reading about dinosaurs on the internet. They feel disillusioned. Their families are religious but they have come to see Orthodoxy as a house of cards built on a foundation of loose sand and the tide is in. They have questions about science and religion and how to navigate their marriages and their parents and siblings and their communities and their lives.
No one's ever mentioned suicide, but when they get to me, they want to know if they are crazy and they often don't know how to go on. I assure them that they can go on, and that it's really the other way around...that they can feel like they've finally arrived.
It's easy for people who feel stuck between their families and their communities and what they've come to see as the truth to not know what to do. So while I don't deal with suicide, if there's any suicide connected to the OTD phenomenon, I see it as a religious crisis, not a suicide crisis. I think this is similar to the shidduch crisis and the tuition crisis. The shidduch crisis is a problem because of the way Orthodoxy treats young men and women, and the tuition crisis is a problem with the way Orthodoxy trains young married couples to be reckless with how they (fail to) balance financial supply and demand. There aren't 3 problems here...the problem is singular and it's Orthodoxy. חלום פרעה אחד הוא
The solution is not to daven more and it's not to pay young men to date girls who are older and/or from Baltimore. It's to recognize that the harmful and unnecessary rules and guidelines placed on top of the rules of Orthodoxy need to be changed.
But I don't think Orthodoxy cares. And perhaps 50 years ago, Orthodoxy didn't care in a different way...in an aloof, indifferent way. Today, though, no matter how compassionate Orthodoxy might be (and things really have changed), there's just nothing Orthodoxy can do to adjust itself while remaining Orthodox. How can Orthodoxy make homosexuals and women feel welcome as equals? Open Orthodoxy might have tried, and it was immediately chided and dispatched. Instead of labelling it Open Orthodoxy so we can more easily discard it, we need Orthodoxy which is open, but it seems to me to be impossible. How can Orthodoxy accept those who don't believe in god? How can Orthodoxy accept those who believe women are actually equal? How can Orthodoxy accept homosexuals?
Orthodoxy prioritizes its rules more than its people and it's a bitter pill to swallow.
What are you a dictator! You don't like the neigborhood leave. You are arrogant and insulting! We don't owe you to change our opinions because you don't agree. Grow up!
Some insight
https://open.substack.com/pub/yakovolf/p/3b4?r=59d29p&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
For those who hate reading Yiddish can you translate?
Basically, the author goes through multiple stages whereby something starts as taboo and slowly progresses to become normalized. The recent uptick of suicides in the community isn’t necessarily the product of a mental health crisis, rather the progression from taboo to normalization of this concept.
Btw your profile pic is grossly misleading to this comment
I can read it .. it's annoying though
It’s the same point as yours….
Which denomination is plagued by this?
Chassidim? Litvaks? Modox?
Is it certain communities?
According to amudim its all..no patterns.
Well they're doing a good job keeping it secret.
As a mental health professional, do you think it's an exaggeration
I honestly do not know.
I hear about it more but that isn't necessarily an indication of higher rates.