Not Accountable

Someone close to someone close to me committed suicide last week.  I was searching on the internet for something sensible to say to one of the relatives, and to be honest, I couldn't find much there that felt right.

Until I read this:

Jewish law forbids the taking of one’s own life. It is considered a grave sin. And yet, in most cases of suicide, the law assumes a suicide victim to have been severely ill, to the point that he or she cannot be held accountable. The understanding is that if these people were healthy, if they were cognizant of the gravity of what taking their lives would mean, they would never have willingly chosen to carry out the horrific act. In cases of impaired mental health, a suicide victim is exactly that. A victim. A victim of a terrible, horrible, devastating illness that needs to be addressed head-on, without embarrassment or reprisals or stigma.  Source

That is why a ''suicide'' is always given the benefit of the doubt and permitted to be buried in a Jewish cemetary, and not on the outskirts of the cemetery.  We do not know the state of mind of the suicide, even if we may think we do.  We always say that the person was ''out of their mind''.

I think this is a very comforting thing to think, whether or not it is true, that is something we will never know.  But most of the time, it probably is true.