Cohn H
Ment Health Soc. 1976;3(3-4):129-36.
While God's primordial warning that He will require a reckoning for the blood shed by suicide has lost nothing of its admonitory and deterrent purpose, Jewish law, as it developed in the course of time, in actual practice takes cognizance only of two kinds of suicide: One that is permissible, by reason of its motivation, and that may in given situations even be highly laudable; and one that is the outcome or symptom of mental disturbances or otherwise legally excusable. Nor is the law relating to suicide the only instance where Jewish jurisprudence succeeded in neutralizing threats of divine punishment by an embarras de richesse of human justifications.
虽然上帝最初的警告，即他将对自杀所流的血进行清算，其告诫和威慑目的丝毫未减，但随着时间的推移而发展起来的犹太律法，在实际操作中只认可两种自杀情况：一种因其动机而被允许，在特定情况下甚至可能备受赞誉；另一种是精神障碍的结果或症状，或者在其他方面有法律上的可原谅之处。犹太法学通过丰富的人为理由成功消除神罚威胁的情况，与自杀相关的律法并非唯一实例。
