Tight-knit communities could be key to suicide prevention
This idea that joining a religious community will help to reduce suicide is not just my professional prejudice as a rabbi. There is now empirical evidence from a study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that studied a large group of Catholic women. The women who attended church at least once a week were five times less likely to commit suicide than those who did not attend church. And this occurred during a period between 1999 and 2010, when suicide rates in America skyrocketed 80 percent. My life experience in my synagogue confirms these findings.
A teaching from the Talmud, the post-biblical rabbinic collection of law and legends, tractate Ta'anit 23b, in Aramaic is "o hevruta o metuta" -- "Give me community or give me death."
That has always been the choice.
Amen.
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If you find the choice of getting bundled still too hard, then PLEASE call this number and get the locations of nearby bundles ...
-- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255)
(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including "Religion for Dummies," co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman.)
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