Reply To: Suicide vs. Murder

The second reason is quite an interesting one. The Shiva etc. is only so that the family should be bereaved. A family that a loved one committed suicide cannot be deprived from their pain therefore the customs do not apply.

I would think that parents that lose a child (God forbid) never truly have all their pain removed. Nonetheless, we allow them to sit shiva.

As an aside, I don’t see why that should be a factor anyway. If we can’t remove all their pain we shouldn’t even try to remove as much of it as we can?

And, implicitly, within that answer is the idea that shiva is not for the deceased, but for the mourners. The mourners did not sin, so why should they be “punished” by not being allowed to sit shiva?

The Wolf