Page 16 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • August 25, 2010 The siege of Masada in 73 A.D. is not mentioned in The Bible, but Flavius Josephus and modern archaeologists have shown that the Jewish defenders awed the Romans, when all hope was lost, with a comprehensive mass suicide of more than 900 people. Tacitus, the Roman historian, was impressed by their valor. The first suicide mentioned in the New Testament was Judas. This may be where the idea of the curse comes from. Judas was reviled, but not merely because he committed suicide. When Paul and Silas were in prison in Philippi, an earthquake shook open the doors of the cells. The jailer drew his sword to commit suicide, but Paul talked him out of it and converted the jailer’s whole family. Beyond doubt, the message of the Gospels is to value life and avoid death when possible. The early Christians, however, died in great numbers rather than deny their faith. Anyone willing to make a sacrifice to the divinity of the emperor or to affirm the gods of Mount Olympus was generally spared the lions, the attack dogs, or the crucifixions and burnings in the arena. Accepting a brutal or agonizing death rather than committing even a mild blasphemy was actually a form of suicide. It was also a form of heroism. Jews and Greeks admired the Christians for their beliefs. The Romans, according to Tacitus, simply admired their courage. But it often takes courage to live, rather than to die, when things do not look good. What happens when people kill themselves? According to people who have survived a near death experience – about 136,000 patients under medical supervision, based on a book printed this year – people who elect to kill themselves realize as soon as they are outside their bodies they have made a terrible mistake. Most of those who are resuscitated do not talk about flames or devils with pitchforks. But they all talk about feelings of absolute confusion and despondency and wish they had not taken their own lives, or attempted to. Those few mediumistic communications that contain evidence rather than utter blandishments contain the same message: “Don’t ever kill yourself. It’s worse over here than it was on Earth if you pull your own plug, and the process of sorting it all out seems interminable.” Nobody who claims to have come back from the dead under medical supervision, and a great many people say they have, has had a single good word to say about suicide. What then? Kids who are haunted by the desire to destroy their own lives need to understand that they cannot destroy their consciousness. They can destroy their physical bodies, but that only makes matters worse for the emotional problems and self-rejection that caused them to give up in the first place. What are the buttons pushed to cause self-destruction? If one is academic failure, consider that most people who really want to will finish some college or other. There are useful jobs without college. Lost love? While painful at the time to sincere teens, young adults learn that new boyfriends and girlfriends will come along. Most people who want to get married do get married. Seen from the ramparts of Castle Medicare, the people who looked so wonderful in their teens or early 20s are lucky if they are even mundane by the time they are 40 or 50. The lamest deterrent of all, of course, is to tell the potential victim how this will hurt the family and friends. That is what some of them may actually want. My father treated me as if he were a drill sergeant with a dumb recruit. The social culture of the school system I attended glorified stupidity: not just some of the students, who had been left back two or three times, but some of the teachers. Guys used to beat up kids with learning disabilities just to hear them scream, and gifted kids because they could actually read and sometimes did homework. They worshipped cars. I didn’t fit in with that value system. I can understand that when you think the world is a bad place, it’s not hard to want to leave. In those days, fathers themselves had been boys who were routinely beaten and this turned some of them in cranky, irascible old men who hated kids and thought beatings were good for them. Rage against fathers turned into rage against self. I understood this, and treated my kids like human beings, praised them when they did good or did well, and didn’t make a big deal about small stuff. Neither of them has any suicidal impulses – even when some of their friends talk about it, or do it. Girls, especially the smart ones, have different impulses than boys. Peer competition is so intense and conformity so obsessive, whether it be “popularity” in dating or college acceptance, that if things don’t work out, they give up on life before they have given life a chance. If your parents give you grief about bad SATs or mediocre report cards, get a tutor or dye your hair some bizarre color or play music they don’t like. You won’t get away from your troubles if you end your life. You’ll just be misunderstood and miserable Somewhere Else. Psychiatrists are now working out a computer test they claim can detect people who are at risk for suicide. They are right to be concerned: Suicide is a merciless foe of today’s youngsters, and it is often the brightest and nicest kids who fall into the trap. Bad people generally do not kill themselves unless they are facing life without parole. Not all suicides are reported, and not all drastic deaths are suicides. Those who kill themselves wrong only themselves. They don’t deserve to be held up to scorn. They and their families have a right to some privacy. Many years ago, a young man who had gone through a broken romance drove past my house on a county road at 100 miles per hour, clipped a car coming the other way, and slammed into a tree. He broke his neck and died instantly. The guy in the other car, who had a wife and a five-year-old kid waiting for him at home, was not seriously hurt, but his nerves and his car were not in great shape. That young man committed a criminal act when he used a public thoroughfare for his spectacular departure from a life he no longer wanted, at least temporarily. Had he endangered only himself, I would have seen his act as a terrible mistake. He went over the line, literally and metaphorically, when he came close to killing a husband and father who was not any part of his problem. An older friend of mine took a different approach to selfdestruction. His wife, whom he loved with sincere devotion, was dying of cancer. When the doctors told him there was absolutely no chance the woman he had loved since he was a young man would ever recover, or even recover consciousness, he told them to pull the plug. Then he went home and hanged himself in the cellar. This death was in no way criminal and didn’t endanger any third parties. It may have been a mistake, but it was a mistake that never verged into criminality. I’m proud this man was my friend and I honor his memory, if not his decision. What actually happens when a person takes his or her own life? Rationalists see it as the big sleep, but they might be wrong. Some religions conjure up visions of eternal damnation. The Bible doesn’t say that, but strongly disapproves of suicide. In the Old Testament, most of the people who committed suicide were bad people. Abimelech, son of Gideon and envious murderer of his own brothers, was besieging a city when a woman threw a millstone and fractured his skull. He told his armor-bearer to run him through so no one could say Abimelech had died at the hands of a woman. The kid obeyed orders. Saul, first king of Israel, had ordered the murder of the priests who sheltered the future King David. The night before the battle with the Philistines on Mount Gilboa, in one of the scariest scenes in the Old Testament, the Witch of Endor brought up the spirit of the Prophet Samuel from the ground at Saul’s nervous request. Saul was terrified when Samuel told him that that night, Saul and his sons would be with Samuel. The next day, with his sons dead at the hands of the Philistines, Saul told his armor-bearer to run him through. The kid dispatched Saul and then fell on his own sword. Help kids evade the dark huntsman Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: The Mahwah Public Library wants to thank all the local businesses, corporations, and restaurants who generously donated their support to our 2010 Teen Summer Reading Club: Chicken and Rib Crib of Mahwah, Dairy Queen of Mahwah, Doherty Enterprises, Inc. (Applebees Restaurant), Holiday Bowl Bowling Center of Oakland, Inserra Supermarkets, Inc., Larry’s Pizza Master, The McDonald’s Corporation, The New Jersey Devils Hockey Team, The Library thanks supporters New Jersey Nets Basketball Team, The New York Football Giants, The New York Renaissance Faire, The Newark Bears Professional Baseball Club, Rita’s Italian Ice of Mahwah, Seiko Corporation (Mahwah location), ShopRite of Ramsey, Six Flags Great Adventure, and Wah-Sing Chinese Restaurant of Mahwah. Thank you for your support and encouragement that kept the children of Mahwah reading this summer. Denise Jukniewicz, Young Adult Librarian Mahwah Public Library During the lengthy public hearing, the board heard an extensive explanation of how Chai Lifeline uses the property to provide short respites for families, and why it feels the people who stay at the house for short periods meet the definition of family as defined in the township’s zoning ordinance. It also heard complicated definitions of what constitutes a family by supporters of Chai Lifeline and its objectors, and what constitutes transient use of a property. Several neighbors also testified about the Chai Lifeline use of the property and how it invades their privacy and changes the character, security, seclusion, peace, and quiet of their small, private neighborhood. Some of the neighbors complained that the transient residents of the Chai Lifeline house are unknown and, therefore, it cannot be determined if they are related. The neighbors cautioned that other properties in the R-80 zone could be turned into transient housing if this use were approved. Joseph Burgis, the township’s professional planner, previously testified that the township’s master plan encourages neighborhood stability and, by definition, the building being used by Chai Lifeline is a single family dwelling. Burgis explained, however, that the township’s zoning ordinance defines a one-family dwelling as a building occupied exclusively by one family functioning as a single housekeeping unit whose relationship is of a permanent, (continued on page 17) Chai Lifeline (continued from page 7) held agenda.” He told the board that people not wanting this use in their backyard is not a reason to deny it. Liebman also told the board the issue before it was whether the use of the house by a single family at a time is a single family use. He described the argument that this is not someone’s house as discrimination. He reminded the board that, in every legal case in New Jersey concerning the use of residences for short periods of time, ordinances have been overturned and found to be unconstitutional. Board member Wesley Whitman was the lone vote in Chai Lifeline’s favor. He said he was not convinced that the traffic counts presented by Slade or the complaints about garbage on the property had changed the character of the neighborhood. “In the United States you don’t get the right to choose neighbors,” Whiteman said, explaining that the property could have been bought by a rock star who could be more disruptive to the neighborhood. Whiteman further explained that the stability the ordinance speaks to is the stability of the family. As far as the zoning question is concerned, he said he was leaning toward the use as a permitted one.