What Can Make a Suicidal Person Want to Live?

In May 2019, a 16-year-old girl in Malaysia tragically took her own life after posting an Instagram poll asking her followers to choose between life or death. The poll question was “Really Important, Help Me Choose D/L,” where D stood for death and L for life. Police reported that at the time of her death, 69% of respondents had chosen “D” (death). The teenager was found dead at the bottom of a building in the city of Kuching, on the island of Borneo. This incident sparked discussions about mental health, online behavior, and the responsibilities of social media platforms in protecting vulnerable users.

This is not surprising. Many people would choose death if it were easy, just taking a pill, falling asleep, and that is it. Why endure suffering when life offers no fulfillment, no inspiration, no realization of dreams? If we see no meaning in life, existence itself becomes a burden. Also, we live with the knowledge that in the end, we all die anyway.

This is precisely why society and the state must prevent such ideas from taking hold. The Torah commands: “Choose life.” This choice, however, needs to be one that we apply ourselves to. In other words, we should try, seek, and strive to discover true life. The wisdom of Kabbalah offers such a path, but we need to come to it willingly. Through this wisdom, we can find the eternal and perfect life that exists beyond the confines of our current reality.

But why are people brought to such despair? It is so that they could recognize that life does indeed have meaning, just not the kind they were living by. Most people live an existence no different from animals, dictated by basic survival and fleeting pleasures. But we were not created just to try to survive and enjoy ourselves for a few years. We were created to rise to a whole other level of existence.

Life is indeed worth living. However, we need to understand that beyond this life we currently live, there is a higher life in the upper world, above our egoistic desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, and beyond the transient struggles of this world. Life is precisely for discovering the higher reality, the purpose of existence, and to choose life in its fullest, eternal sense.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on May 4, 2019. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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