GEN690 Maimonides (12th-cent.) addressed a warning to those who allege that their state of health should be of no concern to other people.  “There are many things which the rabbis have prohibited because they endanger human life. He who says: ‘I am only endangering myself, and no others have a right to interfere,’ the rabbis may administer to them disciplinary flogging” Hilchot Rotzeach 11:5  Man has a right to put himself to shame, if he is indifferent to public opinion, but no one may lawfully injure himself Baba Kama 91b It is also prohibited to curse oneself (curses may be self-fulfilling) Shavuot 35a  No man may degrade himself by eating things which are universally deemed nauseating and repugnant. The biblical source of this prohibition is … Leviticus 11:43: “You shall not make yourself detestable with swarming things that swarm.” The rabbis interpreted this prohibition to include the eating the food contaminated with dirt, the eating of food with slimy hands, and the drinking of fluids from vessels which were used previously as urinals. Maimonides, Maachalot Asurot 17:29. Self-degradation insults the body, which was made in the image of God. Suicide is a transgression which by its very nature can never be atoned for. The biblical verse “But for your own life-blood I will require [an accounting]” [This verse] was interpreted by Rabbi Elazar (2nd cent.) as meaning: “I will require your blood if shed by your own hands” Baba Kama 91b. Judaism denies all religious burial rights to people who commit suicide. There is no doubt that these stringent sanctions kept the number of suicides low, despite the tragic conditions under which Jews were forced to live in the Diaspora. When forcible apostasies became common occurrences during and after the era of the Crusades, many Jews sought an escape in martyrdom. Those who committed suicide were accorded full honors by the medieval rabbis, and their deaths regarded as a “sanctification of the name of God.” Tosofot, veal, Avodah Zarah 18a. BLOCH 242-3