[Avodah] Praying for the end

[Jonathan Baker]

RZS:
>RSW:
>> I think the problem with suicide is that your life belongs to Hashem.
>> Only he has the right to give and take it away. So if he listens to
>> your tefillos, you were within your rights, as was He.

>That it's permitted to pray for the end to come is clear in the gemara.
>Not just for oneself but for someone else.

Huh.  That's interesting.  Where in the gemara?  The way it was explained
to my mother, when her mother was almost completely senile, with occasional
lucid moments marked by crying at "look how far I've fallen", was that she
could not pray for her mother to die, but she could pray for an end to her
mother's suffering - and it was clear she was suffering, when she had the
seichel to understand what was happening to her.

But to actively pray for the end?

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com