Remember us for life, O King Who desires Life (Rosh Hashanah Prayers)
After one of my talks when I had spoken about emunah and bitachon, and what those ideas truly mean beyond surface cliches, a young woman came over to me. She looked serious, almost burdened, and said, “Rabbi, I want to ask you something. But please don’t answer me with metaphors. Don’t tell me what you think. I’m asking you a halachic question.”
I told her, “Look, I’m not a posek and I don’t issue halachic rulings. But if this is something I can try to answer, I’ll do my best. What’s the question?”
She looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Is it permissible to daven on Rosh Hashanah that Hashem should give you a disease so that you’ll die?”
That was her question.
You don’t need me to explain what kind of anguish a person must be going through to even think about formulating such a prayer. She went on and said, “I’m frum. I won’t commit suicide; I can’t. But I also can’t bear this anymore. Why can’t I ask Hashem to take me? Other people daven for things they want—life, children, a spouse, parnassah. I don’t want those things. I want out. I want this pain to end. So if Hashem really loves me, why can’t I ask Him to give me a heart attack or cancer, so that I can just die?”
I looked at her and said, “I don’t rule on questions like this, but I don’t believe a person is allowed to pray for death. Just like you can’t daven to be allowed to eat pig—it’s not permitted, no matter how much you might desire it—this is in the same category. Taking your life, even indirectly, is still taking it.”
She didn’t say anything, but I could see from her expression that my answer didn’t satisfy her. So I continued.
“But I’ll tell you what I do believe you can pray for this Rosh Hashanah.” She raised her eyebrows, almost dismissively, as if to say, “Whatever it is, Rabbi, I’m not going to like it.”
“Daven that Hashem should give you a reason to live,” I said. “That’s all. Ask Him to give you something—one thing—that will make you want to stay. A reason strong enough to carry you through the pain.” She paused, her eyes softening a little. “I never thought of that,” she said quietly.
“Just try it,” I said. “Just pray for that.”
I didn’t draw that idea out of nowhere. It comes from a moving story, well known and very real.
In 1967, after the liberation of the Kotel during the Six-Day War, there’s a famous photo of three soldiers standing near the Kotel, their heads tilted, as if gazing upon the battered history and bold destiny of the Jewish people. For the first time in nearly two thousand years, Jews were standing freely at the Western Wall.
The atmosphere was charged with an intensity that felt almost surreal, as if time itself had paused. Soldiers stood pressed against the stones of the ancient Wall, their hearts overflowing, their minds overwhelmed. Among them, both religious and non-religious alike were swept by tears. One group of religious soldiers, astonished to see a comrade known for his lack of belief overcome with emotion, gently turned to him and asked, “Why are you crying? You don’t believe in G-d.”
The soldier looked back. “I am crying because I said to G-d, ‘I don’t know what I am supposed to be crying about.’”
At a moment like that, this soldier knew something with piercing clarity. If there was a G-d, he wanted to cry. He wanted a relationship.
That’s where I got the idea from.
I told this girl the same. “You don’t need to pray for your life to end. Pray for a reason to want to live. Pray for a reason to cry.”
There are people out there who truly don’t want to live. But sometimes, the most honest and the most powerful prayer is simply this: “Hashem, give me a reason to live.”
Those few words reverberate all the way to Heaven.
