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When someone is sick, we say a mi'she'beirach for healing and we add a personal request in the refa'einu part of the amidah. After a person passes, we say the Tziduk hadin and then prayers for the soul.

But if someone is clearly dying and beyond the help of anyone, is there any sort of prayer that can be said asking Hashem to allow the person a smooth passing, bereft of suffering? Not asking about a "faster" death because we cannot do things to hasten death, but just a passing that is less arduous.

rosends
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  • Are you specifically looking for a text composed by someone else? You can always just recite your own text just as you've written here. – Double AA Aug 29 '21 at 17:42
  • I guess the first step is a question of "permissibility," that is, that a prayer like this wouldn't cross any other bounds. Then would be the question of precedent and codification -- is it is an acceptable "thing" does it already exist? – rosends Aug 29 '21 at 18:03

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As related in BT Ketubot 104A (https://www.sefaria.org/Ketubot.104a.4?lang=bi) we are in fact permitted to pray for someone's death to come quickly if they are suffering, "The maidservant of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi ascended to the roof and said: The upper realms are requesting the presence of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, and the lower realms are requesting the presence of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. May it be the will of God that the lower worlds should impose their will upon the upper worlds. However, when she saw how many times he would enter the bathroom and remove his phylacteries, and then exit and put them back on, and how he was suffering with his intestinal disease, she said: May it be the will of God that the upper worlds should impose their will upon the lower worlds.And the Sages, meanwhile, would not be silent, i.e., they would not refrain, from begging for mercy so that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi would not die. So she took a jug [kuza] and threw it from the roof to the ground. Due to the sudden noise, the Sages were momentarily silent and refrained from begging for mercy, and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi died."

יהושע ק
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  • Does that translate into a current practice/prayer? Is there a codified permissibility in halacha to do as she did (with the prayer if not the jug)? – rosends Aug 29 '21 at 16:32
  • See Hag AlFasi on Yoreh Deah Siman 339 which would apprear to allow the prayer and probably even the jug tossing – יהושע ק Aug 29 '21 at 20:50