<b>And it came to pass after these things, that one said to Joseph: “Benold, thy father is sick” (Gen. 48:1).</b> May it please our master to teach us whether a benediction may be recited over the light or the spices stationed at the side of a corpse? Our masters teach us: A benediction may not be recited over the light or the spices used at the side of a corpse. What is the basis of this decision? It is written: <i>The dead praise not the Lord</i> (Ps. 115:17).
R. Meir said: The idolatrous dead are truly dead, but the deceased in Israel do not actually die. They survive because of the merit (of their forebears). Thus, you find that the Israelites, who erected the golden calf, would have vanished from the world if Moses, our Master, had not mentioned the merit of the patriarchs, as it is said: <i>Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, thy servants</i> (Exod. 32:13). Therefore, it is difficult for the Holy One, blessed be He, to decree the death of the righteous, as it is said: <i>Weighty in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints</i> (Ps. 116:15). What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He revealed to the righteous the reward that awaits them in the world-to-come so that they would plead for their own death. When R. Abahu was about to depart from this world, the Holy One, blessed be He, disclosed to him the reward stored up for him and he was astounded by it. He said: “Is all this for Abahu?” Whereupon he applied to himself the verse <i>And I said: “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God”</i> (Isa. 49:4). Immediately, he began to long for death.
Abraham also pleaded for death with his own lips, as it is said: <i>What wilt thou give me, seeing I go hence childless</i> (Gen. 15:2). Thereupon the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: <i>Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace</i> (ibid., v. 15). Isaac likewise sought death, as is said: <i>That I may eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my death</i> (ibid. 35:29). Similarly, Jacob asked for death, as is said: <i>Now let me die</i> (ibid. 46:30). The Holy One, blessed be He, told him: You have said: <i>Now let me die</i>, but you will live seventeen additional years. After that time had passed he became ill and died.