As rabbis, we come to this conversation out of love — love for our communities, our families and the sacred gift of life itself. And we come with a plea: help us, and our loved ones, live and die with dignity, surrounded by compassion.

In our 25 years of serving the Jewish people, teaching Jewish tradition, and guiding families through the holiest and hardest moments of their lives, we have learned that Judaism is a vast, multivocal tradition, one built on debate. Consensus is rare. But one principle predominates: we were put on this earth to promote human flourishing, not to prolong human suffering.

Life is for living. And when a person reaches the end of one’s earthly journey, our prayer is for the dying to be surrounded by love and care, able to leave this world on one’s own terms. Precisely because we cherish life, we ask our lawmakers and our communities to listen with open hearts as we wrestle with a question that is both personal and profoundly Jewish.

For one of us, the question became inescapable the day a father implored, “Promise me you will help me die.” He was 92, living with congestive heart failure, COPD and the compounded injuries of a stroke that had paralyzed him four decades earlier. When his doctors finally told him that the end........

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