From here it would seem correct to forbid that which is practiced by some people when the dead is goses
and the neshomoh is unable to exit, that they shove the pillow from underneath him so that he will die rapidly, for
they say that there are in the bed feathers of birds that cause the nefesh not to exit,
And many times I have cried out like a rooster to remove this evil practice, but I was not successful,
and my teachers disagreed with me,
and the rabbi Rabbi Nathan the Hungarian of blessed memory wrote about this to permit.
After some years I found in Sefer Chasidim #723 support for my words,
for he writes there: “If he is goses and unable to die until they put him in another place – they must not move
him from there”.
True, the words of Sefer Chasidim require investigation,
for in the beginning he wrote that if one man was goses and there was one close to that house chopping wood
and the neshomoh is unable to depart, they must remove the chopper from there,
which implies the opposite of what is written afterward,
but there is room to resolve this and say that certainly to do something that will cause the goses to not die
rapidly is forbidden, for example to chop wood there so that the neshomoh will be held back from exiting, or to
place salt on his tongue so that he will not die rapidly,
all this is forbidden as is implied there from his language
while in all similar cases it is permitted to remove that cause but to do something that will cause
his speedy death and the exit of his nefesh (cf. neshomoh. ADK) is forbidden
and therefore it is forbidden to move the goses from his place and leave him in another place so that his
neshomoh will exit
and therefore it is also forbidden to place the keys of the b”hkn (=beit haknesset; synagogue) under the head of a
goses so that he will die rapidly, because this also speeds the exit of the nefesh,
and according to this if there is something that is causing his nefesh not to exit – it is permitted to remove that
cause, and there is nothing wrong with this, as behold he is not ‘resting his finger on the lamp’ (manually
extinguishing a flame: ADK) and is not doing a deed,
but to rest something on the goses or to transport him from place to place so that his neshomoh will exit rapidly
seems certainly forbidden since indeed he is 'placing his finger on the lamp’.
