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There is a story behind "a person who dies on the eve of Rosh Hashanah is a tzaddik - a righteous person."  (Tzaddeket for a woman, btw.) I love seeing this teaching passed around on FB, and I want you to know the full story.  

The story as I learned it is from a teaching built upon a discussion in the Talmud of the "who shall live, who shall die" concept of who is written in the book of life for the year to come at the High Holy Days, and who is not. (BT Rosh Hashanah 16b, I believe.)

A truly righteous person, too, must eventually die (as death is the inevitable conclusion of life).  But God does not want to let this precious, righteous person go; God wants to cling on to every second of having this person on earth.  But, God is God... and God knows that this person's name is not written in the Book of Life for the year to come.  So God waits until the very last possible moment of the year, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, to allow the Angel of Death to descend.  And finally that truly righteous person breaths her last and her soul departs.  

Gosh I love that teaching.

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