EXOD985 When offering personal prayers to God, we should make our appeal dependent on the merit of others, not our own. For example, when Moses beseeched God not to destroy the Jews because of their sin with the Golden Calf, he said, "Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" [this verse]. Still, a later biblical text credits him, not the Patriarchs, as deserving the credit for God's decision to save the Jews: "He (God) would have destroyed them had not Moses, His chosen one, confronted Him in the breach to avert His destructive wrath" (Psalms 106:23, see Berachot 10b). When we offer personal prayers to God--something almost all religious people do at least occasionally--we should make a request, at least sometimes, in the name of the parent, grandparents, or someone else who loved us, and who was a very good person.