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394 | A New Light
a craving for sleep that he slept ten hours. So today I killed him for
four hours.”
Darkness and Blackness
Sleep is an absence of knowledge. The entire fundamental purpose
of a human being is to attain knowledge. Is it possible that a person
will of his own volition cast away knowledge, which is his nobility
and splendor?
In addition, sleep draws a very grievous impurity onto a person.
That is why we must wash our hands as soon as we get up in the
morning (as is known). When a person who has not washed his
hands wakes up, he contaminates everything that he touches, and
he harms himself and others. Does it make sense that a person
would want to put himself into such terrible state of impurity?
Sleep is a grievous “husk” (a manifestation of impurity). As
Likutei Halachot explains, sleep corresponds to exile, obstacles
and darkness. Our entire exile corresponds to sleep: “‘I am asleep’
(Song of Songs 5:2) ... refers to the exile” (Patach Eliyahu). It makes no
sense for a Jew to desire to sleep! When a person wants to sleep,
he is engulfed in tremendously great darkness. He is in exile and so
he barely succeeds in waking up. And even when he does wake up,
he stays in bed for a long time, turning from side to side, without
any desire and will to leave his bed. And he certainly has no will to
pray, because prayer and faith are redemption, whereas he, poor
fellow, is in exile.
A Means or the Ends?
Sleep is only a necessary means of allowing us to engage in
more hours of activity. This may be compared to a car. The more
kilometers per liter a car can get, the better. No one wants to fill
up with gas. A person is obligated to fill up with gas. Therefore,
he does so only when he has to. If someone were to say, “How
enjoyable to fill up with gas, I’m really looking forward to it,”
that would sound ridiculous. But when a person says, “I feel like
sleeping,” isn’t that ridiculous? If it were not so sad, it would be
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sheinah—is written with an alef in place of a hey. The Yalkut
Midrashim states that this word stands for sheinah achat—"one
sleep”—because a person who chases sleep from his eyes in this
world will experience only one sleep from the time that he passes
away to the time of the resurrection of the dead. That is to say, his
time in his grave will be like one sweet sleep, regarding which the
verse states: “Sweet is the sleep of the worker” (Ecclesiastes 5:11, as
explained by Rashi). (And we may also read sheinah with an alef as the
word s’no—“hate”—meaning that we should hate sleep.)
People wish each other a “good night,” meaning, a good sleep.
The Breslov Hasidim say: “Does sleeping constitute good night?
Sleeping is very bad. Getting up at midnight and filling the night
with Torah and prayer—that is called a good night!”
The Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us: “You shall study
it day and night” (Joshua 1:8). That is something that everyone
can achieve. First of all, know the truth. Do not transform the
punishment into delight. Do not transform the necessary into the
ideal. Then, clearly understand what truly gives you life and what
takes it away from you and causes you to lack life. Now begin to
want the latter and pray for it, and learn the practical advice on
how to attain it (as I will explain). After that, you will begin to gain
great and tremendous profits.
The Foundation of Everything
Since I have already discussed the ability of tzaddikim to sleep
little, you must know that needing little sleep depends on the
rectification of the covenant. The flaw of the covenant prevents a
person from clinging to Hashem, clinging to life. Instead, he clings to
the side of death, and so he grows tired. Therefore, a person needs
to work on rectifying the covenant, as explained in My Covenant
of Peace—in particular, by doing the work of the will, as is taught
in this book. Then he will more easily advance in the area of sleep,
and he will need to sleep much less. As Rabbi Nachman teaches in
Sefer Hamidot: “The more sanctified a person is, the farther he is
from sleep” (Sheinah 1).