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396 | A New Light
minutes, to lying in bed. Remember: the will to sleep is a will to
burn up life. The will to sleep is like suicide.
A Repeat Investment
When a person beseeches Hashem for half an hour every day to
nullify his craving for sleep so that he will sleep only the necessary
minimum for his well-being and so that he will fall asleep in the
midst of holy intentions and yearnings, then even if he sleeps just
half an hour less than he had before, he has already “covered his
expenses.” But really, with that he earns a tremendous profit,
because instead of burning up half an hour in sleep he has prayed
and engaged in deep intentions for half an hour—and one cannot
imagine the great profit in that itself. Moreover, if he takes these
matters to heart and applies himself assiduously to the work of the
will, he will certainly earn a great many more hours of waking time
every day.
Therefore, you cannot say, “I am already praying for so many
things that I don’t have time to pray half an hour on the topic of
sleep,” because the time that you invest in praying about sleep
will not be deducted from your account. From that you will
profit immediately. And in addition, you will earn multiples upon
multiples. If you make a simple reckoning, you will realize that it
is very much worth your while to invest half an hour every day in
praying for the nullification of the craving for sleep—in addition to
your regular hour of hitbodedut—because with this half hour, you
will gain more hours every day.
Only Hashem Gives Life
Until now, I have mentioned straightforward considerations
regarding the advisability of sleeping no more than necessary, in
accordance with simple common sense. But there is also a wonderful
inner aspect and very deep wisdom of faith regarding sleep: sleep
is an illusion. A person who thinks that sleep revives and renews
him is living a life of heresy. Hashem is the Life of lives. Thus, only
He gives and renews life. Only Hashem “renews with His goodness
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know any evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:5). Since it is our bond to Hashem that
gives us life, this is clear and self-evident.
It should be noted that everything stated here applies equally to
men and to women. As the Ben Ish Chai states: “The book, Ruach
Chaim, quotes a famous sage as saying that ‘early to bed and early
to rise makes a person wealthy, healthy and strong.’ Since women
are always doing work for a few hours in the evening, it is advisable
that they accustom themselves to go to sleep at the beginning of
the night and get up before dawn to their work. Therefore, the
verse states, ‘She gets up while it is still night and gives food to
her household’ (Proverbs 31:15)” (ibid.). In this verse praising the
woman of valor, King Solomon does not say that she goes to sleep
late but that she sleeps early and gets up energetically before dawn.
Do Not Lose a Single Night
In addition, when a person sleeps little, he will use his nights
to learn Torah, and it is known that learning at night is more
significant and elevated than learning during the day. Our sages
state that “the moon was created only for learning” (Eiruvin 65a),
the Rambam famously writes that “a person learns the majority of
his wisdom only at night” (Talmud Torah 3), and the Ben Ish Chai
states that midnight to mid-day constitutes the best time to learn
Torah. (And see Igeret L’ven Torah by the Rishon Letzion,
Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, in which he has assembled and anthologized
wonderful sources regarding learning Torah at night.)
Related to our topic, the Rambam states in Hilchot Talmud
Torah that “the words of Torah do not remain with a person who
is relaxed about them, nor with those who learn out of luxury and
out of eating and drinking, but with a person who kills himself over
them, constantly afflicts his body and does not give sleep to his
eyes and slumber to his eyelids” (3:12).
And also (ibid. 13): “Although it is a mitzvah to learn day and
night, a person only learns the majority of his wisdom at
night. Therefore, a person who wants to attain the crown of Torah
should take care regarding all of his nights and not lose even