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is to reconnect oneself to Hashem. The ultimate truth is that a body, on the other hand it removes his intellect and
person who is connected to Hashem 24 hours a day does not need weakens his soul. And so his gain is undermined by his
to sleep at all. A few times, Moses did not sleep for 40 consecutive loss, because if his intellect is not present, he cannot
days and nights. The absolute truth is that everything that connects make use of any light to complete his rectification, and
you to Hashem—faith, Torah, prayer, kindness—gives you life. so he proceeds in darkness, without illumination. As we
see naturally occurring, a person who loves to sleep
The Principal Bond will be befuddled and stupefied throughout the
day, and he will not know how to engage in his
Prayer gives a person more life than do most mitzvot. As affairs properly and correctly, because the absence of
Rabbi Nachman says, “Know that the essence of binding oneself intellect disconcerts his mind, and that disconcerting of
to and clinging to Hashem, may He be blessed, is by means of
prayer” (Likutei Moharan 94). Therefore, we may understand Rabbi his mind leads to inadequacy in all of his affairs….
Nachman’s statement that “we receive the essence of life from
prayer” (ibid. 9). Rabbi Nachman says that when a person invests It Does No Harm at All
all of his energies in prayer, they are renewed. Using simple logic,
we might have thought that a person who uses all of his energy Another reason that the Torah is acquired through little sleep
in praying will lose it, because he will expend it until it is gone. is that in general a person sleeps much more than he needs to,
But Rabbi Nachman tells us that, on the contrary, such a person’s and in that way he loses hours of Torah learning. One of the evil
energy is renewed by faith and prayer, and not by sleep. That inclination’s ways of casting a person down is to clothe itself in
is the meaning of the verse, “New in the mornings, vast is Your mitzvot and cause him to mistakenly think that sleep is something
faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:23). If you want energy, pray more very healthful and useful, and that he performs a great mitzvah by
strongly and insert more energy into faith. Then all of your energy sleeping a great deal, and that the more he sleeps, the stronger
will be renewed, and you will see that when you finish your prayer, and more focused he will be. As I have explained at length, this
you are at least as refreshed as if you had slept for a few hours, and is tremendous heresy and error. In addition, it is also a coarse
much more than that. falsehood regarding the health of the body. On the contrary, much
sleep is detrimental. As the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch states (32):
These are things that I myself have seen many times. Allow me “Much sleep is harmful. It causes a person’s head to be filled with
to tell one story of many that I witnessed. Before evening prayers, [unhealthy] vapors. That is because [by oversleeping] he increases
a tzaddik whom I knew was standing looking very tired, literally the smoke that rises from the belly to the brain. That fills the head
without any energy, so much so that I thought that he was going with smoke, and it causes great damage to the body.”
to fall off his feet. But he took hold of himself to pray, and he did
so with energy, crying out to Hashem. When the prayers were over There is a scientific book on sleep that cites studies showing that
and I looked at him, I saw a new man, as though he had just woken a person can habituate himself little by little to sleep much less and
up. I asked him about this great change, and he told me that he still function properly, because the body gets accustomed to that.
had indeed been very tired, but now, after having prayed, he felt as It is told that Napoleon slept very little, and he would say that a
though he had awoken from a few hours’ sleep and was thoroughly person who sleeps more is a fool. Thus, sleeping little does not
alert. And that is because by praying he clung to Hashem, and harm a person at all, because his body easily gets used to function
Hashem revived him and renewed all his energy. well with little sleep. He will gain additional hours for learning and
gain additional hours of life.
