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other wonderful and useful activities. Fortunate are they! My rabbi Length of Days But even a person who still needs sleep can make do with much
and mentor, Rabbi Yaakov Mutzafi (may his merit protect us), less than he is used to. Therefore, “Take hold of this, and from
slept between one and two hours a night (as testified to by Rabbi Such a state of being is called “length of days.” Every day of that as well do not withdraw your hand” (Ecclesiastes 7:18). Invest
Mordechai Eliyahu). And I know a tzaddik who slept only one hour the tzaddikim is long, filled and overflowing with holy deeds, and in working on both the rectification of the covenant and the
a day—seven hours a week. What a wonderful life! filled with clinging to Hashem and to the Torah. Therefore, they nullification of the craving for sleep.
barely need to sleep, and their sleep is entirely different than that
I Forgot to Sleep of others. With it, they attain wonderful attainments and perform A Swift Rectification
awesome rectifications. Regarding this, the verse states: “The fear
It is told that Rav Ovadiah Yosef once told his son that he had of Hashem increases days, whereas years of the wicked are cut off” You must also know that just as the rectification of the covenant
not slept for the last two days. His son asked him why, and he (Proverbs 10:27). influences a person’s relationship with his sleep, his work on sleep
answered that he had forgotten to do so. Have you ever heard of and his work on being alert and enthusiastic directly influence the
someone forgetting to sleep for two days? Is that natural? People The midrash relates that, regarding the verse, “Jacob woke from rectification of the covenant. This is because, when a person is filled
say: “The body has its own demands,” but don’t these tzaddikim his sleep” (Genesis 28:16), Rabbi Yochanan says that “from his sleep” with energy and life, he rectifies matters easily and quickly, but
have a body? In fact, generally speaking the body of a tzaddik is means “from his learning” (Bereishit Rabbah 69). This seems difficult: when a person sleeps throughout the night and afterwards sleeps
weaker than that of an ordinary person, as is known. Why did Rabbi Yochanan have to learn this verse homiletically? throughout the day, his rectification of the covenant also proceeds
What was difficult for him about the simple meaning of the words, very slowly.
But certainly, this indicates that the body receives its life from “Jacob woke from his sleep”? The answer is that we certainly cannot
knowledge and from its bond with the Creator. It is not sleep that say that Jacob slept in the simple sense, because the midrash says I will here again quote Rabbi Moshe Dovid Valli, who writes
gives life to the body, but wisdom. As the verse states, “Wisdom (ibid. 68) about the verse, “he lay down in that place” (ibid. 11), aptly that sleeping a great deal keeps a person from attaining his
gives life to those who possess it” (Ecclesiastes 7:12). And as we say that only in that place did he lie down, but for the 24 years that rectification, and causes him to be immersed in the “husk”:
in the evening prayer: the words of Torah “are our life and the he learned Torah in the study hall of Shem and Eber he did not lie
length of our days.” And so too Rabbi Nachman teaches in Sefer down to sleep even once! Therefore, we must conclude that here When a person is in a “husk” [of evil influences] that
Hamidot: “The Torah, tithing and the Sabbath grant physical life “sleep” means something else—and that is “learning.” weighs him down under thick mud, he feels tired and
as well [as spiritual life]” (Limud part 2). Thus, the soul, which is our torpid. The heaviness ties up the movement of the spirit
bond with Hashem, gives life to the body. As our sages say: “Just With Little Sleep of life and brings sleep, which overwhelms him. Certainly,
as the Holy One, blessed be He, sustains the entire world, so too all of the time that he is sleeping, he is not doing his
the soul sustains the body” (Berachot 10a). And as Rabbi Nachman The mishnah in Avot (6:6) lists 48 conditions for acquiring the work, which is the work of [spiritual] clarification. And
learns from the verse, “Seek Me and live” (Amos 5:4), we receive Torah, one of which is “little sleep.” One could challenge this: the he causes himself evil, in that his time of remaining
life from searching for Hashem (Likutei Moharan 27). Torah is profound wisdom and requires maximal clarity. As the
Gemara states, in order to learn we need accuracy, tranquility, within the “husk” is extended. He is like a person
That is why, after Rabbi Nachman revealed Likutei Moharan I and a great deal of energy and focus (Eiruvin 65a and Megillah 28b). who is obligated to complete some work. If he sleeps and
60, he told his students “that by means of revealing this teaching Experience tells us that a person who is tired and sleep-deprived is does not do it, certainly that which would have been
to them he could have put them in a state in which, for three unfocused, confused, and so forth. That being the case, it would completed in a short amount of time will require
days and three nights, they would not know the difference between seem fitting to demand that a Torah sage make sure to get a a long amount of time. And in addition, he will
night and day at all” (Chayei Moharan 356). And he also said that reasonable amount of sleep, so that he will concentrate and reach not do his work properly, because he will be like
if he would begin to reveal a little of the wisdoms that he knew, proper conclusions without erring in his learning. So why is little a person who is constantly taken aback to see that
“they could live by means of the delight of the attainment of these sleep one of the conditions for acquiring the Torah? all of his deeds are inadequate and damaged.
wisdoms alone, without eating and drinking” (Sichot Haran 181).
The answer is that paradoxically a minimum of sleep increases