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Chapter Nine: | 401 408 | A New Light Chapter Nine: | 393

Length of Days But even a person who still needs sleep can make do with much Absolute Evil
less than he is used to. Therefore, “Take hold of this, and from
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 Sleep appears to be something natural and even very useful. Why
the tzaddikim is long, filled and overflowing with holy deeds, and in working on both the rectification of the covenant and the is it forbidden to want to sleep? What is so base about sleep?
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 This may be understood very simply. When a person is asleep,
of others. With it, they attain wonderful attainments and perform A Swift Rectification he is not alive. Sleep is one-sixtieth part of death (Berachot 57b).
awesome rectifications. Regarding this, the verse states: “The fear Therefore, a person who is sleeping is, practically speaking, dead.
of Hashem increases days, whereas years of the wicked are cut off” You must also know that just as the rectification of the covenant Every extra hour of sleep is one less hour of life. And so it is
(Proverbs 10:27). influences a person’s relationship with his sleep, his work on sleep clear that no intelligent person who has a purpose in life will want
and his work on being alert and enthusiastic directly influence the to sleep superfluous “extra hours.” Rather, a person should sleep
The midrash relates that, regarding the verse, “Jacob woke from rectification of the covenant. This is because, when a person is filled only the necessary minimum. Everyone should ideally go to sleep
his sleep” (Genesis 28:16), Rabbi Yochanan says that “from his sleep” with energy and life, he rectifies matters easily and quickly, but without desire and sleep but only because he lacks an alternative—
means “from his learning” (Bereishit Rabbah 69). This seems difficult: when a person sleeps throughout the night and afterwards sleeps just like a person who, as he enters a jail cell, wants to get out with
Why did Rabbi Yochanan have to learn this verse homiletically? throughout the day, his rectification of the covenant also proceeds all his might, the sooner the better. A person must want to sleep as
What was difficult for him about the simple meaning of the words, very slowly. little as possible, and of course he must want to get up as soon as
“Jacob woke from his sleep”? The answer is that we certainly cannot he can and flee the bed as one would flee a mortal threat.
say that Jacob slept in the simple sense, because the midrash says I will here again quote Rabbi Moshe Dovid Valli, who writes
(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 Every superfluous hour of sleep is a dead hour. Every hour that a
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”: person could otherwise have filled with “all good,” the true good
he learned Torah in the study hall of Shem and Eber he did not lie of life, is a pity. Some people take pride and delight in sleeping
down to sleep even once! Therefore, we must conclude that here When a person is in a “husk” [of evil influences] that many hours a night: “How well I slept! How long I slept! I slept like
“sleep” means something else—and that is “learning.” weighs him down under thick mud, he feels tired and a king; I slept 12 hours…,” and all sorts of foolish statements. To
torpid. The heaviness ties up the movement of the spirit burn up one’s life and simply to die—is that a pleasure? Is there a
With Little Sleep of life and brings sleep, which overwhelms him. Certainly, person who desires and delights in death?
all of the time that he is sleeping, he is not doing his In light of what I have explained, you may see that the will
The mishnah in Avot (6:6) lists 48 conditions for acquiring the work, which is the work of [spiritual] clarification. And to sleep is absolute evil. It is derived from the evil inclination of
Torah, one of which is “little sleep.” One could challenge this: the he causes himself evil, in that his time of remaining death, which is the greatest evil inclination. As our sages say: “The
Torah is profound wisdom and requires maximal clarity. As the within the “husk” is extended. He is like a person following are all one: Satan, the evil inclination, and the angel of
Gemara states, in order to learn we need accuracy, tranquility, death” (Bava Batra 16a). The ultimate goal of the evil inclination is
and a great deal of energy and focus (Eiruvin 65a and Megillah 28b). who is obligated to complete some work. If he sleeps and to kill a person. If it could kill him entirely, it would do so happily
Experience tells us that a person who is tired and sleep-deprived is does not do it, certainly that which would have been and quickly. But, thank God, it does not have permission to kill a
unfocused, confused, and so forth. That being the case, it would completed in a short amount of time will require person before his appointed time. Therefore, it tries to kill as many
seem fitting to demand that a Torah sage make sure to get a a long amount of time. And in addition, he will hours of his life as possible. To that end, it gives him the desire and
reasonable amount of sleep, so that he will concentrate and reach not do his work properly, because he will be like longing to sleep on and on, to delight in his sleep and to rejoice in
proper conclusions without erring in his learning. So why is little a person who is constantly taken aback to see that his slumber. When a person sleeps, his evil inclination is satisfied,
sleep one of the conditions for acquiring the Torah? all of his deeds are inadequate and damaged. happy and cheerful, and it makes a thanksgiving feast: “It would
have sufficed for So-and-So to sleep six hours. But I gave him such
The answer is that paradoxically a minimum of sleep increases