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434 | A New Light
Hasidic books explain that this means that a person must strengthen
himself at the end of a period. When we strengthen ourselves at the
end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month and
at the end of the year, we can rectify our entire past.
The elevated time of lying down is the opportunity to stop the
cycle of spiritual sleep and instead go to sleep in the midst of
wonderful inspiration that will continue when you wake up and
throughout the next day. The ten minutes that you invest now will
entirely transform the quality of your sleep, and your entire day
afterwards will be filled with holy life. But if you are subjugated to
the evil inclination and “gain” ten minutes of sleep at the expense
of your fear of heaven, you will pay for that dearly, because you
will lose both the entire previous day and the entire coming day.
If a person allows sleep to control him and seize him, he is
volitionally depositing his spirit in the hands of the evil inclination
instead of depositing it in Hashem’s hand. It is no wonder that the
manacles of the evil inclination will shackle him the entire next day.
He has been seized and imprisoned.
Prepare Yourself
First of all, you must prepare yourself practically. Start by placing
a cup with which to wash your hands next to your bed. As the
introduction to the holy Zohar (10b) states, the early pietists would
place a cup next to their beds so that they could wash their hands
as soon as they woke up:
When the early pietists went to sleep, they would put a
cup of water next to their beds. When they awoke from
their sleep at night, they would wash their hands, and
get up and engage in Torah, reciting the blessing over
that learning…. That is because, when a person sleeps,
his spirit leaves him. And when his spirit leaves him, the
spirit of uncleanness is ready and rests on his hands and
pollutes them. And it is forbidden to recite a blessing
with unclean hands, without washing.
Chapter Nine: | 447
an important principle may be derived: that going to sleep is not
throwing off the yoke of Hashem but the service of Hashem. And
we must truly intend that and feel it.
That is a halachah in the Shulchan Aruch that is relevant to
every Jew. Even a Jew on the lowest level must intend to serve his
Creator in sleep. And that can be accomplished only by a person
who engages in the work of the will and experiences yearning at the
time of sleep.
Those Who Make a Personal Accounting
The holy books teach that there is a tremendous usefulness in
making a personal accounting before sleep. As the holy Zohar
teaches (Vayeshev 191):
Rabbi Yossi said “… A person must examine his sins
every single day….” Every day, when night arrives, a
person must contemplate and examine everything that
he did that entire day, so that he will repent of [his
wrong deeds] and gaze at them always. In that way, he
will do teshuvah before his Master. As the verse states,
“My sin is before me always” (Psalms 51:5)—meaning, in
order for me to do teshuvah over them.
And the Zohar also teaches (Korach 178):
A person who engages in a personal accounting [will
be saved from Gehennom. The sages] taught that every
night, before a person lies down to go to sleep, he must
make an accounting of his deeds of that entire day. He
must do teshuvah for [his wrong deeds] and beseech
Hashem to have compassion and forgive him. Why do
we engage in a personal accounting at that time? Because
at that time the Tree of Death is in the world—[i.e., the
powers of uncleanness rise in strength]—and everyone
in the world tastes the taste of death in his sleep.