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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
that as well do not withdraw your hand” (Ecclesiastes 7:18). Invest Sleep appears to be something natural and even very useful. Why
in working on both the rectification of the covenant and the is it forbidden to want to sleep? What is so base about sleep?
nullification of the craving for sleep.
This may be understood very simply. When a person is asleep,
A Swift Rectification he is not alive. Sleep is one-sixtieth part of death (Berachot 57b).
Therefore, a person who is sleeping is, practically speaking, dead.
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
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
rectification of the covenant. This is because, when a person is filled only the necessary minimum. Everyone should ideally go to sleep
with energy and life, he rectifies matters easily and quickly, but without desire and sleep but only because he lacks an alternative—
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
throughout the day, his rectification of the covenant also proceeds all his might, the sooner the better. A person must want to sleep as
very slowly. little as possible, and of course he must want to get up as soon as
he can and flee the bed as one would flee a mortal threat.
I will here again quote Rabbi Moshe Dovid Valli, who writes
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
rectification, and causes him to be immersed in the “husk”: person could otherwise have filled with “all good,” the true good
of life, is a pity. Some people take pride and delight in sleeping
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
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
person who desires and delights in death?
of life and brings sleep, which overwhelms him. Certainly,
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
work, which is the work of [spiritual] clarification. And to sleep is absolute evil. It is derived from the evil inclination of
he causes himself evil, in that his time of remaining death, which is the greatest evil inclination. As our sages say: “The
within the “husk” is extended. He is like a person following are all one: Satan, the evil inclination, and the angel of
who is obligated to complete some work. If he sleeps and death” (Bava Batra 16a). The ultimate goal of the evil inclination is
does not do it, certainly that which would have been to kill a person. If it could kill him entirely, it would do so happily
completed in a short amount of time will require and quickly. But, thank God, it does not have permission to kill a
a long amount of time. And in addition, he will person before his appointed time. Therefore, it tries to kill as many
not do his work properly, because he will be like hours of his life as possible. To that end, it gives him the desire and
a person who is constantly taken aback to see that longing to sleep on and on, to delight in his sleep and to rejoice in
his slumber. When a person sleeps, his evil inclination is satisfied,
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