Holy Sleep – A New Light

Rabbi Arush says that no intelligent person who has a purpose in life wants to sleep superfluous extra hours. It is important to sleep only the necessary minimum. The Evil Inclination would love to kill a person entirely, but thank God, it does not have permission to kill a person before his appointed time. Therefore, it tries to kill as many hours of our life as possible. One way to do this is to cause us to crave sleeping hours and hours beyond what is truly needed for health. 

Even a few minutes of unnecessary sleep constitutes a major loss. For example, if you regularly sleep an extra 10 minutes a night, you will lose more than 60 hours a year. Over the course of a lifetime this constitutes a loss of thousands of precious hours of Torah and prayer, of learning with your children, of performing good deeds and mitzvot. 

What gives us life? Only our connection with Hashem and clinging to Hashem, coming close to the Creator. What causes tiredness? Only a person's disconnection from Hashem. Every minute of the day that we forget Hashem causes tiredness. Therefore, the true solution to tiredness is to reconnect oneself to Hashem.  

Rabbi Arush discusses how great tzaddikim function at incredibly high levels with miniscule amounts of sleep because they are always connected to Hashem. While most of us are unable to attain these phenomenal levels, each of us can  undoubtedly do significantly  better connecting to Hashem and minimizing the time we sleep each day.  

A critical principle is that we do nothing by force. I personally can attest to this as I went too far, too fast and crashed on my first attempt. Rabbi Arush says we must engage in a lot of work on holiness, pray a great deal and engage in the war of the will with all our might. This must be a gradual process to sleep less every night. 

We’ve all experienced feeling great on some days after just a small amount of sleep and feeling lethargic on other days despite sleeping an ample number of hours. 

Your strength and alertness throughout the day depends on the outcome of the battle with your Evil Inclination the night before, as you are going to sleep. If you are able to go to sleep for the honor of Hashem, with proper intent to renew your energy in order to serve Him better tomorrow, and yearning only to cling to Hashem and not to sleep, then your sleep rejuvenates you.  

The Code of Jewish Law says that we must rise in the morning like a lion. Rabbi Arush says that if you want to wake up like a lion, then you must gather your strength to go to sleep like a lion! He adds that it is quite common to see signs in synagogues: “Know before Whom you stand.” A person should place such a sign next to his bed: “Know before Whom you are lying down.” You must always place Hashem before you before going to sleep, while sleeping, and when waking from sleep. 

Rabbi Arush says it's important to say the Shema, the blessing of Hamapil and pray to wake up on time, with alacrity. You should also say Psalm 91. It’s crucial to do all this with special joy, love, devotion, and intent. 

It's very important to make a personal accounting just before going to sleep, at least five minutes if possible. Think back over the entire day and thank Hashem for all your successes and ask for forgiveness where you sinned or fell short. By doing this, you rectify the entire day and go to sleep with a refreshed soul and clean slate.  

No matter how poorly the entire day may have passed, you have a final opportunity to rectify it by strengthening yourself at its end. The 10 minutes or so that you invest before going to bed will transform the quality of your sleep and your entire day afterwards will be filled with holy life. 

Rabbi Arush says that if you are unable to function without taking an afternoon nap you should do so but make sure that it is not so long as to be wasteful. I’ve also read in the sleep journals that excess napping is counterproductive and will detract from the quality of your sleep at night. Regarding nap time, your intention should be not to gain bodily pleasure but to strengthen your body for the service of Hashem. 

At the end of the chapter, Rabbi Arush provides sample prayers about sleep. I highly recommend reading these prayers, annotating what resonates with you and using these in your personal prayers. Here’s a sample: 

“Master of the Universe, help me to always cling to You. Help me so that I will not remove my mind from You for even a minute and as a result I will never be tired. Help me to remember that You are “the one who gives strength” and that although You created sleep and therefore I must sleep, it is You who gives me renewed strength, and not the sleep itself.” 

In summary: 

I have found that by following these rules, I'm been gradually able to function on less sleep and feel stronger, not just upon waking up, but throughout the entire day. It's not something that you can do instantaneously. It takes months of work and prayer, but the effort is well worth it. In this way you rescue many hours a week and at the same time become more efficient and productive during your waking hours.  

Rabbi Arush adds a very important appendix about the important truth that Shabbat was not created for extra sleep, as many people mistakenly believe. The blessing of Shabbat that you sleep better, is supposed to be used in order to sleep less on Shabbat, and be more awake, so that you can maximize every moment of the Holy Shabbat for prayer, personal prayer and study. In fact, it is so important to be awake on Shabbat, that Rabbi Natan of Breslev said, “It is so important to nap Erev Shabbat, that I am amazed that it isn’t one of the Ten Commandments!” By napping on Erev Shabbat, you have more energy to stay up late on Shabbat night, singing and praising Hashem. If it is important on a regular day to minimize sleep in order to serve Hashem, all the more so is this true on the holy day of Shabbat, when all of our mitzvot are enhanced by the additional soul we receive on Shabbat, and every mitzvah we do is rewarded many times more than mitzvot on a normal weekday. 

May we all succeed in holy sleep and optimize the quantity and quality of time we devote to the service of Hashem.