Sleep
/The young mother paces back and forth with the baby in her arms. It is two o’clock in the morning and the baby won’t go
to sleep.
She herself is exhausted; it has been a long day. How she longs to lie down and go
To sleep.
Her husband is sleeping fitfully. She doesn’t want to wake him. He has had trouble getting up in the morning and going to learn because he is so tired. Tonight, she told him, I’ll make sure you get to go
To sleep.
The two year old is wrestling with her older sister trying to put him into his sleeper. He fights her and cries “I don’t want to go
To sleep.
He wants to stay up with the big kids. Life is so exciting; so much to learn, so many new words to try to pronounce, so many games to play, so much to experience. He knows he will miss it all if he goes
To sleep.
The mother sits with her first grader in the doctor’s. He checks her ears and nose and throat. All is fine he declares with a confidence that doctors always have but can seldom transfer to concerned mothers. Still the mother insists there must be something wrong. She stays up half the night and won’t go
To sleep.
She says she’s frightened. She insists on having a nightlight on, the door open, the front door locked, the trisses down and still she can’t fall
To sleep.
We are living in scary times, explains the doctor. The news of people being killed, of terrorists blowing themselves up, of mortar attacks in schoolyards reach even little children’s ears. The fears affect them in ways we don’t realize. It’s not the only case I hear of children who can’t go
To sleep.
The neighbors call up late at night to complain to the head of the seminary. Your girls are too noisy they explain. My children can’t go
To sleep.
The seminary tries. They turn off the electricity to the rooms, the dorm counselors try to shush them. But the girls are having too much fun talking late at night. And besides they have too much homework. They can’t finish it in time, if they tried. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t go
To sleep.
The masmid sits in the Bais Medrash with one or two others. He is so tired, but he heard the mashgiach tell a story of a young man who tumbled off his chair in the Bais Medrash and fell asleep on the floor. The Rosh Yeshiva arrived a few hours later for davening and found the young man on the floor. “What a masmid!” another bochur declares. “You think so?” replies the Rosh Yeshiva. “I think we should ask him to leave. Look how carefully he covered himself with his coat when he fell to the floor. If he had that much strength left, he should have learnt for a few more minutes!” The bochur wasn’t sure if the mashgiach meant it for real or not. But he decided to push himself anyway. Even now he feels himself starting to drift off
To sleep.
The young baalas tshuva calls the Rav frantically. “I don’t know what to do with my husband” she says. “He is insisting on staying up all the time! He heard you give a shiur on the evils of sleep and he has decided he is going to stay up and never go
to sleep!”
Of course it is impossible. Instead, he keeps falling asleep all the time. “I’m afraid” she concludes tearfully “that he is going to hurt himself if he doesn’t go
To sleep.”
The day school principal works from early in the morning until late at night. There are so many responsibilities and never enough staff, or money or support. He doesn’t want to cut corners so he takes on more and more. Then his wife and children need him. What about his own learning? Every morning he gets up at four a.m. to learn. Every now and then though, he drifts off. Sometimes in the middle of a class, or on the phone or in a meeting. Sometimes at the dinner table when his children are telling him about their day. Today it was while he was driving. He drifted off as he was slowing down to make a left turn. He woke up to pandemonium – he smashed into the car ahead of him and created a chain reaction that damaged three other cars waiting to turn. He apologises profusely. “I didn’t realize that I had fallen
To sleep.”
The yeshiva vekker walks up and down the halls banging on doors and calling out in Yiddish “Up, Yidden, up! Don’t sleep your life away! There will plenty of time in the grave
To sleep!”
One young man jumps out of bed immediately. He learnt the first halacha in Shulchan Aruch “Arise like a lion”. He learnt in Pirkei Avos that too much sleep takes you out of this world and that limiting your sleep is a prerequisite to acquire Torah. The Medrash Shmuel comments that this is because Torah is the Tree of Life and sleep is the Tree of Death. The young man wants to live and not die by spending too much time going
To sleep.
The family sits in the front row. Some are crying, some are too numb to cry. Behind them sit their family and friends. The Rav is speaking; they hear him through a fog. Your loved one is not really dead, he explains. We don’t experience real death. The chazal say that sleep is one sixtieth of death. When we die it is just a more intense form of going
To sleep.
I sit in an airplane chair that is too small to go
To sleep.
You need 31 inches to doze off and the coach seat is only 19. In first class a politician sits alone. He has a busy schedule when he lands; he has to be alert and awake. So his seat will turn into a bed and he will be able to go
To sleep.
I also have a lot of important things to take care of, but I merely shift uncomfortably. The fellow sitting next to me takes out a bottle of pills and offers me some. They are sleeping pills, he explains. The doctor prescribed them for him after his son was killed in a terrorist attack. As you can imagine, he had trouble going
To sleep.
It is four o’clock in the morning. The young mother has fallen asleep with the baby in her arms on the living room couch. The masmidim have all gone to bed or tumbled to the floor. The first grader sleeps fitfully, talking in her sleep and tossing and turning. The seminary girls and teenagers have finally gone
To sleep.
Hinei lo yanum velo yishan shomer yisroel. But the Guardian of Israel never goes
To sleep.
And so he watches over his nation as they somehow lay aside their troubles and go
To sleep.
There will be a day when all will wake up. Not just those sleeping in their beds, but those sleeping in the ground. The entire world will awaken to a new world. Tika bishofar gadol, a great shofar will sound. And all will awaken to eternal life.
May it be speedily in our days.
