Sunday, December 10, 2006

The Yetzer Hara Gives Me Peaceful Sleep

As I progressed through R. Breiter's list of things that a Breslover should perform daily, I thought that step 5 would be simple. Number five on his list is: the tikkun chatzot, the midnight prayer. Now I figured that this one would be easy because at no point in my life have I actually slept the entire night. I usually fall asleep for about four hours and then wake up. I mean wide awake. After about an hour of laying there I usually get up and do some chores, or some learning, or hit the internet. Then some time about 5 AM I go back to sleep for an hour or two or less depending on when the Little Rebbetzin gets up. So all I had to do was say the tikkun chatzot instead of some of the other things I was doing, easy right? After all I was going to be awake anyway. Of course things didn't work out that way because as soon as I made the commitment to saying tikkun chatzot I began to sleep through the night. Blissful uninterrupted slumber.
Rabbenu says that when you reach a new level you don't get to rest because the sitra achra opposes you more vigorously and you have to struggle even harder. But vigorous opposition in the form of peaceful sleep, this I wasn't prepared for, because it's kind of nice. So I am actually having to work hard at this and it was going to be one of the easier practices to take on.
Step six, saying Modeh ani, remembering the world to come, and rebinding yourself to the Tzaddik, when you wake up, was already happening.
Step seven, arising before dawn. This was actually already going on especially with the shift to standard time pushing sunrise back to 7:30. But the sleeping through the night continued on to sleeping through the morning too. When the yetzer says sleep, sleep it is. So now I'm struggling to get up at night and then struggling again to wake up in the morning, I hope I get bonus points for effort.

1 Comments:

At 6:22 PM, Blogger DixieYid (يهودي جنوبي) said...

I like this thought, though I know it's from a long time ago. For another observation about the yetzer hara as it relates to sleep, check out something I wrote the other day.

http://dixieyid.blogspot.com/2007/01/funny-yetzer-haras.html

-Dixie Yid

 

Post a Comment

<< Home