Kriat Shema Al Hamitah (Part 22)
“The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more.”
Wilson Mizener – American Playwright
Kriat Shema al Hamitah continues: “Behold, the Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” (Tehillim 121:4)
The acclaimed American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) wrote, “The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.”
I am not sure that the “worst thing” is accurate but there are definitely many things that can keep a person up at night. One of the talmidim of the legendary Ponovezh Yeshiva in Bene Berak noticed that after the revered Rosh Yeshivah, Rabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach (1899-2001), turned off the lights for the night he would turn them back on after about half an hour and then turn them off a few minutes later. This went on throughout the night. The talmid assumed that it was a one-time occurrence but later he realized that almost every night Rabbi Shach’s lights were going on and off. The talmid, consumed with curiosity, decided to try and find out what was happening. He was determined to work out what it was that was causing the Rosh Yeshivah to continuously keep waking up throughout the night. So, one night he decided that he would hide himself outside the window that looked into the room where Rabbi Shach slept and each time that the lights went back on he would try to uncover the mystery. What he discovered was entirely unexpected. Each time the same thing repeated itself, Rabbi Shach would suddenly get up from his sleep and run to look into a sefer, and then return again to his bed. He was so immersed in his learning that even in his sleep his mind was at work!
We all have our reasons for not sleeping well at times. But, Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, on explaining our verse, writes that knowing that Hashem never sleeps and He is constantly guarding over His chosen nation should soothe a person’s worries and let them sleep peacefully.
However, the Midrash Sifri points out that the verse in Sefer Iyov (12:10) reads, “In whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of mankind?” The inference of the verse is that Hashem is constantly guarding over everyone and He is not just the “Guardian of Israel.” The Midrash explains that Hashem’s focus is to sustain and guard us, but in order to do so He must watch over the other nations of the world to ensure that they do not fulfil their evil plans to destroy us. Consequently, Hashem’s supervision of the other nations is not the same as is His supervision over us.
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, universally known as the Ramchal, an acronym of his name, writes at great length in his seminal work, Da’at Tevunot, about how Hashem runs His world using different levels of Divine Providence. He describes how the level of Divine Providence for the Jewish Nation is not comparable to that for the other nations because ours is individualized whereas the other nations are treated to a more generalized approach.
The Malbim explains that the Hebrew word ‘yanum’ [slumber] refers to a very light sleep whereas the word ‘yishan’ [sleep] refers to deep sleep. Hashem, the “Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps”. Our verse is teaching us that Hashem watches over us at all times. Never resting and never moving His focus from us.
And what could be more comforting than knowing that.
To be continued…
