In the beginning of this week’s parsha, Pharoah has a dream of 7 fat cows and 7 skinny cows. Rav Avraham Twerski once asked why Hashem made Pharoah dream of cows? What did the cows represent? He answered the cows were a symbol to Pharoah that he lives his life like a cow. A cow spends all of its time caring about one thing: itself. It spends the whole day eating grass and making its tummy satisfied. When its not eating, it is sleeping. The same was with Pharoah; Pharoah only cared about himself. Pharoah woke up after he had this dream, but a few moments later, he was back asleep again. Compare this to Yaakov Avinu in Parshas Vayeitzei. Yaakov woke up from a dream of a ladder with angels going down and up and realized he was sleeping in a holy place. He immediately woke up and exclaimed “How could I sleep in a place so holy!” This is because Yaakov was focused on the spiritual world unlike Pharoah who only cared about the physical world, especially his own physical needs.

Rav Moshe Feinstein, like many of us, would wake up in the middle of the night sometimes. But, unlike many of us, once he woke up, he would not go to sleep again that night. He felt if G-d wanted him to wake up at that time, then he has had enough sleep for the night. One of his students decided he wanted to start following his rebbe’s lead and tried staying up the rest of the night after he woke up. After a few nights, he came to Rav Moshe to ask for advice because he could barely keep his eyes open during the day anymore. Rav Moshe told his student that it took him much time of training and working on himself to be able to stay awake after waking in the middle of the night. It did not immediately happen. He told the boy to go back to his regular sleeping pattern and occasionally he could try staying awake after waking up in the middle of the night.

We can learn many lessons from this story with Rav Moshe but one is the importance of sleep. We see that Rav Moshe told his student to get a proper amount of sleep so he could function properly the next day. There is nothing wrong with falling back to sleep when a person wakes up in the middle of the night. It depends, though, on what the person is thinking as he falls back to sleep. Does he think ‘I am going back to sleep because I’m tired and want to satisfy myself.’ Or does he think ‘I am still tired and want to be able to properly perform the mitzvos I will be doing tomorrow (which include going to work to provide for one’s family and behaving like a mentsch – which usually requires proper sleep – because lack of proper sleep normally makes people grouchy.) Pharoah slept for the first reason. Yaakov Avinu, Rav Moshe, and Rav Moshe’s student slept for the second reason.

During this time of year, many people have time off from their work. On those days when a person can “sleep late”, ask yourself what is the real reason you are sleeping late. If you truly need a good night’s sleep, then by all means go for it (but make sure to wake up in time to recite Shema and Tefilah at the proper time).

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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and remember – if you ever are having problems falling to sleep, just read Divrei Simcha – I’m sure it will put you to sleep…