A Chassidic teaching on the bedtime prayer Krias Shema She'al Hamita explains that before sleep, the soul ascends for purification through honest self-examination of the day. Rabbi Tenenbaum spent hours on this prayer each night, sleeping in humility rather than comfort, because how you sleep determines how you rise.
When a person goes to sleep, his neshamah goes up to be purified. You have to make a cheshbon hanefesh beforehand because your neshamah is going to go up and you're going to judge your neshamah. And the neshamah, when it's going up, it's purified if you went to sleep in the right way. How do you go to sleep in the right way? So you have to make a cheshbon nefesh, how did the day pass? How was your kabbalah soul, machushamayim? How much were you connected with the Aibishter in your daily behavior? And that's what Prishin Shel Amit is all about. Realizing that everything is from the Aibishter, and that your neshamah is now going to face the Besan Shel B'ilo.
As a child, you have to remember that I went to sleep before my father started to learn kishmu. It took hours for him to concentrate and think about what happened that day and how he has to correct it or rectify or give back his neshamah to Hashem. I heard it from quite a few people, kishmu shalomita took a very long time for him. He used to sit down He stopped with "Ibogna shalom," and then 3 minutes later again, "Ibogna shalom." And it took him— and they all went to sleep, and they woke up in the middle of the night and he's still over there.
"Ibogna shalom." Before the war, some American boys came from America to Atsvatzkuti Yeshiva to learn. One of those students was Rabbi Bar-Levi, the founder of OK Laboratories. Who ended up in the dormitory room of my father, Rabbi Tenenbaum. He describes how impressed he was with his new roommate of studying and Chassidus, etc., etc. He said, I would lie in bed pretending to be asleep. Rabbi Tenenbaum would glance at me to see if I was sleeping. When he thought that I was in a deep sleep, he would spend hours reciting Kishmosh HaLamita. And he said there was a lot to hear and see. Rabbi Greenglass, the mashpia from Montreal, said when he first came to yeshiva, he saw how Rabbi Tenebaum's bed was for weeks always the same, meaning that it was unused. Close to midnight, he was still learning Shulchan Aruch, and he would fall asleep with his head on his hands that were resting on the table. He would never dress in pajamas. When he would wake up from a short nap, he would begin saying Kishmosh HaLamita with a distinctive nigun. He would softly sing the melody as a violinist plays a soft sound on his instrument.
Anything today, what we have to do is before we do something, you have to think, what am I doing? You shouldn't do it as a machine. And I think that's the main problem today, is everything is just mitzvah, neshamah, nu'modah, you know, it's like a machine. You know, you are programmed and you're doing it. You're programmed What are you doing there? We have to start using a little chabad, to start thinking before we do something. What am I doing there? I'm saying keshas. What is keshas shalomita? I'm saying a bracha. To whom am I saying the bracha? Why am I saying the bracha? That small thought changes the whole thing. If we would have that, then think keshas shalomita, anything would take a little more a bit different. Just before we do something, to really think, what am I doing?
That you have to get up in the morning like a lion to serve the Eibeshter. When you're lying on your bed, you should know in front of who you're lying. The Deivisha sees you. So simply put, what the Ramal is talking about, that when you wake up in the morning, you shouldn't be lazy and you should know that you're lying down in front of the Deivisha, it's waiting for you to get up. But there is a Chassidish Avod that the Mechaber is talking about how you have to get up in the morning. So why does the Ramal speak about how you go to sleep? About how you lie down in bed. They say because if you go to sleep like a horse, you're going to get up like a horse, like an animal. It's what do you make sure that you get back in the Shom Aviyid when you, after you go to sleep and the Neshamah goes up. That's the Chesed Menor Nefesh you make, that's the Kishin Shel Amitah that you have to do too at night before you go to sleep so you go to sleep in the proper way. I mean, you go to sleep You go to sleep like a chasid, you'll get up like a chasid. You go to sleep with the realization that you're going to sleep and the Eibeshter is on top of you and you're sleeping like the way you're supposed to be sleeping. So then you'll get up in the morning with the realization that the Eibeshter is on top of you and you'll get up like a chasid.
