Sleeping on HaShem (11 minutes)

1:09Same thing here. This man was not a man; he was a malach, an angel. An angel appeared all of a sudden. Yehoshua is like this, just going through his day. They're taking a break, and all of a sudden, there's an angel in front of him with a sword out, meaning he's ready to kill him. It's like, oh, are you with us or against us? He says, no, I'm here on the word of Hashem. What do you mean you heard what you said? What does that mean if you're here for the word of Hashem? Doesn't that mean you're with us? No, I'm not here to help you. I'm here to deliver the word of Hashem. You are technically supposed to get the death penalty right now—all of Am Yisrael is supposed to get the death penalty. Why? I thought you brought us all the way from Egypt to Mount Sinai, 40 years in the desert. You split the ocean for us twice. We got here to Jericho because that was the instruction. What are you going to kill us for? Because, Rabotai, if you go to Chapter 1. Chapter 1, it says, the book of Torah shall not depart from your mouth, rather you should contemplate it day and night.

2:36The Malach tells Yehoshua bin Nun, you had a mitzvah that was told to you; you're supposed to learn Torah day and night. Day and night. He responds, but we're in war. We're in the middle of a war right now. The Malach replies, yes, you were at war in the morning. Now you're not at war; it's night. Yehoshua says, yeah, but we want to rest. What rest? Learn Torah. Or I will take action against you because it's a commandment from Hashem to learn Torah morning and night. Yehoshua bin Nun had a malach with all the miracles that Hashem gave him. He sent them also a malach. He said, "Listen. I told you I wasn't kidding, it wasn't a joke." "Yeah, but we fought a war, we were tired." No, tired is not an excuse in the Torah. There's no, like, you know, reasons for, you know, for Melechet Shabbat. Pikuach nefesh, being tired, pikuach nefesh, being tired, there's no, it doesn't, there's no reason. I'm tired, I'm hungry, none of that. In the middle of a war, in the middle of a war, Hashem sent them an angel, told them if you don't learn Torah at night, you have a serious problem with Yehoshua bin Nun. So here, rabotai, we see,

3:54The Torah is not necessarily trying to threaten us because Hashem wants to constantly punish us, chas v'shalom. The Torah is trying to tell us that you need to follow these instructions morning and night. Why? Because the Yetzer Hara appears morning and night. The Gemara uses an analogy. There's a story in the Torah, in the book of Bereshit, where it says that after 14 years of not sleeping, Yaakov slept on a rock. It says the angels were ascending to Shamayim and descending. All our lives, we were taught that the angels were going up the ladder. Everybody knows this opinion — that the angels were going up the ladder.

4:56That's only one of the opinions. There's another opinion in the Torah. It says they go up and down. Why do they go up and down? The Malachim went up to Shamayim and saw the demut, the image of Yaakov, on the Kisei HaKavod of Hashem Yitbarach. Hashem Yitbarach took Yaakov Avinu's image and put it on His Kisei, on His throne of glory. So, they see Yaakov Avinu's image in Shamayim. Then, they go down and see Yaakov Avinu sleeping. "Whoa, what are you doing sleeping? You can't be sleeping." Yeah, but he didn't sleep for 14 years. "What's the difference? So? He didn't sleep for 14 years. You try not sleeping for 14 years straight!" No, 14 years, some of the opinions say he didn't sleep. One opinion says he didn't sleep at all, like a malach. But most of the opinions are that he slept in a chair for 14 years. He never slept in a bed. The point being, it doesn't make a difference; use whichever opinion you want. The point is, for 14 years, he didn't sleep like a normal person. Now finally, he's falling asleep, taking a little nap, and the angels come down like, "Listen, what are you doing sleeping?"

6:19What are you doing sleeping? You're in kisei ha-kavod. You're not allowed to sleep if you have kisei ha-kavod. And it says they went up and they went down on him. What do you mean by "went up and went down on him"? They went up and they asked permission: can we kill him? They wanted to kill him. They wanted to kill Yaakov Avinu. Why? You're not allowed to sleep on Hashem. You're not allowed to sleep on Hashem. Yeah, but he's Yaakov, he's Kodesh. Amri said it's going to come out. So? So? Sleeping on Hashem, Yaakov Avinu, you were given the gift of being a Jew. You're not to sleep on Hashem. "Yeah, but I'm tired," "my eyes hurt," "and I'm hungry." None of these excuses have a source in the Torah where somebody got away with it. No one in the Torah. I'm telling you all these things because this is the stuff that I say to myself all the time. I'm tired. I'm hungry. My eyes hurt. My back hurts. My this hurts. My that hurts. No. And it's all with myself. And then I tell myself, yeah, but if they're going to kill Yaakov Avinu, what are they going to do to you? I have no zechuyot. Yaakov Avinu, it's important for us to know there's no excuses for us falling asleep and being lazy and so on and so forth.

7:42So now they said, "What is it like?" We'll start with the questions. What is it like? It's like a woman who saw a baby—this baby was sleeping, and the flies came on him. The flies came while the baby was sleeping. The flies started flying around him, and the babysitter took him, and the flies ran away. Says when the flies come, they come when he is sleeping. When do they go away? When she took him and he woke up. Another Gemara says the malach hamavet, what is he like? He is like a fly sitting on your heart. No matter how many times you shoo him away, he is always going to come back. The Adi Gemara explains and completes the story. When is the fly coming? When you're sleeping. When is the fly coming? When you're sleeping. What does it mean when you're sleeping? When you are asleep and the fly, the Malach HaMavet, comes while you're sleeping, nothing bad happens. You just sleep. No. When you're sleeping spiritually,

8:54When you're sleeping spiritually and you're on neutral with your Yiddishkeit, you're on neutral. No, no, I go to Beit Knesset. I learn here and there. I come to shiur once, twice, three times a year. I go to Beit Knesset. You know, I lay tefillin. One guy told me, "I'm religious." I said, "Oh, you keep Shabbat?" He goes, "No, I go to Beit Knesset." I said, "Wait a minute, hold on a second. Are you religious?" He says, "Yeah, I'm Orthodox." I said, "So you keep Shabbat?" He goes, "No, I don't keep Shabbat." I said, "What makes you religious?" He goes, "I put tefillin in Beit Knesset. You don't have tefillin on Shabbat?" One guy said he puts on tefillin on Shabbat also, but he drives on Shabbat too. Tzadikim, Rabotai, Rabotai, when you're sleeping spiritually, when you're sleeping spiritually is when the fly comes, when the Malach HaMavet comes. Why? Because you think that you can coast through life. You can coast through life. We can't coast through life. That's why Hashem gives us these mitzvot, which sometimes are very, very difficult. On one end, he wants you to wake up and realize you're doing this mitzvah dafka because it's difficult, because I said so. If you enjoy the mitzvah, okay, good for you. You did it. But if it's difficult and you did it, that means you did it because you're afraid of me. That's good. That means we have a real relationship.

10:17Then he also tells you, "Hey, look, there's some candy at the end." What's the candy? The feeling you're going to get, the spiritual feeling you're going to get the second it's over. All of a sudden, you feel like you're on cloud nine; all of a sudden, you feel like you're a little mini Moshe Rabbeinu. All of a sudden, you're on Mount Sinai like, "Oh, I can go for another week. Fast one day? That's nothing. Next year, I'm going to do a chumrah, I'm going to do two days." Maybe I should start fasting from now till Tisha B'Av. You feel like you're strong because there's no Yetzer Hara. There's no Yetzer Hara. But Hashem wants you to do the mitzvot that are difficult. He wants you to do mitzvot that challenge you. It's not like Ramadan, where they're trying to do all year round, but they're missing the point sometimes. The important thing is to know that the mitzvot are not always fun. But if you do them because Hashem said so, then you're a kosher Jew. But if you do them only when you understand or when you don't understand, it's only a matter of time before that zvuv, before that fly comes and says, ah, you're sleeping spiritually. It's time for us to attack.