STAYING UP MOST OF THE NIGHT

Staying Up Most of the Night

BY: GIL STUDENT

Learning and Sleeping

On Shavuos, many stay up all night learning Torah and go to sleep after early morning services. This year, when the holiday follows Sunday, many people will have time to rest before the learning marathon. Other years, some of us rush from a full day of work straight into the holiday. In those years, staying up all night is more of a challenge. What if you can’t make it through the night?

Rav Asher Weiss (cont., Israel; Responsa Minchas Asher, vol. 2 no. 6) addresses the proper approach to prayer on Shavuos morning after studying Torah throughout the night. Some people are so exhausted that they can barely pray, much less with deep intent. Should they go to sleep and wake up for later services? Is this even allowed? Normally, you are not allowed to go to sleep when the time for a mitzvah approaches (generally within half an hour of the beginning time for that mitzvah). If so, within half an hour of dawn, you should not be allowed to go to sleep even if you plan to pray later.

Napping and Sleeping

Rav Weiss quotes Rav Ya’akov Emden (18th cen., Germany; Siddur) as forbidding taking a nap within half an hour of the time for the afternoon Minchah prayers. In contrast, Rav Yitzchak Isaac Chaver (18th cen., Poland; Responsa Binyan Olam, no. 1) permits afternoon naps. He distinguishes between daytime naps, which are short, and nighttime sleeping, which is long. There is little danger that a nap before Minchah time will prevent you from praying. However, a full night’s worth of sleep can last the whole time for morning prayers, preventing you from fulfilling the mitzvah. Therefore, Rav Chaver permits daytime naps but forbids someone who stayed up all night from sleeping before his morning prayers.

The Siddur Ha-Gra, with the Si’ach Yitzchak commentary by Rav Yitzchak Moltzen (early 20th cen., Poland and Israel) quotes Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin and Rav Shmuel Salant as saying that someone who wakes up in the morning after sunrise but before his normal time for waking up may not stay in bed and go back to sleep. He is obligated to pray and may not avoid this obligation by going back to sleep. However, the Chazon Ish (20th cen., Israel; Dinim Ve-Hanhagos 4:13) says that you may go back to sleep. Rav Weiss quotes all this and adds that in his opinion you obviously may return to sleep. We find no mention of this prohibition in any early source. Why would we be concerned that you won’t wake up at your regular time just because you woke up earlier also?

Reawakening

Similarly, continues Rav Weiss, if you have an alarm clock that normally wakes you up, you may go to sleep after sunrise and rely on the clock to wake you up for morning prayers. While Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (20th cen., Israel) did not allow use of an alarm clock in the place of a person, Rav Weiss disagrees. Whatever works for you suffices.

Regarding Shavuos, Rav Weiss says that a man’s wife or children can be trusted to wake him up for morning prayers. Even if you don’t ask them, if that is their regular practice then you can assume they will do it on Shavuos also. Therefore, you may go to sleep after learning all night and then wake up for the later services.

Learning Through Shavuos Night

Rav Weiss adds that the custom of learning throughout Shavuos night comes from the Zohar (Emor) which specifically mentions the entire night. Therefore, Rav Weiss recommends that someone who gets too tired to pray should learn until after sunrise, go to sleep, and wake up for services later. However, he points out that the Seder Ha-Yom says that you should learn on Shavuos the entire night or most of it. Based on this, Rav Weiss recommends to people who are old and weak that they should learn Torah until after midnight, at which point the majority of the night has passed.

I find Rav Weiss’ reasoning difficult. Yes, if I go to sleep at a normal hour then my wife, children or alarm clock can wake me at my normal hour or a little later. But if I am up all night and only go to bed at 4:30 or 5 A.M., nothing will wake me up in time to get to synagogue by 9 A.M. What works for me in a normal situation will not work for me in that highly unusual circumstance. It seems that whatever works to get you out of bed in time for shul is fine, assuming it actually works.