Going to Sleep Like a Jew - What Do We Do with the Shema Said Before Bed? | Rabbi Asher Perkesh

00:00 Today we’ll talk about Krias Shema before bed. What exactly is it about? We say Shema in the morning, and we say Shema in the evening. The verse says, “You shall speak of them when you sit in your home, when you walk on the way, when you lie down, and when you rise.” Our Sages say that we must recite Shema both morning and evening, and we do that during davening. We recite the morning Shema in Shacharis and the evening Shema in Maariv. But in addition, we recite Krias Shema before bed. What is its importance? The Gemara in Berachos says some very significant things about it. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says on page 5 that even though a person has already recited Shema during Maariv, he must recite Shema again on his bed. The Gemara goes on to say: “Whoever recites Shema on his bed is as though he holds a double-edged sword.” It also says: “Whoever recites Shema on his bed, harmful forces keep their distance from him.” And there are other very important things said about Krias Shema before bed. What exactly is this avodah? What is its purpose? Why isn’t the Shema I say during Maariv enough? Why are we supposed to say it again before bed? We also see in Jewish practice that siddurim include, besides Shema, various other verses: verses of teshuvah, verses expressing regret, and confession. There are different versions, but one verse is said in all of them. It is also mentioned in the Gemara in Berachos: “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit; You have redeemed me, Hashem, G-d of truth.” It is a verse from chapter 31 of Tehillim. As the Gemara indicates, this is a central and important verse in Krias Shema before bed. So today

02:26 we’ll talk first about the general meaning and importance of Krias Shema before bed. We’ll focus in particular on the verses of Shema Yisroel that we say before going to sleep, the verses of confession and teshuvah, and the verse “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit; You have redeemed me, Hashem, G-d of truth.” What is this verse about? What does it signify? What is its deeper meaning? We’ll see that Krias Shema before bed is a fundamental part of a Jew’s life and daily routine. That’s both because we end the day with this prayer and because it is, in fact, the beginning of the next day. With Krias Shema before bed, we do two things: we close the present day, but we also open a new page for the day to come. In the account of Creation, the verse says, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” In other words, it all begins in the evening: “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” According to the Torah’s account of Creation, evening is the beginning of the day. Days change over in the evening. That means the new day has already begun by evening. And as Chassidus explains the verse: “And there was evening”—when a person does the avodah of Krias Shema before bed properly in the evening; “and there was morning”—when he gets up in the morning and begins his day with Shacharis as he should; then it will be “one day”: a day in which the One, the oneness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, will shine for him in everything he does, down to every detail. What exactly is the avodah of Krias Shema before bed? On the one hand, as explained at length in the sefarim, particularly in works of Chassidus, it is a time for taking stock of oneself. A person lives in this world, and just as

05:00 with everything we do in life, we need to keep accounts. That means a person needs to know, after a day has passed, exactly what happened that day. Someone in business thinks at the end of the day: What happened today? How did my day go? Were there profits? Were there losses too? What were the expenses, and what was the income? He needs to review what happened today so he knows how to prepare for tomorrow. Anyone who runs a business knows that at the end of the day, he has to check that day’s accounts. The same is true in serving Hashem. When a day has passed, we need to know what we accomplished and what we did today—what came in and what went out. In other words, what positive things did I do today? What did I do today that wasn’t good and that I need to correct? Before going to sleep, I need to regret those things and ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu for forgiveness. I need to reinforce the good things I did today and draw strength from them, and make a firm resolution that tomorrow will be different. The Rebbe Rashab said that Krias Shema before bed is, on a small scale, like the confession said before the soul passes on to the next world. The sefarim say that at the end of a person’s life, when he reaches 120 and must return his soul to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there is the confession said as the soul departs. At that point, a person regrets all the wrong things he did, presents to Hakadosh Boruch Hu all the good things he did, and asks forgiveness and pardon so that he can pass on to the next world and leave this one pure and refined, as explained in many places. The Rebbe Rashab says that sleep—the Gemara, after all, says that sleep

07:22 is one-sixtieth of death, a kind of departure of the soul from this world. In other words, sleep is also a time when the soul ascends. Of course, the person remains alive and will wake up refreshed the next morning. But there is a transition during sleep that is similar to that moment. The similarity is that here, too, before going to sleep, a Jew needs to feel regret, do teshuvah, ask forgiveness for what was not good, and strengthen what was good. The great difference, the Rebbe Rashab said, is that at the end of a person’s life, the market day is over—the fair has closed. But in day-to-day life, a person still has the opportunity. Another day begins tomorrow, and he can still correct, make up for, and add to whatever he did not do enough of the day before. So that is the good news of Krias Shema before bed. On the one hand, it is an opportunity for a person to clean things up, put them in order, and understand what happened to him during the day, so that he can make better use of the next day. He can begin it clean and pure, and make it a better day than the one before. There is a story about one of the great chassidim, Reb Gershon Ber. Reb Gershon Ber Levin was one of the great chassidim of the Tzemach Tzedek and the Rebbe Maharash. By the time of the Rebbe Rashab, he was already among the elder chassidim. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates that as a child, he was still fortunate enough to know Reb Gershon Ber and heard many stories from him about the lives of the chassidim of the earlier generations. He also describes Reb Gershon Ber’s special avodah of Krias Shema before bed: how he would sit before reciting it and reflect as he took stock of himself, and how he would say its words with a special melody, sometimes with tears and weeping. So he relates

09:45 Reb Gershon Ber, after he finished the avodah of reciting Shema before going to sleep and taking stock of the day that had passed, would say to himself: “Gershon Ber, what happened today is past. Tomorrow will be completely different.” He would say it in Yiddish: “Morgen vet zayn gor andersh.” Tomorrow will be completely different. Gershon Ber was a chossid, a servant of G-d, a scholar—a Jew who sat and learned Torah without stopping. He was a Jew who davened for long hours every day and who had reached a very high level in refining his character traits. But even so, when he took stock of himself during the bedtime Shema, that was always his conclusion. His last word, his summary before going to sleep, was: “Tomorrow will be completely different.” That feeling, that expression, was the result of all the inner work of the bedtime Shema. At the center of Shema is, of course, the passage of Shema: “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” What is the purpose of saying Shema before going to sleep, when we have already said it in the morning prayers and again in the evening, at Maariv? Why does a Jew repeat the passages of Shema once more—“Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One”? The Frierdiker Rebbe explains in one of his maamarim: The soul descends into the world to illuminate it, to refine it, to make our world a better world, a more G-dly world. In general, the purpose of the soul’s descent into the world—the reason a Jew is here in this physical world—is to reveal Hashem’s oneness in the world. That is really the inner purpose of everything we do. When a Jew learns Torah and fulfills mitzvos, eats for the sake of Heaven, and conducts his business for the sake of Heaven, he is revealing Hashem’s oneness in the physical world. When the end of the day arrives, as we said earlier,

12:13 each day is, in a certain sense, an entire lifetime. When the day ends and I go to sleep, a Jew says, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” Everything I did today—all the good things I did, the Torah I learned, the prayers I davened, the mitzvos I fulfilled, the eating and the business I conducted for the sake of Heaven—all my actions today were for the purpose of “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One”: to reveal Hashem’s oneness in the world. And I entrust all of it to Hashem. But there are also things I did not do as I should have, things I failed to do, times I did not behave as I should have. I stumbled here and there. We are not perfect people, and when each of us takes stock at the end of the day, we see quite a few things that were not done properly. For that, Hashem gave us the power of teshuvah. That is why we also recite the verses of confession and ask for forgiveness and atonement. We ask Hashem to help us and grant us “Create a pure heart for me, O G-d, and renew a steadfast spirit within me”—to give us the strength to renew ourselves, to grow stronger and to become clean, so that no trace, no trace of the wrong things I did during the day will remain. Then comes the verse that is really the central verse, as is clear from the Gemara. We say it in the bedtime Shema; according to some customs, it is said at the end, because it is the verse that expresses the whole essence of the bedtime Shema. This is what we say: “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit; You have redeemed me, Hashem, G-d of truth.” What are we saying in this verse? First of all, “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit.” The simple meaning is that a Jew entrusts his soul to Hashem. When a person goes to sleep,

14:17 as it is written, the soul ascends Above. He entrusts his soul as a deposit, as the Midrash says. When I go to sleep, I entrust my soul like a deposit: “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit.” I give my soul to Hashem to watch over. And here the Midrash says something remarkable: What is the difference between a person giving a deposit to someone else and a Jew entrusting a deposit to Hashem? When a person gives something to another person for safekeeping, two things can happen. First, time takes its toll. I hand over an item, but after a few days it deteriorates. It loses its freshness. The thing I—time itself takes its toll, and things become worn, and so on. With Hashem, it is not like that. We give Him our souls worn out, weak, tired, broken. We have worked hard all day and go to sleep, and Hashem returns them to us fresh, whole, healthy, with new vitality—as though we had been born anew. It is something remarkable that happens to us every day. The second thing is that when you give a deposit to a certain person, you may owe that person something. You may have treated him badly; you may owe him money. It is very hard to expect him to return your deposit in full afterward, and even if he does return it, he may make you feel bad about it. With Hashem, not only does He return our deposit to us, with all its renewed strength, but He also forgives us for all the things we did wrong. That is what we say: “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit.” I place the deposit, my soul, in Hashem’s hands. “You have redeemed me.” Hashem redeems the soul from all the negative things, giving us the ability to become clean, to— to be refined, so that no

16:15 evil remains from anything I did during the day, and to settle all the debts. “You have redeemed me, Hashem, G-d of truth.” What do the words “Hashem, G-d of truth” mean? Here the Frierdiker Rebbe gives a remarkable explanation that reveals the depth of this verse and why we say it before going to sleep. The Rebbe says: “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit.” First of all, this is not just about the deposit I hand over, right? There is something deeper here, too. As we said earlier, when a Jew goes to sleep, it is not only the end of the day that has passed; it is also the beginning of the next day. And when a Jew says, “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit,” he is saying, in other words: Everything I did throughout the day, I hand over to You. It is Yours. Everything I did, I did for You. Everything I did today was to serve Hashem, for the sake of Hashem. It is entirely Yours. More than that, as preparation for the next day, “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit” means: I devote myself to You. There is this overall commitment. Tomorrow I will get up, and I will need to work on every detail, to daven, to act. Now, before a Jew goes to sleep, he makes that commitment and says: Tomorrow will be a completely different day. Tomorrow will be a day when I am devoted to Hashem. “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit” means: I devote myself to Hashem, so that my entire day tomorrow will be dedicated to doing whatever Hashem wants. The Frierdiker Rebbe says: The three Hebrew words for “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit” form the acronym be’er, a well. What is a well? A well of living water. A well contains living water beneath the ground. What do you see above ground? Earth, stones, dirt, mud. Then a person comes along and has to dig, remove the earth, remove the stones, remove the dirt.

18:14 Sometimes you have to dig several meters, many meters. You dig and dig and dig. Eventually you discover living water, sweet water rising from deep in the earth. The living water is there naturally, but you can’t see it. Digging reveals it. Every Jew has a well of living water. The pure soul is a part of G-d above, literally. That is the well of living water, the spring of life, a spring of love, a spring of faith, a spring of connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But it is covered—covered with mud, covered with earth, covered with stones, with the materialism and coarseness of the world around us. The body, the animal soul, and the yetzer hara keep us from feeling the light of the soul. Then comes the bedtime Shema. That is the digging: removing the earth, removing the covering, and thereby revealing the living water. “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit”—that is what a Jew awakens within himself. He brings out the living water inside him, reveals it, and decides to devote himself to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And then we say, “You have redeemed me, Hashem, G-d of truth.” It’s true that during the day I did things I shouldn’t have done, but Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the G-d of truth. He knows the truth. He knows that a Jew always wants to do Hashem’s will. A Jew’s truth is the truth of his soul. My truth is the truth of the part of G-d above. I want to be a good Jew. I want to serve Hashem. The yetzer hara attacks me. It gets in my way. So that is the meaning of “You have redeemed me.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu redeems us. He pardons us and forgives us. He gives us another chance. He tells you: Tomorrow will be a better day, because He is the G-d of truth. He knows the truth—that our bad

20:06 behavior comes from our surroundings, from friends who aren’t good for us, from all kinds of things around us that make the challenges harder. Hakadosh Boruch Hu knows about all of that, and He takes it all into account. So, as the G-d of truth, He forgives us and gives us strength. He takes the soul and gives it new energy, new vitality, so that the next day will be a healthier day, a stronger day, a day of complete devotion to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And with that—with the decision that tomorrow will be completely different—a Jew goes to sleep at night. That is the purpose of the bedtime Shema before sleep. So, to sum up, what do we do when we say the bedtime Shema each night? First, we take stock of ourselves. That doesn’t have to be very complicated. It means taking a few minutes to think. If it’s hard for you to do it in your head, write it down in a notebook: the course of your day, what you did today, how you behaved throughout the day, what your routine was, and what the good things were. Make a point of thinking about the good things and reinforcing them, drawing strength from them and feeling good and satisfied about what you did, so that tomorrow those things will continue to be good—and even better. As for the things that weren’t good, regret them and ask forgiveness. That is why the text of the bedtime Shema includes a request for forgiveness and pardon from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Then we say the verses about Hashem’s oneness, through which we unite with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and all the verses of teshuvah in the bedtime Shema, until the verse, “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit; You have redeemed me, Hashem, G-d of truth.” And we make a decision, a practical decision. Sometimes we also need to think about specific things: What am I going to do tomorrow to make the day better? And the main point is this: yes, tomorrow will be completely different. With that, a Jew goes

22:01 to sleep healthy, happy, and full of vitality, resolved that tomorrow will be better. Then his sleep is healthy sleep. As the Midrash says, at night the soul ascends above and draws life—draws life from the Source of life, draws life from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It receives new life, freshness, renewed vitality, so that tomorrow morning, when we open our eyes and say, “Modeh ani lefanecha, Melech chai vekayam, shehechezarta bi nishmasi bechemlah, rabbah emunasecha”—“I thank You, living and eternal King, for returning my soul to me with compassion; great is Your faithfulness”—we will say it with joy and renewed vitality. May Hakadosh Boruch Hu grant each and every one of us healthy lives, happy lives, lives of joy. May we truly merit to make the most of every day, so that each day is a day of serving Hashem, and in this way merit the great day, the day of the true and complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu.