High Alert

In today’s world, the concept of work hours versus leisure hours has become blurred. It is common today for professionals to work through lunch and dinnertime. With the help of internet, texting, laptops and cell phones, one can theoretically work from anywhere, round the clock. However, after 18 or 19 hours of alertness, the body begins to resist. Long-term sleep deprivation can cause severe stress on the body, weaken the immune system and even lead to depression. At a certain point, even the busiest and most active people must give in to their need for sleep.

To get around the body’s inexorable need for sleep, a new generation of “psycho-enhancement” drugs has been developed. Unlike the previous generation of stimulants such as caffeine, amphetamines or Ritalin, which arouse the entire central nervous system, the newer brain enhancers work on the specific nervous system pathways that control sleep. The drug Modafinil, which has been approved by the FDA as a treatment for narcolepsy (attacks of irresistible daytime dozing), has also been given to air force pilots to enable them to work forty-hour shifts.

Sleep and wakefulness have familiar spiritual counterparts. The exile is compared to night, and the state of moral confusion that accompanies exile is likened to sleep. The prophets used the allegory of sleep to depict their efforts to arouse the people to the true reality of G-d and the Divine will.

The Rambam, too, uses sleep as an allegory for spiritual apathy, which numbs the person to any sense of purpose in life. Spiritual stupor leads one to invest energies in frivolous matters that do not lead to true satisfaction or fulfillment.

The time of Redemption is an awakening, when we will become aware of and sensitive to the G-dliness that surrounds us. The Lubavitcher Rebbe says that all we have to do is “open our eyes” to perceive that we are already living in the time of Redemption. In exile we are in a state of sleep, but simply by opening our eyes we can enter a new reality.

Any “evidence” that negates the reality of Redemption is false, regardless of how convincing it appears to our senses. It is only a dream. As King David describes in Psalms, “When G-d will return the captives of Zion, we will have been like dreamers.” (126:1) ■