Napping in the Jewish Tradition 4
Never ask a question you don’t want answered
Here at TND, we are just regular guys who happen to share a love for napping. I’ve recently been made aware1 that talking about, thinking about, writing about and actually taking naps consumes a lot of my life. As the most widely read napping-focused blog in the world,2 we have a strong assumption,3 that our audience is generally made up of nappers or folks trying to make napping a part of their routine.4
But we feel a responsibility to share the entire story, even if it conflicts with our passions. In that vein, there’s an old wives’ tale5 that says that one should not sleep during the day on Rosh Hashanah. Or so I thought it was a tale. Apparently, it’s actually in the Talmud.6 According to Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov:
It is customary not to sleep during the day on Rosh Hashanah. Rather, one should engage in Torah study or recite Tehillim.7 One who is idle, however, is considered as if he slept.
The Talmud Yerushalami notes:
If one sleeps at the beginning of the year, i.e., on Rosh Hashanah, his good fortune also sleeps.
Well, so much for all that good fortune. I napped like a champ on Saturday, the first day of RH.
But it got me thinking: what’s it like to intentionally not nap? As I described recently, I generally nap, but there are days where life happens and a nap doesn’t. But I never go out of my way to avoid a nap.
Is it possible to do that and still be considered a TND and TAENR member?
Just the notion of thinking about the notion makes me uncomfortable.
But I also like to challenge myself, and seeing the world from the side of a non-napper can only make me a better napper, right? Right??
So that’s what I’ve set out to do. I did nap on day 2 of RH, but it was in temple during the Rabbi’s Sermon and unintentional, so I don’t really count that.
I intentionally didn’t nap when I got back from Temple on Sunday.
And I intentionally didn’t nap yesterday and today.
I’ll be back with the results soon enough.8
Possibly admonished.
According to many.
Based on the enormous volume of feedback received.
However, we also know there some non-nappers just here to learn more and be entertained, a break from the grind. And we also have a sense that there are some Never Nappers out there. That’s ok; all are welcome, and hate has no home here.
I wonder if referring to something as an old wives’ tale is what gets us canceled.
The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha) and Jewish theology.
Psalms.
Or I won’t be back, and you’ll know that I got kicked out of TND for this experiment.