If I would tell you about somebody I know who invested $10,000 over a 10 year period and wound up earning $15,000 at the end ($5k profit), you would say to yourself, o.k. he made a profit..but maybe he could have made more profit over a 10 year period had he invested in something else…? In other words, you would question the business strategy based upon a ROI (Return On Investment) calculation.
What if I told you about a guy who invested the same amount of money over a 10 year period and wound up making 1 million dollars at the end….you’d say, wow! that’s good business….
Small investment…BIG reward.
It is the same thing when it comes to Mitzvos. Assuredly, every Mitzva is special and the reward incalculable. Yet, some mitzvos are easier performed than others…and for great reward!
For example, suppose you see a Jew walking to the bus stop and you are passing by in your car..you do a chessed and give him a lift. It takes you approx. 30 seconds away from your time schedule (your investment into this chessed), yet you may have very well saved this guy 1 hour or more, based on his own time schedule and the bus schedule etc….Small investment..big profit.
Saying Krias Shma Al Hamitta at night (Hamapil), is one of these Mitzvos where the investment is small and the reward is great. Chazzal instruct us not to sleep in a “mitta aramis” (non-Jewish bed). Chazzal over here refer to a bed where the person did not read Krias Shma before going to sleep!
You should know that nighttime is a very scary period of time, where a part of ourselves is dead. We go up to Shamayim and Hakadosh Baruch Hu reviews our actions over the course of the previous day.
Depending on how one concluded his day, is typically how he enters into sleep and how he wakes up the next morning. The Vilna Gaon said that Hashem created sleep in order to supply a person with deep understandings in Torah which the person would not be able to access while awake and which can only be injected into him while he is asleep! ..That is, if you are zoche to go to sleep like the G”ra!
A person who goes to sleep dejected and depressed from the days activities, will typically wake up the next morning even more depressed than the day before! In other words, he literally carries his problems from the day before, into the next day..only now, they have become heightened and exaggerated!
The way to break the trend, the way to regain control of tomorrow which has yet to arrive and to to Teshuva for today which has just passed by, is to go to sleep with Krias Shma on your lips.
When we say Krias shma, we are literally placing ourselves into Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s loving embrace for the duration of the night! It not only changes the affects of our day, but it also has a lasting effect on the day to come and on how we will wake up the next morning!
Of course, its not easy to say the pesukim of Krias shma…we are dead tired after a long day and ready to fall into bed…saying the pesukim line by line takes five minutes…not a short amount of time when you cannot even see straight..!
However, consider the business investment here…
For five minutes of your time, you get to spend the next 6,7 or 8 hours in Hashems loving embrace and with amazing results for your personal and spiritual well being!
Small investment, HUGE reward!
<Heard From Rav Shmishon Pincus Z”L>
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