Kiddush Hashem in Thought: Idle Hours Redeemed
Hours alone in a room with nothing to do, or a night lying awake, seem like time simply lost. R' Elimelech opens his list of daily practices with exactly those hours. What could a person do in them, without leaving his bed, that the Torah would count as a mitzvah?
- Editor's note: The Tzetel Katan, “the little note,” is R' Elimelech's short list of practices for every day, printed at the front of the sefer; its seventeen items follow here. Its opening words echo Vayikra 18:5. ↩
- Vayikra 22:32. The Rambam counts kiddush Hashem among the 613 mitzvos (Sefer HaMitzvos, positive mitzvah 9). ↩
- Kiddushin 40a. ↩
The Tzetel Katan opens with the hours that seem the most wasted: sitting idle alone, or lying awake at night. R' Elimelech fills them with the positive mitzvah of kiddush Hashem, “I shall be sanctified among Bnei Yisrael.” The person pictures a vast fire reaching to the heart of the heavens and sees himself breaking his nature and throwing himself into it for the sanctity of Hashem's Name. Since, as Chazal teach, Hashem joins a good thought to the deed, this pictured readiness counts as the act itself. The idle hour is no longer idle: it becomes the fulfillment of a positive mitzvah of the Torah. This first practice is the ground of what follows, for items 2 and 3 return to the same picture of the fire at prayer, at meals and in marital intimacy.
When you sit idle or lie awake, picture the fire and your readiness to enter it for Hashem's Name, for He counts the good thought as a deed, and the empty hour becomes a mitzvah of the Torah.
Learn this in the merit of Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk. His yahrzeit and life ›
English translation, notes and summaries © Zechusam.