"Morning Sleep … Drives a Person from the World" (Mishnah Avot 3:10): Aspects of Sleep and Sleeping in Jewish Society throughout the Ages

Everyone needs to sleep—but how much? Was there a distinctively Jewish way to sleep? Maimonides, for instance, suggested that a healthy sleep regimen, enabling one to serve God more effectively, required eight hours of sleep. Others considered this excessive and a waste of time that could be better devoted to religious or other pursuits. Some maintained that a person should sleep only the minimum necessary to function—no more, allegedly, than a horse—since sleep was regarded as an individual matter. Excessive sleep was also portrayed as a defining characteristic of the lazy, who toss and turn in bed and refuse to rise even when danger or personal advantage would counsel otherwise.

This study examines Jewish attitudes toward sleep, especially in relation to law and custom, and asks whether such practices were connected to apparently external factors: the location of the sleeping area within the home; the level of noise outside the home; and the organisation and planning of towns and cities. More broadly, it considers whether the pre-modern Jewish and non-Jewish worlds were sleep-friendly or anti-sleep environments.

Prof. Joshua J. Schwartz is Professor Emeritus of Historical Geography of Ancient Israel in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. He received a BA in Jewish Studies and a BS in Jewish History and Jewish Philosophy from Yeshiva University in 1974, an MA in the History of the Jewish People from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1977, and a Ph.D. in the History of the Jewish People from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1981.

He joined Bar-Ilan University's Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology in 1979 and was promoted to Full Professor in 1996. During his academic career, he has served as Chair of the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Coordinator of the Dr. Simon Krauthammer Chair in Archaeology, Dean of the Faculty of Jewish Studies, Director of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies, and Director of the Center for Basic Jewish Studies.

His principal research interests include the Land of Israel during the Second Temple, Mishnah, and Talmud periods; the history of Jerusalem; the material culture of the Land of Israel in antiquity; Jewish and Christian society in Roman-Byzantine Palestine; daily life; historical geography; and the relationship between literary sources and material culture.