Q&A: A Sleeping Person Is Exempt from Commandments
A Sleeping Person Is Exempt from Commandments
Question
If there is a rule that someone who is asleep is exempt from commandments, why do I still have to get up in the morning in time for the deadline for reciting the Shema? After all, I’m asleep, so I’m exempt.
Thank you!
Answer
Indeed, regarding the sukkah there is even a practical suggestion: if two people both do not have a place to sleep in the sukkah, one can fall asleep and then the other can remove him and sleep there in his place.
But by simple reasoning, setting an alarm clock is a reasonable way to behave, just as you do for any other meeting or event. So a commandment is certainly no worse than that, and if you didn’t set an alarm, you are not considered coerced by circumstances.
Discussion on Answer
I wrote it already: in such a case you are not considered coerced by circumstances, and therefore you have neglected the positive commandment of reciting the Shema.
The difference between reciting the Shema, from which a sleeping person is not exempt, and the commandment of sukkah, where according to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach if someone fell asleep due to circumstances beyond his control he is exempt and should not be awakened, is explained in the notes to the book Halikhot Shlomo (Prayer): everything depends on the moment he lies down to sleep. If he truly fell asleep due to circumstances beyond his control, then he is indeed exempt from commandments. But if he went to sleep normally, as usually happens, then he has to plan for his present and future obligations now, and if he did not, he is not exempt at all. Others too must wake him, as brought in Berakhot (13?) regarding waking for at least the first verse of the Shema.
That is exactly what I wrote.
Thank you!
But what is the source of this rule? Is it an obligation, or just proper conduct?