'To RISE AT MIDNIGHT and to carry out the order with sackcloth and ashes and with great weeping and with full concentration on that which he utters with his lips. And then to study the Torah …'

Now, my brother, I have mentioned previously the subject of the midnight vigil. Here I speak of the value of this vigil, for which you should consult the words of the Ari, of blessed memory. Yet it is desirable that you make the preparations for the midnight vigil before going to sleep by reciting the night prayer, the benediction of Hashkivenu; and when reciting the benediction Hamapil, you must offer supplication to your Creator, the One who has formed you, your Maker, the King of kings, that He should send His angel to accompany you with gracious favour when you sleep so that you will wake up in time with the proper intention for the vigil. This is found in the printed Siddur of the Ari, of blessed memory.

My brother, you should know, moreover-I have this as a tradition from my teachers-that a time of acceptance is bestirred at the midnight vigil to pardon any sin whatsoever in a far better way than the pardon offered as a result of many fasts and self-torments. In this generation, there is no man on earth capable of self-mortification through fasting. For fasting requires great separation, a departure into deserts, forests, and caves, as we find the heroes of the Zohar going out to the deserts of the dark mountains, places in which no man had trod; and they were as hermits of the desert, like the Old Man mentioned in ‘Tetzaveh’. The whole of the Zohar is full of this. Such and such a tanna would go into the desert, into a cave, and there in the desert he would strip off from himself all worldly concerns and draw down the holy spirit by means of the songs and praises of King David. And by means of the inner Torah they would proceed from world to world as stated in the Sha ‘arei kedushah. Go and see how R. Simeon hen Yohai and his son R. Eleazar acquired, through their separation from the world, their profound clarity of perfection in the cave in which they were hidden for thirteen years.