Things Not To Do on Nittel

Nechoma Greisman was an educator, counselor and speaker who reached thousands of women through her classes and books.

Tragically, at the age of 39, hours after giving birth to her 10th child, she passed away, leaving an enormous and irreplaceable loss to Jews worldwide.

In her book “Through the Eyes of a Woman – A Chassidic Perspective On Living Torah,” translated to English by Rabbi Moshe Miller, she discusses nittel nacht.

Excerpt courtesy of Chabad.org:

I couldn’t prepare my shiur last night because it was nittel (the eve of the 25th of December). In Israel we’re not so conscious of the Gregorian calendar.

Those of you who come from the west know that the night before December 25th is a big holiday among the goyim. Many religious Jews do not learn Torah on that night. This is one of the reasons that it is called nittel — meaning “take away.” Because we do not learn Torah on that day, it has no real substance, since it is only the Torah which defines reality.

In the future, when Moshiach comes, they’re going to have to rewrite the calendar, because the present significance of the 25th of December will no longer exist.

Now when a Jew learns Torah, you may say, “Oh, he learned a little Chumash. So what’s the big significance?” Don’t underestimate yourself. A Jewish Neshamah is extremely powerful, whether the person is a big tzaddik or just a plain, ordinary Jew. Every Jew is very powerful.

When a Jew sits down to learn Torah, even if it’s just sitting down and reading a Torah-based book, that Jew has a chemical effect. When you take two chemicals and put them together, zap — something happens. When you combine a Jew with Torah it has a great effect. You may not see it. Everything still looks just the same. But that’s because you’re looking with your finite, physical eyes.

But in the spiritual realms, any time a Jew, man, woman or child, learns any amount of Torah, it has a ripple effect in all of the worlds, this world as well as in the World to Come.

This combination of the Jew studying Torah gives strength to whatever is happening in the world, just as when a Jew transgresses, G-d forbid, it causes a blemish in all of the worlds.

All of the above is just a brief and superficial comment. To understand these things better, I would recommend that you read Tanya , because in Tanya these concepts are dealt with in depth.

I grew up in a Lubavitch house, and probably because chassidim are more mystical and more spiritual, this custom of refraining from studying Torah on nittel night is more strictly observed than among other groups.

Now although the reasons for not learning Torah until midnight that night are very mystical, and we don’t understand them, there’s a concept in Yiddishkeit known as kabbalas ol — accepting the yoke of Heaven, even if we do not understand something.

Although we refrain from doing overt learning, most of us can find enough to keep ourselves busy, with all the laundry and the dishes…

While we are on the subject, we might as well make mention of forms of entertainment, particularly for kids. If you ever go to the toy store and take a look around, you will see for yourself that the kinds of toys that are sold today are mostly really stupid. You can spend a lot of money on a dumb toy, and it doesn’t ever get smarter. Neither do some people — they spend so much money for a toy that’s so stupid.

But there are toys that are smart toys. What is the difference between a smart toy and a stupid toy? A stupid toy is something that doesn’t require any intelligence. Stupid toys are like television — you can sit in front of it glued to the screen for hours and hours on end and then at the end you say, “Did I get more intelligent? Did I get more knowledge? Did it sharpen my mind?” Nope. The more television, the duller the mind becomes. Why? Because it does not demand any input from you. It is totally passive.

Certain things exercise the mind. Just as the more you do push-ups, the stronger your arms will become, so too with the mind. When a person is occupied with mental activities that exercise the mind, it makes the mind sharper and more powerful.

The Rebbe spoke a lot about chess. Chess is in the category of games that not only require knowledge to play, especially to win, but they also sharpen the mind for learning Torah. So therefore the Rebbe said that a good pastime on the night of nittel is to play chess.

Once, a famous chess-player came to the Rebbe and the Rebbe explained to him what we can learn in the service of G-d from the game of chess. [This has been printed in Hebrew in Yemei Bereishis. — ed.].

So on nittel you can play chess. This is different from the concept of leisure, lying on the beach and soaking up the sun. That’s a waste of time, and I don’t think you can learn anything about serving Hashem from it.