to point out todays Hayom Yom:
One of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings:
“When you see chamor, a donkey”1 – when you carefully examine your chomer (“materiality”), your body, you will see…
…”your enemy” – meaning, that your chomer hates your Divine soul that longs for G‑dliness and the spiritual, and furthermore, you will see that it is…
…”lying under its burden” placed upon it – (the body) by G‑d, namely, that it should become refined through Torah and mitzvot; but the body is lazy to fulfill them. It may then occur to you that…
…”you will refrain from helping it” – to enable it to fulfill its mission, and instead you will follow the path of mortification2 of the flesh to break down the body’s crass materiality. However, not in this approach will the light of Torah reside. Rather…
…”you must aid it” – purify the body, refine it, but do not break it by mortification.
the Taz writes (Even HaEzer 25:1) that one who eats well and sleeps adequately to have energy to serve Hashem earns the same merit as one who fasts. He thus explains the passuk (Tehilim 127:2) “It is futile for you who arise early, who sit late, who eat the bread of toil, so will the Lord give to one who banishes sleep from himself” – both learners who deprive themselves of sleep in order to learn and those who sleep adequately before learning earn the same merit, because what one can do in an hour after sleeping well, a sleep-deprived learner does in two. “It is futile for you who arise early” – the efforts you make to wake up early in the morning and sit up late in the Beis Midrash at night, are for naught, because: “…So will the Lord give to one who banishes sleep from himself.” The portion of Torah of one who sleeps properly and one who deprives himself of sleep will be equal. : “Everything depends on the intention“