Tikkun Leil Shavuot

Why should someone stay up to learn Torah on Shavuot night?

Shavuot is Zeman Matan Torateinu, the time of receiving our Torah. There are various customs associated with the holiday. One of the more Torah-oriented ones is staying up all night to study Torah.

This practice has its earliest roots in the Zohar:

 In kabbalistic works,Torah can be referred to as a tachshit, a jewel. According to the Zohar, the pious learn Torah on Shavuot night in order to adorn or bejewel the kenesset Yisrael, the metaphysical essence of the Jewish people past and present, in preparation for her wedding with God, i.e., renewing the covenant of Sinai.

The introduction to the Zohar tells us that learning on Shavuot also grants a person the merit of being like an indispensable attendant to the wedding at Sinai:

Arizal adds that a person who stays up all Shavuot night to learn Torah will come to no harm in the coming year.¹

With incentive on that order, the practice eventually spreads beyond kabbalistic circles. In the seventeenth century, Magen Avraham offers a more straightforward rationale for it, based on a midrash. The midrash states that God found benei Yisrael asleep when it was time to give Israel the Torah:

The noise that accompanied the giving of Torah served in part to awaken benei Yisrael for that momentous event! Beyond that, though, Yeshaya chastises benei Yisrael for lack of readiness for Torah. Magen Avraham suggests that this shortcoming demands rectification on our part:

Here, we see a rationale not restricted to the pious but open to any learned person who wishes to rectify a missed opportunity of the entire Jewish people. Magen Avraham does not make any special mention of what one should study.

In practice, whether or not one’s orientation toward learning on the night of Shavuot is kabbalistic can determine what one studies then. The Zohar gives a rough outline of what one should learn:

Arizal lays out a program of study that builds on the description found in the Zohar, including the beginnings and ends of most portions of Tanach and then moving on to kabbala.² Reading the beginning and end of each portion is tantamount to reading the whole thing. Rav Ya’akov Chayim Sofer explains that this completes the kabbalistic objective of rectification of the sefirot begun by sefirat ha-omer.³ The same word, tikkun, can mean either rectification or adornment.

To the Kabbalists, learning specifically tikkun leil Shavuot has great significance in preparing the celestial bride for her wedding covenant. Rationalists, however, prominently Rav Ya’akov Reischer, a contemporary of Magen Avraham, treat tikkun leil Shavuot as a lesser form of Shavuot learning:⁴

This comment is more consistent with Magen Avraham’s more populist explanation than with the Zohar’s appeal to the select pious.

How does this discussion relate to women?

If we take a kabbalistic approach, then the question is not just about learning, but about whether a woman recites tikkun leil Shavuot. This question, in turn, may depend on whether women can accompany the Bride or on whether women count the omer. In a responsum, Ben Ish Chai assumes the answer to both is no:

For Ben Ish Chai, a woman does not stay up to recite tikkun leil Shavuot. She may not attend the bride for kabbalistic reasons, and she cannot complete a process begun by counting the omer if she didn’t count the omer to start with (an assumption consistent with his own ruling on the subject).

Rav Ya’akov Chayim Sofer, on the other hand, also a kabbalist, maintains that women who count the omer should recite tikkun leil Shavuot.

He notes that other women, who did not count the omer should still find something to learn. His ruling finds a modern echo in the words of Rav Mordechai Eliyahu:⁵

This type of inclusive viewpoint finds support among kabbalists and rationalists alike.

What are the implications for practice?

There is widespread support for women to learn Torah on the night of Shavuot. This practice is not obligatory, however. Neither women nor men have an obligation to learn all night, and all should consider carefully whether it will interfere with fulfilling mitzvot and proper functioning on Shavuot day. American educator Gabrielle Berger (nee Hiller), makes this point: