The holiday of Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, begins at sundown May 19. In communities all over the world, Jews can be found learning the Torah that our ancestors almost did not receive at Mount Sinai over 3,300 years ago. 

According to Torah scholar Magen Avraham, on the night before the Torah was to be given, the Jews went to sleep early in order to be well rested for the historic event the following day. Despite their careful preparation, the Jews overslept the next morning and faced losing the holy Torah. God was kind enough to wake them up with thunder and lightning, and the Jews received the Torah. As a result of this incident, Jews have adopted the popular custom of staying up late on the first night of Shavuot to study Torah.

Although studying Torah is a meaningful way to spend our time, we have a tendency to hit the snooze button in the morning. We should learn from our ancestors that this is not the best thing to do. Life goes by faster then we think, and pushing things off can lead to missing out on what is important. Just imagine what would have happened if God did not have the compassion to wake us up and give us the Torah. All of the laws, principles and customs we share today would not exist. While God is not as obvious in his wake up calls to us now as he was with our ancestors, he continues to send them. A wake up call can come in the form of a stubbed toe, an earthquake halfway around the world, or a personal tragedy.

Studying the whole night may seem overwhelming, but the experience can also be spiritually uplifting. Just thinking about how we can make up for the slumber of our ancestors makes the time spent studying worthwhile. If you are interested in participating in an all-night learning session turn to your local synagogue to see if it has anything planned. You can even host one at your home and invite family and friends.

Every year my family and I attend the study session at Tpheris Israel Chevra Kadisha (TICK). The men and boys study Torah at our synagogue, while the women and teenage girls study at a congregant’s home. The learning usually starts at midnight and ends at 5 a.m when we all attend synagogue for the morning prayers. Some invite guests over for lunch, while others prefer to eat with just immediate family.

Another custom that adds to the enjoyment is the making of cheesecake for your guests. This comes from the fact that because God gave us the Torah on the Sabbath, we were forbidden to slaughter animals according to the laws of the newly received Torah. Therefore, the Jewish people were limited to eating dairy foods on that day. Another explanation for why we eat dairy on Shavuot is because the Hebrew word for milk, chalav, has a numerical value of 40, which corresponds to the number of days Moses stayed on Mount Sinai awaiting the Torah.

The Sages compared Shavuot to a wedding between God and the Jewish people. When God gave us the Torah, it was as if he was putting a ring on our finger. The Torah proved his loyalty to us, and our accepting it proved our loyalty to him. The holiday of Shavuot is significant for every Jew; we should all try to make it as meaningful as possible.