Sitting up all night – Shavu’ot
Nobody knows enough Torah. Even the gedolei ha-dor (the intellectual giants of the generation) will tell you how ignorant they are. Sitting up all night on Shavu’ot to study Torah is a wonderful opportunity to add to our knowledge.
It is said that the night of study was introduced by Rabbi Joseph Karo, redactor of the Shulchan Aruch. Why is this practice called Tikkun Leil Shavu’ot? Tikkun means “repair”. What we are doing is to make good the lapse which the Midrash attributes to the Children of Israel, who slept in on the night before the Revelation and needed thunder and lightning to wake them in the morning to hear God revealing the Ten Commandments.
Some follow the order of study in a book which combines passages from Biblical and rabbinic literature; others work out their own agenda of issues to discuss and debate.