Every year, as Shavuos approaches, Jews around the world prepare to stay up through the night in anticipation of receiving the Torah anew. For some, the late-night learning is a highlight of the Jewish calendar — a time of community, excitement, and spiritual renewal. For others, especially this year, the custom feels more challenging. The energy of a bustling beis midrash is hard to replicate in solitude. The snacks, the songs, the sense of occasion — they’re not as readily available when we’re on our own.
And yet, perhaps this moment presents a hidden opportunity. Because Shavuos, and in particular the minhag of staying up through the night, invites us to reflect on something much deeper than collective momentum. It invites us to ask not just “How can I stay up?” but “Why do we stay up?” And in that question lies a profound, and often misunderstood, spiritual insight.
The Custom, Not the Obligation
The first thing to clarify is that staying up all night on Shavuos is not a halachic obligation, found neither in the Gemara nor in Shulchan Aruch. The Magen Avraham, a classic commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, cites a passage in the Zohar that praises the practice of the “early chassidim” — not Chassidim in the modern sense, but deeply devout Jews of earlier generations — who stayed awake the night before Matan Torah to study Torah. That’s where the custom begins.
But why did they do this? The Magen Avraham offers a fascinating and somewhat unsettling answer: because Bnei Yisrael slept in on the morning of Matan Torah. According to the Midrash, Hashem had to wake them up for the most important moment in human history. Our nighttime learning, then, is framed as a tikkun — a correction or repair — for that ancient spiritual misstep.
But what really happened that night? Why did the generation of the Exodus, who had crossed the sea and seen open miracles, go to bed — and more astonishingly, oversleep — on the eve of revelation?
Sleep or Surrender?
The Midrash in Shir HaShirim Rabbah brings a startling metaphor. It likens Bnei Yisrael’s sleep to a woman who hears her beloved knocking but is reluctant to get out of bed. “I’ve already taken off my robe,” she says. “I’ve washed my feet. Must I rise again?” It’s a metaphor of intimacy, hesitation, vulnerability — and missed opportunity.
Even more curious is the Midrash’s comment that “שינת עצרת ערבה” — the sleep of Shavuos night was sweet, pleasant, almost irresistible. Why would the Midrash describe this sleep, of all nights, as particularly sweet? Shouldn’t it have been restless, electric with anticipation?
To unpack this paradox, we turn to the brilliant insight of Rav Chaim Yaakov Goldvicht z”l, the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Kerem B’Yavneh. In his Asufas Ma’arachos, Rav Goldvicht z”l re-reads this entire episode with a radically different lens.
The Case for Sleeping
According to Rav Goldvicht z”l, the sleep of Bnei Yisrael on that night wasn’t laziness. It wasn’t forgetfulness. It was a deliberate spiritual choice — and not an illogical one.
To understand it, we must consider a deeper idea in Chazal. The Gemara in Niddah famously states that a fetus in the womb is taught the entire Torah. When it emerges into the world, an angel touches its lips and all is forgotten. The Maharal explains that this isn’t just a poetic image. It reflects a spiritual truth: before birth, when the soul is not yet fully encased in the limitations of the body, it is uniquely attuned to Torah. Once it enters the physical world, the clarity vanishes — and the struggle begins.
This is part of a larger pattern. In this world, our souls are weighed down by our physical selves. There is tension between guf and neshamah, body and soul. Our task in life is to bring them into harmony. But the highest spiritual clarity — the unfiltered reception of truth — comes when the soul is partially free from the body.
That’s where sleep enters the picture.
Dreams, Prophecy, and Spiritual Bandwidth
Chazal refer to sleep as 1/60th of death. That’s not to scare us — it’s to point out that sleep represents a partial disengagement from the physical. When we sleep, our souls rise slightly, as if antenna are being raised, picking up spiritual signals we miss during the day. That’s why dreams can sometimes carry significance. That’s why, even in prophecy, most nevi’im received their visions in a dream-like state, semi-conscious and suspended between worlds.
Only Moshe Rabbeinu, the Torah tells us, received nevuah fully awake. He alone could experience the word of Hashem with open eyes, in full awareness. The Rambam underscores this in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah: all other prophets dreamed; Moshe heard directly, face-to-face.
Except, remarkably, for one other moment.
At Har Sinai, the entire nation heard the voice of Hashem — “פנים בפנים דיבר ה׳ עמכם.” It was, by all accounts, a one-time exception to the rule. Every man, woman, and child reached the level of nevuah usually reserved for Moshe alone.
Bnei Yisrael’s Miscalculation
And now we return to Shavuos night. Rav Goldvicht z”l suggests that Bnei Yisrael, anticipating this overwhelming revelation, assumed it could only be experienced through a soul-based state. They believed that to receive the Torah — the deepest spiritual truth — they would have to sleep. Or at least prepare themselves through that same suspended state. After all, sleep is when the soul is most free, most receptive.
So they went to sleep.
It wasn’t negligence. It was a spiritual strategy.
They just got it wrong.
Because Hashem didn’t want them asleep. He wanted them awake. This was not to be a passive reception of divine truth, but a shared venture — a conscious partnership between heaven and earth, body and soul. He wanted us alert, trembling, hearts pounding, standing at attention. He wanted the Torah received not only by the soul, but through the body as well. A Torah that lives in the real world, not just the ideal one.
So He came early. He sounded the shofar. He woke them up.
The Night We Recharge
Rav Goldvicht z”l goes even further. He writes that sleep itself — every night — is a chance to receive shefa chaim, an influx of spiritual vitality. Just as we plug in our phones at night to recharge, so too our souls draw energy while we sleep. And perhaps that’s why the Midrash calls the sleep of Shavuos “sweet.” Because there is something real happening in the soul’s night journey. But that journey can’t replace waking commitment. It must fuel it.
On Shavuos, then, we don’t stay up as punishment. We stay up to signal that we are present. We are ready. We are here, in our bodies, in our limitations, but open to transcendence. We stay up not because we’re proving something, but because we are partnering with Hashem.
An Invitation, Not an Obligation
And so, as we approach Shavuos — whether or not we manage to stay up all night — let us approach the day with awareness. Whether we learn for one hour or ten, whether in a room full of people or by ourselves, the opportunity is the same.
To receive the Torah again. To feel that same partnership of body and soul. To accept not only the words of Hashem, but the invitation to bring those words into a complicated, imperfect, beautiful world.
Let’s remember that when we learn Torah, we aren’t just acquiring knowledge. We’re reconnecting to the Torah we once knew, before we were born. We are opening ourselves to an ongoing, eternal dialogue — פנים אל פנים — face to face, as much as our limited bodies allow.
This is why we stayed up all night. And why, in some form or another, we always will.
To Whom It May Concern 