Dvar Torah for Shavuot
May 24, 2023
Rabbi Harry Pell, Associate Head of School
One of the most prominent Shavuot traditions is the Tikkun Leil Shavuot — the act of dedicating time on Shavuot evening, potentially the entire evening, to learning Torah. Traditionally speaking, we spend the entire night studying in preparation for re-receiving the Torah on Shavuot, much as our ancestors spent the entire night in eager anticipation of receiving the Torah at Sinai.
According to the Sefas Emes (the Sefat Emet in modern Hebrew, but when Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter served as the Chassidic Rebbe of Gur, Poland in the second half of the nineteenth century, he definitely pronounced it Sefas Emes!), there is something even more profound going on here, and perhaps this night of Torah learning is not an act of preparation at all.
When he comments on the receiving of the Torah in Shemot 24:7, the Sefas Emes focuses on the words נַעֲשֶׂ֥ה וְנִשְׁמָֽע — naaseh v’nishma — we will do, and we will understand:
וַיִּקַּח֙ סֵ֣פֶר הַבְּרִ֔ית וַיִּקְרָ֖א בְּאׇזְנֵ֣י הָעָ֑ם וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ כֹּ֛ל אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֥ר ה׳ נַעֲשֶׂ֥ה וְנִשְׁמָֽע׃
Then he (Moshe) took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, “All that Hashem has spoken we will faithfully do!”
Then he (Moshe) took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, “All that Hashem has spoken we will faithfully do!”
According to the Sefas Emes, this is the general way of the world; we take actions now in order to enable something to happen in the future. We plant seeds in the spring to enjoy vegetables in the summer, our students work hard in high school in order to be ready for college, we plan well in advance of a trip to be able to enjoy the trip. . . . Often, we even study Torah now, so that we may apply it to our lives and understand it more fully later. Naaseh v’nishma was our ancestors’ very human response to receiving God’s Torah — we will observe it now, in order to more fully understand it later.
But what if this general rule of “preparatory step leading to action step” works well in our time-bound world, but doesn’t represent God’s world? According to the Sefas Emes, in God’s world, actions need not be preparation for future actions; actions can be good in and of themselves.
This allows us to appreciate the Tikkun Leil Shavuot in a new light. It need not be a preparation for anything beyond itself. Learning Torah on Shavuot can be for the sake of the learning itself, for the sake of living in the moment. Coming as it does at the beginning of the Chag, the Tikkun Leil doesn’t even need to be about how this Torah learning will apply to our daily lives when the Chag ends. It can just be about the joy of learning Torah, of taking a pause from our busy lives, of enjoying the moment for its own sake.
Wishing our entire community a Shavuot of joy, of learning, of relaxation, and of enjoying the moment. Chag Sameach.