Volume 52 Number 14
Produced: Tue Jun 13 6:14:07 EDT 2006
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
All-Night "Learning" (6)
[Harlan Braude, Eitan Fiorino, Alan Rubin, Janice Gelb, Perets
Mett, David Merzel]
Staying up Shavuos night (2)
[Martin Stern, Brandon Raff]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Harlan Braude <hbraude@...>
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 07:30:54 -0400
Subject: RE: All-Night "Learning"
> ...
> totally acceptable for someone to spend the whole night schmoozing,
> smoking, eating cake, drinking coffee, and occasionally dozing off over
> a sefer (while their older kids are unsupervised going wild outside the
> shul with their friends), then dozing through davening, then sleeping
> until lunch, eating, and going back to sleep until Mincha. Meanwhile
>...
>Any explanation for this attitude?
Substitute "whole night" with "day" and it starts to sound like a normal
Shabbos/Yom Tov (well, except for the smoking)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eitan Fiorino <AFiorino@...>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:01:11 -0400
Subject: Re: All-Night "Learning"
I have to question the basic premise underlying the posting below:
> I think also that how staying up all night affects you in the days to
> come may give rise to leniency in allowing you to sleep some part (or,
> perhaps, the whole) of the night. My son is coming to the end of his
> third year of learning in Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh. He takes his
> learning very seriously and felt that if he stayed up all night on
> Shavuos he would not be able to learn properly the next day. He
> therefore was given permission from one of his Rabbis to learn until a
> certain time on Shavuos night and then go to sleep for a few hours and
> then get up for a Neitz [sunrise] Minyan.
When there is a not-universally accepted minhag to stay up all night
learning (and, BTW the all-night prayer/learning tikkun is purely a
phenomenon of medieval kabbalism and I'd venture to guess that 99% of
those who stay up all night learning on nowadays Shavuot are not
kabbalists), I fail to see how this custom could get elevated in
anyone's mind to the halachic status of requiring some kind of heter to
allow someone to NOT stay up all night!! As it was stated above - "how
staying up all night affects you in the days to come may give rise to
leniency in allowing you to sleep some part (or, perhaps, the whole) of
the night." I just don't understand the what "leniency" means in this
context. The same goes for the KBY "psak" that it would be OK to sleep
a little as long as one makes it to pray vatiken. Since when is there
any chiuv to pray vatiken, Shavuot or otherwise?
I personally have two very good reasons for not staying up all night on
Shavuot:
1 - I'm not a kabbalist and I don't believe that ascetic rituals
either improve my avodat Hashem or have metaphysical ramifications.
2 - I don't want to.
Either reason, as far as I am concerned, is alone more than adequate
justifaction for going to sleep and arising at normal times on Shavuot.
I certainly don't lose any sleep worrying about what the poor folks
torturing themselves at 4 AM trying to listen to a shiur or recite the
tikkun think of my choice.
If I can take the opportunity to vent a little more on this issue, I am
personally quite disturbed that my children are taught in school that
the tikkun leil shavuot is a normal practice that all Jews should do or
should strive to do. This is another bit of deprogramming I have to
face, like the much more chronic issue of the failure of our elementary
schools to distinguish between midrash and the text of the Torah when
teaching Chumash.
-Eitan
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Alan Rubin <alan@...>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:43:38 +0000
Subject: All-Night "Learning"
Stephen Phillips wrote:
> I think also that how staying up all night affects you in the days to
> come may give rise to leniency in allowing you to sleep some part (or,
> perhaps, the whole) of the night.
Since when was it a chiyuv?
> My son is coming to the end of his third year of learning in Yeshivat
> Kerem B'Yavneh. He takes his learning very seriously and felt that if
> he stayed up all night on Shavuos he would not be able to learn
> properly the next day. He therefore was given permission from one of
> his Rabbis to learn until a certain time on Shavuos night and then go
> to sleep for a few hours and then get up for a Neitz [sunrise] Minyan.
It is the staying up and then davening at Neitz that is the most
disruptive. If one feels it is worthwhile staying up to learn is there
really any value in the early davening?
I know how I feel this custom is best honoured.
Alan Rubin
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Janice Gelb <j_gelb@...>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:04:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: All-Night "Learning"
Stephen Phillips <admin@...> wrote:
> I sympathise with what your approach. However, it seems to me that if
> the Shul doesn't make some arrangements for the kids to have their own
> learning sessions, then they shouldn't be taken to the Leil Limud.
> There should also be more organised learning for the adults to prevent
> the schmoozing etc.
In addition to providing an organized schedule of learning, my synagogue
started several years ago to allow families to set up a couple of small
camping tents in the social hall as part of the preparation for the
evening. After a few learning sessions geared for kids, they go to sleep
in sleeping bags. The parents can then participate in the learning while
checking on their children every once in a while, and then the whole
family participates in the early-morning davening.
-- Janice
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Perets Mett <p.mett@...>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:39:22 +0100
Subject: Re: All-Night "Learning"
Stephen Phillips wrote:
> I think also that how staying up all night affects you in the days to
> come may give rise to leniency in allowing you to sleep some part (or,
> perhaps, the whole) of the night. My son is coming to the end of his
> third year of learning in Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh. He takes his
> learning very seriously and felt that if he stayed up all night on
> Shavuos he would not be able to learn properly the next day. He
> therefore was given permission from one of his Rabbis to learn until a
> certain time on Shavuos night and then go to sleep for a few hours and
> then get up for a Neitz [sunrise] Minyan.
Personally I am amazed that one should need permission not to stay up
all night (but I guess being in yeshiva is a little different).
I used to stay up all night (and daven at the early morning minyan) but
I can no longer function like that. I learn until I feel I am too tired
to do so (usually about 2 am) and then go to bed, and get up for
Shacharis at the usual time.
These days I think my sons do the same.
I don't consider it a leniency!!
Perets Mett
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Merzel <merzelmazl@...>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:29:37 +0000
Subject: Re: All-Night "Learning"
Tzvi, I believe you owe an apology to thousands of people for your
ill-tempered and insulting remarks. If you believe that you can
accomplish more talmud Torah by sleeping most of the night, attending a
regular hour minyan and then spending most of the day learn, by all
means do so! I don't think anyone will find you guilty of any aveira or
any trespass of divrei Chazal; quite the contrary -- the mitzvah is
talmud Torah, not grogginess to the point of batalah. Just the same,
however, what right do you have condemn so many people around the world
who learn Torah all Shavuos night and manage to do so without any of the
various infractions you cite? The fact that your shul may have some
(and I am certain it is SOME rather than all) people whose Shavuos
behavior is less than exemplary or meaningful, is not cause for your
swift and harsh remarks about them in contrast to the method you find
best for yourself.
For myself, I manage to remain awake the entire night (tired, indeed,
but without nodding off most of the time), and, aside from a five-minute
break every hour or so, get some learning done. And I know that if I, an
average, middle-age ba'al habayis can do so, there are MANY more who
accomplish far more than I do during Shavuos night.
Certainly if you find that your method works for you, use it and
cahzak v'amatz. But don't, with a single stroke, appoint yourself judge
enough to condemn thousands of b'nay Torah as batlanim and worse.
David Merzel
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:34:11 +0100
Subject: Staying up Shavuos night
On Fri, 9 Jun 2006 11:50:35 -0400, Robert Tolchin <RJT@...> wrote
> 3) Why are the wives stuck dealing with the kids? Does Tzvi mean that
> Shavuot night the wives were all expected to just go to sleep while the
> males were at shul being wild? Well, if they did, then it makes sense
> for the wives to take care of the kids while the males who were up all
> night sleep, just as a man's wife would if he stayed up all night
> working the night shift at his job. But why shouldn't the women also
> learn something on Shavuot? Why isn't there a women's program?
AFAIK the institution of the tikkun leil Shavuot was for men only and
not women, based on kabbalistic reasons which most of us will not really
understand.
However, if the husband stays up all night drinking coffee and
shmoozing, rather than learning, then he has no right to 'dump' the
children on his wife who may also be exhausted because Yom Tov came in
so late and, in consequence, she did not get to bed until much later
than her usual time.
Martin Stern
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Brandon Raff <Brandon@...>
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:03:46 +0200
Subject: Staying up Shavuos night
>From: Robert Tolchin <RJT@...>
>Tzvi Stein's posting raises disturbing issues, but not the ones he
>thinks.
>
>There's a long tradition of staying up all night on Shavuot. There's
>nothing wrong with it, and it isn't a problem.
If I am not mistaken (I'm looking for the source at the moment), staying
up all night learning on Shavuot originated with the Beis Yosef, author
of the Shulchan Aruch. So this custom is a recent thing historically
speaking.
Brandon Raff
----------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Volume 52 Issue 14
