Davening Early AND Early To Davening – in Honor of Shavuot

There is a widespread custom on Shavuot to learn all night of the first night of the holiday. Some suggest that the Ibn Ezra is alluding to this custom in his commentary on Parshat Yitro. When the Jews are told to prepare for receiving the Torah (Shemot 19:11), Ibn Ezra suggests that this preparation may refer to staying up all night before Matan Torah:

והיו נכונים אולי לא יישן אדם בהם בלילה, שישמעו קול ה' בבקר, כדרך כהן גדול ביום הכיפורים:

The Magen Avraham (OC 494) suggests that the custom to stay up all night serves as a “Tikkun”, repair/ repentance, for the Midrashic story that the Jews slept late the morning of Matan Torah and God had to wake the people up in order to receive the Torah (an idea worthy of its own blog post).  Hence we call All Night Learning on Shavuot – Tikkun.

איתא בזוהר שחסידים הראשונים היו נעורים כל הלילה ועוסקים בתור' וכבר נהגו רוב הלומדים לעשות כן ואפשר לתת טעם ע"פ פשוטו לפי שישראל היו ישנים כל הלילה והוצרך הקב"ה להעיר אותם כדאיתא במדרש לכן אנו צריכים לתקן זה

If the point of the Midrash is to point out the Jews’ lack of excitement and anticipation of receiving the Torah- then the appropriate Tikkun is to stay up all night studying Torah and anticipating our re-acceptance of the Torah on Shavuot morning.

But perhaps there is another point that the Midrash is making: Had God not woken the Jews up, then they may have not been on time for Matan Torah.

Some people are always on time. And some people are chronically late: for business meetings, social engagements - and shul.

I was recently at a meeting with a group of fellow pulpit Rabbis. One of the topics that came up was attendance at shul- and how people are showing up to shul Shabbat morning later and later. There are a number of reasons why people may come late: from childcare coverage to attention deficit challenges to underlying issues with organized religion and God. Without judging any particular person and any particular circumstance I would ask: If you had an important job interview with a boss, or a potential business venture meeting, would you do your best to get to the appointment on time? Every Shabbat morning we have an appointment with Hashem, The Boss of bosses- showing up on time is a way of demonstrating that we care about that appointment.

This Shabbat we begin Sefer Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers. One of the lessons we learn from the census is that the count is precise because every person is precious. Time is also a precious commodity. To demonstrate that something is important to us we should strive to be precise and on time with our appointments, especially our appointment with prayer in shul.

Even if showing up on time every week is not something we can commit to right now on an ongoing basis, let us consider utilizing the first day of Shavuot to demonstrate that this is a value that we hope to increasingly instill into our lives. While some of us will daven early on Shavuot morning, I invite the rest of us to come early (or at least on time) to shul in honor of Shavuot.