If you’re feeling the pressure to stay up all night for Tikkun Leil Shavuot – caffeine in one hand, guilt in the other – you’re not alone.
For years, I thought I had to do the whole thing: the cheesecake, the all-nighter, the Torah study until sunrise. But the truth is, Shavuot isn’t a test of endurance. It’s an invitation.
In this video, I talk about what it’s like to approach Shavuot when you’re tired, disabled, parenting, or just… a human with actual limits. I walk through what Tikkun Leil Shavuot is, where the custom comes from, and why opting out doesn’t make you less committed to Torah – or less Jewish.
So if your soul is willing but your nervous system says “nah,” this one’s for you. Because the Torah wasn’t given to superheroes. It was given to real people, including you.
Need help pulling your plans together? Shavuot is almost here, but it’s not too late.
The Shavuot Without Stress guide gives you a complete, low-pressure framework:
– One ritual that fits your life
– One easy upgrade to your meal
– One shift to create sacred space
You’ll be ready—with meaning, ease, and time to spare.
Get your guide now before Sunday sneaks up on you.
Transcript can be found below.
Transcript:
This Shavuot, I’m not staying up all night for Tikkun Leil Shavuot, and maybe you shouldn’t either.
If you’re tired, disabled, parenting, or just a human with limits,
Let’s talk about how you can still honor Shavuot in a way that feels meaningful, doable, and real.
Everyone’s out here preparing for Tikkun Leil Shavuot,
caffeine, cheesecake, and a whole night of Torah.
And I’m over here like I’m gonna be in bed by 10 o’clock.
I used to feel guilty about skipping the all-nighter. In fact, I used to love it.
In college and law school, I was one of those people who would be there all night long. Dairy and nerding out. I’m there.
Except I’m different now.
I’m getting older. I’m disabled.
I still have children who don’t sleep through the night.
It’s not that I’m not staying up all night long. I don’t even start anymore.
So I felt like I wasn’t trying hard enough.
But what got left out in translation was that none of that was required. It’s a custom. It’s not halakha, it’s not mandatory.
So now I wanna make sure that you have that message too, and you know the truth so that you can make the best decisions for you and your body this Shavuot.
Hi, I’m Kochava, a Jewish convert and the voice behind Building a Jewish Life.com,
where I help people navigate the Jewish conversion process with less guilt and more meaning.
Today I wanna reframe what it means to honor Shavuot without staying up all night
and why that can be a meaningful and halachically valid choice.
So what is Tikkun Leil Shavuot? Tikkun means
repairing, or fixing. It comes from a midrash, a story that says that essentially when God gave the Jewish people the Torah on Mount Sinai, we overslept, which I have to admit that’s an amazing story and I love that we are willing to admit our failures and be honest that we as Jews are imperfect human creatures.
Isn’t that a great story?
So Tikkun Leil Shavuot developed as a tradition to kind of make up for that mistake. We stay up all night long and we are still learning Torah at daybreak, so that if we had been at Har Sinai, we would’ve been awake learning Torah when God shows up. I think it’s a great way to work with that story and to create meaningful customs.
We’re staying awake to show our eagerness to receive the Torah .
But failing to do Tikkun Leil Shavuot doesn’t say anything about your relationship to the Torah. It doesn’t say anything about who you are as a Jew.
But especially if you’re in the Jewish conversion process, you can feel like everything is a test and like you’re constantly in danger of failing that test.
Everything feels so high stakes that one wrong choice and you’re gonna tank your ability to convert. And you’re not totally wrong. If you check out this video here, you’ll see what I mean.
So when you’re converting, you feel like you have to show up even if it is optional.
So even if you know it is optional, you may think that you need to get extra gold stars by coming.
If you’re physically capable of doing that to get the extra gold stars, honestly, I say go for it. You need all the extra gold stars you can get. I’m not gonna pretend you don’t.
But if this would be hard on you, I really urge you to not do it. You can find those gold stars in other places and in other ways.
Torah isn’t earned through exhaustion.
And in fact, if you try to stay up all night long and you really can’t, you may accidentally oversleep and miss services the next morning, which would be worse.
Shavuot isn’t Yom Kipper. This isn’t a holiday where we should afflict ourselves. This is supposed to be a happy holiday. Dare I say it, it should be a fun holiday.
You get to have your cheesecake and eat it too kind of day.
The joy of Torah is part of the mitzvah
and no one gets an extra gold star at shacharit (morning prayers) the next morning for having been up the latest.
There’s this myth that “more” equals “holier,” even if it comes at the cost of you.
So if you are one of those people who really doesn’t wanna go to Tikkun Leil Shavuot, but felt like it was a key part of celebrating the holiday, what else can you do?
Well for one, don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. You can go to part of the night. That’s what most people do. Most of the people who show up at the beginning of Tikkun Leil Shavuot, very few of them are left in the morning. Go for a while.
But don’t force yourself to stay once you know that you should really go home and go to bed.
And if you are someone who is still driving on a chag, be really careful about that from a safety perspective. No one wants you getting into a car crash because you were trying to stay up late.
So you can host your own Tikkun Leil Shavuot of sorts. You can do learning on your own time in your own home. Before the chag, you can listen to podcasts or shiurim (classes) that are recorded.
Over the chag, you could read books. Any Torah subject is fair game. I suggest picking out whatever book you have been meaning to get to, but it doesn’t feel important enough. That’s the book I want you to read this Shavuot.
And don’t forget the normal physical parts of a holiday. Lighting candles before sunset, having a special dinner.
I have a framework that I teach called The Three Anchors for people who are just starting their observance. And I think that’s a good place to start and build upon when you’re not sure what you wanna do for Shavuot to make it meaningful for you. So I would hold up my fingers to count, except I have a kitten in my lap.
And who can say no to kittens? So first, bring in a ritual. For most people, that’s gonna be candle lighting. That’s the easiest choice. But if you can’t light candles, or if you are in a living situation where that’s not possible, there are other things you can do. You could say a prayer, that’s simple and that can be done anywhere.
It doesn’t have to be aloud. It doesn’t have to be pretty.
A short meditation on Torah or what Shavuot means to you.
The second prong is making your dinner a little fancier. Whether that’s a tablecloth or a slightly more complicated dish, or your favorite food, or in this case, maybe buying a cheesecake at the grocery store. We harp on cheesecake a lot, but it’s really an Ashkenazi tradition originally, and it is not the only dairy product you could have.
The custom is for any dairy product. Blintzes are also very popular and you can find them in the frozen food aisle in a lot of places, even if you don’t have a dedicated kosher section.
And vegans, you’re not left out either. We talk about milk and honey and ironically, both of those not great for vegans, but. I have been vegan ish enough for a very long time to know that there are really good replacements out there, and you can still participate in this custom in a way that remains true to you.
The third piece is to bring a holiday atmosphere into your home somehow.
The obvious choice that most people will do is to turn off their phones during the meal, put them away. But there are lots of things you can do. If you’re a parent, you could have a special story time with your kids about what Shavuot is about and talk about it.
Reading a book about Torah can count. Reading the Book of Ruth. Those are all atmosphere things that you can do. Put yourself in a holiday frame of mind.
Jewish holidays are about intention and showing up even when it’s hard.
Your presence here matters.
And especially since I’m here talking to people who may have a hard time with Tikkun Leil Shavuot, your spiritual presence is more important than your physical depletion. Don’t harm yourself physically in order to increase spiritually. The math doesn’t work like that.
God doesn’t want you to hurt.
The Torah isn’t just present at midnight. It’s there for you anytime you wanna take it.
Shavuot is about saying yes to Torah.
You get to say yes to Torah in a way that honors your full self, not the shoulds.
So let me know in the comments down below, are you going to make it to Tikkun Leil Shavuot this year?
If not, what makes you feel connected without crashing?
Chag Sameach.
