Women and Tikkun Leil: When did women stay up all night learning on Shavuot?

One would have thought that Jewish women would be logically urged to participate in the Tikkun Leil Shavuot (the reparation of the night of Shavuot) because they were also at the foot of Mount Sinai when Moses received the Ten Commandments. However, this has not always been the case.

The first reference to Tikkun Leil Shavuot is a point made in the Zohar about sleeping on Shavuot night. Using that as his proof text, the Arizal (Rabbi Isaac Luria, 1534-1572) offered the endorsement that “a person who stays up all Shavuot night to learn Torah will come to no harm in the coming year.” With a promise of that nature, the practice eventually spread beyond Kabbalistic circles. 

In the 17th century, the Magen Avraham (Rabbi Avraham Gombiner, 1635-1682) had a more straightforward rationale, based on the midrash that God had found Bnei Yisrael asleep when it was time to for them to receive the Ten Commandments. 

Why don't women learn Torah on the night of Shavuot?

Later, when the question arose regarding women’s presence at the tikkun, the “Rav Hapealim” responsa by the Ben Ish Hai (Chacham Yosef Chaim  of Baghdad, 1860-1900) concluded: “The custom is here in our home that the women don’t recite the learning of the night of Shavuot; rather, they sleep...” 

An early reason for women not participating in the Tikkun Leil Shavuot was the requirement to have counted all 49 days of the Omer, which was obligatory for men but not for women. However, Sephardi Rabbi Yaakov Chaim Sofer (1870-1939) wrote that “women who count the Omer should recite the Tikkun Leil Shavuot.” 

A Kabbalistic reason for excluding women from Tikkun Leil Shavuot is that on Shavuot, the Jewish people are considered the bride, God the groom, and the receiving of the commandments from Sinai is likened to their marriage. “Those who learn this holy learning [Tikkun Leil Shavuot] of the night of Shavuot are considered and called attendants of the Lady [the Jewish people] ... Only males should be attendants of the Lady... in order that it should not seem that the Feminine is chasing after the Masculine, but that the Masculine chases after the Feminine. The ancient pious ones would not sleep but would study Torah and say ‘Let us come take possession of the inheritance held for us and our children...’ That night, the Congregation of Israel is adorned and comes to couple with the King (God)... Rab Shimon said thus when fellows gathered with him that night; ‘Let us come to affix the jewels of the bride (symbolic of the Jewish people) so that tomorrow she will be found in her jewels and her adornments for the King as is fitting” (Zohar, Emor).

As my research continued, I also learned from many noted rabbis and professors that the tikkun was a minhag (custom). 

There is little or no evidence that women in the US attended the Tikkun Leil Shavuot prior to World War II. 

However, I spoke to Miriam Litke, who lives in Jerusalem’s Bayit Balev retirement residence. She escaped to England with her brother on the Kindertransport at the start of WW II. Tragically, their family was murdered after being taken from Lodz. She told me that at the age of 17 or 18, she went with friends to what was known as a “religious kibbutz” in England in 1947. She recalled how important learning at the Tikkun Leil Shavuot was. Thus, I now personally know of a woman in her 90s who attended Tikkun Leil Shavuot as a girl. 

Reform congregations in the US in the 1930s began the move to a tikkun which involved lectures, Torah talk, and sometimes the kind of singing one might hear in a Sephardi tikkun. The list of the passages studied can be found in the American Jewish Archives.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzhak Schneerson, father-in-law and predecessor of the Rebbe, who first arrived in the US in 1940, has sermons from numerous Shavuot tikkunim that can be read online at chabad.org/therebbe/livingtorah/.

When the 600,000 Jewish women and men returned home from service in the United States armed forces, they utilized their spiritual sense to initiate the building of many new synagogues and infuse older rituals with new meaning. The tikkun is one of the best examples of this creativity. Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis and their synagogues quickly realized how the tikkun could be transformed into a major “learning” experience. We might easily say that the tikkun was one of the cornerstones of the growth of professional and amateur Torah study. 

Rabbis of all denominations realized that the tikkun had drawing power. So, in almost every synagogue in the US and Israel, it became a permanent fixture. It was a time to learn intensively, and Jewish sources were pored over. 

Moreover, the tikkun could be held in homes that served wonderful cheesecakes and other dairy delights. The centuries earlier citation barring women from the tikkun was no longer adhered to. Moreover, women could be Torah teachers, too.

The power of the Tikkun Leil Shavuot is immense. In Israel, the tikkunim are held in many congregations, as well as in study centers. In the 1980s, my friends and I were living in Jerusalem’s Givat Mordechai, a neighborhood that was a lovely blend of Sephardim and Ashkenazim. There, the synagogues encouraged women to come on Shabbat and for all the holidays.

For several years, after supper on Shavuot, my friends and I had our program. We took our tallitot and stopped at various tikkunim along the way. 

The one I best recall was given by Rabbi David Hartman. When we arrived at the building, there were no more seats, not even space inside. What did we do? We stood outside and listened through an open window. Then we joined hundreds of women and men on the way to the Kotel for Shaharit. How memorable was the davening as we watched the sunrise!

What was ironic, given the importance on Shavuot of the recitation of the Book of Ruth, is that women were not always encouraged to attend the tikkunim, yet most people agree that the tikkun is a custom and not specifically a mitzvah. 

However, in the 21st century, at least a million Jews – women and men – are active participants in Tikkun Leil Shavuot.

I, for one, am pleased with this change. 