As a child, I relished Shavuot’s once-a-year opportunity to forgo bed time, staying up all night to learn Torah with my community and sleeping in late the next day. As an adult, my husband and I took turns learning in the synagogue, where crowds of 50 or 60 people would gather at 2 a.m. to hear the rabbi or a community leader share their interpretation of the story of Ruth.
In these moments, the adrenaline of being part of something larger than myself, the group effort to battle our exhaustion until dawn, was enough to keep me alert and attentive through the wee hours.
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