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Staying up all night on Shavuot is about going all in
This story originally appeared on My Jewish Learning.
(JTA) — The holiday of Shavuot, which begins at sundown this year on Thursday, May 25, is understood by Jewish tradition to be the time when God gave the Israelites the Torah at Mount Sinai. It is traditionally celebrated with dairy foods and intensive Torah study, with some staying up all night to learn (a practice likely fueled by the advent of coffee in the 16th century). These all-night study sessions, known as Tikkun Leil Shavuot, are held by Jewish communities of different denominations and geographies and are the only widely observed Jewish ritual involving staying up all night.
Though the custom is widespread, there are few classical sources to support it. So why do we do it?
On its face, the connection is obvious. Shavuot celebrates receiving the Torah, so of course we would honor Shavuot with abundant Torah study. But upon reflection, this reason seems less than convincing. How high is the quality of Torah study in the middle of the night? As the hours tick by, is anyone even paying attention to the teacher? Many people load up on sugar and caffeine, perhaps ill-advisedly, just to get through it. This wouldn’t seem like the best way to pay tribute to Torah.
A more common explanation is that Tikkun Leil Shavuot is precisely that — a tikkun (literally “rectification”) for what went wrong on that original Shavuot at Sinai. The Israelites, according to this theory, slept in on the day they were meant to receive the Torah. In a sort of penance for that failing, we make sure not to miss Shavuot morning by pulling an all-nighter the night before.
But this seems potentially counterproductive. If you’re worried about sleeping in and missing a morning meeting, staying up all night doesn’t quite do the trick. It’s overkill, and may actually undermine your goal. You might manage to be physically where you need to be, but at the cost of any sort of mental presence. What is the value of being present for the giving of the Torah if you’re incapacitated from sleep deprivation?
I would like to suggest an alternate explanation, one focused less on learning and preparedness and more on the experience of receiving the Torah. The goal of Shavuot night is not Torah learning — one can study Torah any day of the year. The goal is to experience something of the radical encounter with God at Sinai.
In the book of Exodus, we find this description of what transpired as God descended on the mountain:
And the entire people saw the thunder and lightning and the sound of the shofar and the mountain in smoke. The nation saw, they trembled with fear, and they stayed at a distance. They said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
In the Torah’s telling, the encounter with God was an immersive experience. As if attending a concert with overwhelming audiovisual components, the people are at first entranced and then overwhelmed by what they’re experiencing, backtracking in fear. They are so overpowered they are unable to distinguish between the senses — hence they “saw” the “sound of the shofar.” Overawed by all of this, they beg off, asking to have Moses serve as an intermediary rather than encounter God directly again.
This should not be surprising — it makes sense that an encounter with God should be overwhelming, an experience that scrambles the senses and shifts one’s consciousness. And that’s what we’re looking for on Shavuot. Tikkun Leil Shavuot isn’t primarily an opportunity to learn, nor a chance to fix some millennia-old mishap. It is meant precisely to simulate that total immersive experience.
We do that by occupying ourselves entirely with Torah — and nothing else (OK, maybe some cheesecake too). We learn until it hurts, going at it until we just can’t anymore. Depriving ourselves of sleep brings our bodies into the experience and inevitably effects a shift in consciousness. Taken together, this practice creates an intense experience, an all-encompassing engagement with God and Torah — just as the Israelites experienced at Mount Sinai.
Yes, you might have a headache in the morning, but some hangovers are worth it.
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The post Staying up all night on Shavuot is about going all in appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ran Gvili, last remaining Israeli hostage in Gaza, featured on 2 Times Square digital billboards
(JTA) — Commuters in Times Square were confronted this week with a new digital billboard demanding the release of the final remaining hostage in Gaza, Ran Gvili.
“Hamas must release him now,” the billboard reads next to a photo of Gvili. “The last Israeli hostage held in Gaza.”
Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer who was killed defending Kibbutz Alumim during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, was one of roughly 250 hostages taken into Gaza.
The billboard, which is part of an effort led by the Israeli Consulate in New York and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, comes nearly two months after all 20 living hostages were returned to Israel as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Since then, the remaining deceased hostages in Gaza have been returned intermittently, including the remains of Thai agricultural worker Sudthisak Rinthalak last week, in a slow process that has extended tensions between Israel and Hamas.
Last month, the American Jewish Committee launched its own billboard campaign in Times Square that featured a montage of the remaining hostages in Gaza. Today, the display only features Gvili.
“The nightmare isn’t over,” the AJC’s billboard reads, according to a video the group posted on Youtube Tuesday, followed by a photo of Gvili’s mother holding a hostage poster of him with the caption, “A family incomplete.”
Later in the slideshow, the screen displays a photo of Gvili with the caption, “Over two years later, Hamas still holds Ran hostage in Gaza,” before ending with the message, “Bring Ran home now.”
As the number of hostages has dwindled and the weekly hostage rallies have come to a close, Gvili’s parents have become the only hostage family members in the public eye.
“We’re at the last stretch and we have to be strong, for Rani, for us, and for Israel. Without Rani, our country can’t heal,” Gvili’s mother, Talik, told Reuters on Monday.
Once Gvili is returned, the ceasefire plan is supposed to move into its second phase as laid out in a plan devised by President Donald Trump this fall.
Trump has said phase two is imminent. But while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters Sunday he expects the plan to move into its second phase “very shortly,” Hamas political bureau member Husam Badran said on Tuesday that Israel had not yet honored its part of the deal, pointing to the continued closure of the Rafah crossing with Egypt. (Israel has said the crossing will open soon to allow Palestinians to exit Gaza.)
Both Israel and Hamas would lose authority in Gaza during the next phase of Trump’s plan, which would establish a “Board of Peace” helmed by Trump to make decisions about Gaza’s future. It is expected that the Palestinian Authority will play a role in the board, which Israeli officials have said they oppose, and Hamas will face renewed pressure to disarm, which it does not want to do.
Some have speculated that Hamas knows the location of Gvili’s remains but has not released them to avoid bringing the hostage-release phase of the ceasefire to an end. That leaves him and his story of Oct. 7 heroism in the public eye for longer.
“We will not forget for a single moment Ran Gvili, an Israeli hero. Even with an injured shoulder, Ran went out to defend and repel the Hamas monsters who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023,” said Ofir Akunis, the consul general of Israel in New York, in a statement about the Times Square billboard. “Israel demands that Hamas fully complete Phase A before we proceed to the beginning of Phase B of President Trump’s plan.”
The post Ran Gvili, last remaining Israeli hostage in Gaza, featured on 2 Times Square digital billboards appeared first on The Forward.
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Qatar’s Sudden Moral Outrage on Gaza Reconstruction Rings Hollow
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani speaks on the first day of the 23rd edition of the annual Doha Forum, in Doha, Qatar, December 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Qatar delivered one of the most revealing geopolitical moments of the year when its prime minister, Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani, announced that Doha will not pay to rebuild Gaza.
The irony is extraordinary. Qatar, the same state that hosted Hamas’ top leadership for more than a decade, financed Gaza’s bureaucracy, and positioned itself as Hamas’ indispensable diplomatic back channel, now insists it bears no responsibility for the consequences of the very organization it nurtured.
The sudden rediscovery of fiscal restraint would be amusing if the implications weren’t so revealing.
What Doha is attempting is not moral clarity. It is narrative control. By refusing to participate in reconstruction, Qatar avoids the unavoidable admission that its financial, political, and media patronage strengthened the organization that triggered the current war.
If Gaza was “destroyed,” as Qatari officials tirelessly proclaim, then a basic question follows: destroyed in response to what? Hamas executed the October 7 massacre, built an underground fortress of tunnels, stockpiled rockets in civilian zones, and systematically transformed Gaza into a militarized enclave. These were not accidental byproducts of governance. They were deliberate investments — and Qatar was Hamas’ most generous financial sponsor.
The record is not a matter of political interpretation. US Treasury designations, UN reports, and major independent investigations have repeatedly documented that Qatar-based donors, charities, and intermediaries supported Hamas, alongside Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Mali. Qatari individuals sanctioned by the United States have also raised funds for Jabhat al-Nusra (HTS).
These findings are not Israeli claims; they originate from American counterterrorism authorities and multilateral bodies.
Yet Qatar continues to brand itself as a humanitarian benefactor to Gaza. In practice, its “relief payments” repeatedly functioned as political leverage: money that sustained Hamas’ rule and relieved the organization of basic governing responsibilities, all while allowing Doha to posture as a benevolent mediator.
Meanwhile, other regional powers have made their terms clear regarding Gaza reconstruction. The UAE and Saudi Arabia insist that any reconstruction of Gaza must be tied to a political framework that prevents Hamas from reconstituting itself. Qatar, by contrast, has spent years cultivating an outcome in which Hamas survives as a viable actor, preserving Doha’s influence and its role as a necessary mediator.
If Hamas’ military infrastructure is dismantled, Qatar is left with a failed investment and is now eager to disclaim responsibility for the outcome.
This dynamic is not new. For more than a decade, Qatar and Iran have served as parallel financial engines for Islamist militant groups across the region, using state funds, quasi-state charities, and well-connected private donors to support this activity. Western governments long tolerated the arrangement because Qatar hosts a major US air base, commands immense energy wealth, and uses its media empire to shape regional debate. But the mask is slipping. Doha’s attempt to distance itself from the consequences of its own policy choices exposes a contradiction it can no longer conceal.
This leads to the essential question: who still takes Qatar’s moral lectures seriously?
A state that sheltered Hamas’ leadership now claims neutrality. A state whose sanctioned donors aided extremist networks now positions itself as a humanitarian authority. A state that spent years empowering the group responsible for one of the worst atrocities in modern history now refuses to help rebuild the territory devastated by that group’s actions.
The world should stop pretending not to see the pattern. Qatar’s diplomatic theater cannot hide the facts. The Emirate has influence, resources, and global reach. What it lacks, despite its insistence, is credibility.
Sabine Sterk is CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.
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How the Palestinian Authority Encourages Children to Die for Allah
A group of Palestinian children being taught that Israel will be destroyed. Photo: Palestinian Media Watch.
Instead of encouraging children to reach heights in education and contribute something positive in their lives, the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Education continues to indoctrinate children to see dying for Allah – Shahada (Martyrdom) – as the great ideal.
This child abuse was once again highlighted last week during celebrations of the UN’s “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”
The Tulkarem Directorate of Education proudly posted photos on Facebook — taken at the school events — of children holding signs glorifying Martyrdom.
One sign portrayed Martyrs as smelling sweeter than a jasmine flower:
“How could a jasmine not envy a homeland that smells of Martyrs?” [Tulkarem Directorate of Education, Facebook page, Dec. 2, 2025]
Another sign proclaimed: “We will live like soaring eagles, and we will die like proud lions; we are all for the homeland and we are all for Palestine.”
These slogans encapsulate the PA’s indoctrination that Martyrdom, even for children, is not tragic or regrettable, but something beautiful, fragrant, and desirable. The PA is encouraging violence, and glorifying the murder of Jews.
Other posters held by students featured the PA map of “Palestine,” which erases Israel and displays the entire territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea as Palestinian land:
One sign was accompanied by the slogan: “The compass will never deviate from the path and will continue to point towards Palestine.”
Other students carried large symbolic keys, representing the so-called “right of return,” which the PA teaches is an inevitable immigration to all of Israel’s cities and towns of nearly six million Arab descendants of so-called “refugees.”
The message to the children is that Israel has no right to exist and that the national mission, or “the path,” remains the elimination of Israel.
The events were attended by high-level PA officials, including Tulkarem Education Directorate Director-General Mazen Jarrar, Tulkarem District representative Rasha Sabah, and Fatah Movement Tulkarem Branch Secretary Iyad Jarrad.
These official PA education events, which glorify violence, romanticize Martyrdom, erase Israel from the map, and instill lifelong hatred towards Israel, are all part of the ongoing PA campaign to ensure that the next generation denies Israel’s right to exist and is willing to fight and seek death to achieve its goals.
The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.