The Tikkun Leil Shavuot on the first night of Shavuot was again an inspiring experience for the multi-minyaned congregation who returned to The Center after dinner. This was the second successive year in which the learning was conducted at The Center for the entire night – until the time to "receive the Torah" the next morning. The Auditorium, the Beth Hamidrash, and the lobby were all appropriately fit for the occasion. Hundreds of Sefarim were placed on tables in these areas: Talmud, Humash, Nakh, Rambam, and Shulhan Arukh, available for collective as well as for individual study.At the beginning of the evening, the traditional Tikkun selections were led by Rabbi Wermuth in the Beth Hamidrash. This was accompanied by the learning of smaller groups in the lobby and in various corners of the auditorium. The new feature this year was a pre-midnight study session in Megillat Ruth led by Rabbi Jonathan Helfand of the Brooklyn College faculty of Judaic Studies. After some light refreshments which graced the intermission at midnight, the continued study of Midrash Mekhilta on the Aseret Ha-dibrot was forcefully led again by our own Rabbi Lamm in the auditorium.Meanwhile, enthusiastic groups of Yeshiva students kept up their own studies, turning to Rabbi Benjamin Mandel for assistance in their work. The all-night study of Torah continued until 4:35 A.M., when early morning services were held and Kabbalat HaTorah took place.The success of this five-hundred-year-old custom was attested to not only by the remarkable number of people who participated, and the inspiration imparted to all those who remained to "receive the Torah," but by the varied spectrum of people who attended. They included pre-Bar-Mitzvah boys and those already retired, young ladies as well as mothers of grown children, parents and children, the learned as well as beginners, officers and rabbinic members of the congregation as well as non-members and guests from diverse places.Our many thanks to all thos…

We are a vocation and work-oriented society. We cannot abide impractical occupations. Secular man is, above all, a pragmatist. Ideas must work, principles must have application, theories must forthwith produce results. When two modern, secular men discuss a third person, they do not ask: "Who is he?" or, "What kind of person is he?" but: "What does he do?" What a man does — what he accomplishes, what he achieves, the results he produces — that is what defines his very self. In a civilization of this sort we have lost the capacity for appreciating anything for its own sake; we look only for that which is beyond it, that to which it leads. In a cultural context of this kind it is almost futile to urge people to study Torah. We are conditioned to believe that the study of Torah is impractical. People ask: What does it lead to? What diploma do you get as a result? When is the end in sight? Can it get me a better job? Will it help feed the poor and save refugees? What we forget is that Torah is not to be considered a means to an end, but, as the end itself. Study is important not only because it leads us to practice, but because it in itself is the most sacred and meaningful of deeds. Nachmanides makes an interesting observation concerning one of the verses in which the Torah commands the observance of Shavuot: "and ye shall proclaim or this very day (b'etzem ha-yom ha-zeh) a holy convocation" (Lev. 23:21). Nachmanides is intrigued by the emphatic phrase b'etzem ha-yom ha-zeh, "this very day." There is only one other place in the Torah where this appears, and that is with regard to the solemn fast of Yom Kippur: "and ye shall do no manner or work b'etzem ha-yom ha-zeh, on this very day" (Lev. 21:28). What is the affinity between Shavuot and Yom Kippur, such that both of them are referred to as applying to b'etzem ha-yom ha-zeh, "this very day?" I suggest that just as Yom Kippur is not considered primarily the recollection of an historical event, but is important for its…