A Program for Shavuot

Isaiah ha-Levi Horowitz’s work Shene luḥot ha-berit (known as Shlah, from its initial letters) is an encyclopedic work combining halakhic rulings, ethical advice (musar), biblical commentary, and kabbalah. In his section about Shavuot, Horowitz discusses, among other topics, the practice of staying awake all night while steeped in texts of the Torah. The practice had already been widespread for approximately a century, and was quite standard by his time. He begins his discussion by presenting the primary source for the practice, from the Zohar. Then he lays out the detailed curriculum of recitation that is presented here. Earlier such curricula focused mainly on the twenty-four books of the Bible, which create twenty-four adornments for the “Bride,” that is, the Torah, on the night before her wedding (Shavuot). Other than that, they mainly included recitation or study of kabbalistic texts. But Horowitz expanded the curriculum to include passages from the “six orders of the Mishnah, Sefer yetsirah, . . .  and the six hundred and thirteen commandments.” Rather than simply a mystical praxis to adorn the Bride with a specific twenty-four ornaments, Horowitz’s curriculum was a buffet from the entirety of literature of the Torah, both the Written and Oral Torah. His inclusion of Mishnah in the curriculum was not uncontroversial; in later generations, many kabbalists opposed it, because the goal of this evening is to adorn the Bride, who is the Written Torah, whereas the Mishnah is merely the handmaiden to the Written Torah. After presenting the curriculum, Horowitz goes on to present, in full, the Shavuot Epistle of Solomon Alkabetz.