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my 7 year old son is dying to stay up a whole night on shavous to learn, should i give in to him, does anyone with a son that age think it makes sense? if he will be able to managee?
Obviously you are just asking for our opinions here. Mine is that you should designate a time during the night that your husband will take him home to sleep. After all, what 7 year old can learn from 11pm to 4pm straight? It’s impossible. So set a time and bring him home by then if he is learning straight, or earlier if he is goofing off.
For most 7 year olds, it’s just the coolness factor of being up late or of going to the vasikin minyan. So one alternative is to promise to wake up your son a hour BEFORE the vasikin minyan to learn and then daven.
make things very clear. first thing is a long nap in the afternoon b4 yomtov. if he doesn’t 4 any reason there is nothing to speak about. tell him you will go by – hour by hour. most young children do go to shul at 11.00 pm. tell him each hour his abba will see how he – the boy is doing. sometimes a young group of children will recite tehillim also. that’s fine. as soon as the abba notices that his son cannot sit any longer- it’s time to go home. let him know beforehand it’s not a punishment to go home early. it could be a beautiful learning experience for both father and son. also the father should be willing to go over the boy’s parsha and yomtov sheets he brings home from school. which means he might not learn with his own chavrusa. hatzlocha.
In the future, please refrain from using such shorthand. Using 4 as a replacement for the word “for” (and other such maneuvers) often leads to posts getting deleted on the spot
believer – just by the way, teach your son now, what no means!!! you are the boss! not the 7 yr. old.
thank you for the correction, mods.
i would definitely let him try it
he will either fail or succeed
in either case he will grow from this
and he will learn that you think highly of him, if he says he can do it you believe him.
and all children have special qualities, maybe this 7 year old can do it
please let him try
I let my 8 (now 10) year old stay awake, on the condition that
1. He sleeps for at least 3 hours Erev Shavuos
2: He knows in advance what he wants to learn
3: For at least the beginning of the night, he has someone to learn with (at least 45 minutes)
4: If he gets “bored” he has books to read to keep him busy
5: I dont have to carry him home from shul in the morning.
He stayed awake the entire night, last year, learned for about 2.5 hours and didnt bother anyone in the shul.
In our shul there are speakers every hour from 11:45 through to shacharis time (around 4 AM). Each one gives a shiur on a subject of his choosing (my two sons have each given numerous shiurim in Shavuos night (often the 2-3 AM ones, when people are starting to get really tired). The women are invited to attend (in the ezras nashim of course, and without giving any input) and I have gone for the last 6 years or so, 5 of which I stayed up through the night, and then davened shacharis with the 4 AM minyan), and last year I was not so well, so at 2:30 I caved and went home. At least I got to hear my then 21 year old baby boy give an amazing drosha on a couple of hours’ notice (because the original speaker couldn’t make it, after all). He took a concept he had learned in Yeshivah, and made an hour-long class from it. And nobody fell asleep… Pardon my maternal gaivah, but I think we can be gaivedig and even jealous about someone’s Torah knowledge, or at least I think it makes sense.
where’s the mitzvah for women to stay up and learn?
oomis- go right ahead if that’s what you choose to do, but I’m wondering what gave you the idea
areivim, you’re such an instigator.
Where’s the mitzvah for MEN to stay up and learn? If you look in the S”A, you will see that on Shavuos it is a minhag. However, if you look in the same S”A by Hilchos Pesach, you will see that there is a mitzvah to stay up all night on Seder nights and learn Pesach/Yetzias Mitzraim inyanim. I don’t know of any packed Vasikin minyanim on Pesach mornings, so tell me what’s going on.
areivim and moish, where’s JF02?
~a~
ames, it’s supposed to be a kapara because they weren’t up and waiting for matan torah that morning. no one ever said they didn’t learn the rest of the day- the inyan is probably to be up waiting and preparing to get the torah. once they did that and davened vasikin, why not go to sleep?
completely made that up.
moish, good one;)
~a~
why thank you, madam!
i like making up this kind of stuff… it’s fun 😉
then make up your own, ames
ames, you try it. you make it sound like learning is so easy.
where’s the mitzvah for women to stay up and learn?
oomis- go right ahead if that’s what you choose to do, but I’m wondering what gave you the idea
It’s always a mitzvah to learn Torah, no matter when. Is it a SPECIAL mitzvah for women to stay up on Shavuos night? I am not sure if it is a specific one, but please bear in mind that the Torah was given to ALL of Klal Yisroel on Shavuos, men, women, and children, so it surely is a good thing for women to stay up to learn, even were it not a specific mitzvah to do so. Nothing GAVE me the idea – many women in my community attend shiurim on Shavuos night (all the shuls offer them) and well into the wee hours, if not all night long. The Yeshivah girls even have shiurim arranged by their Morahs’ homes, and after learning all night, they take a nap before going home or going to shul.
>> moish01
Member
areivim, you’re such an instigator.<<
You see right through me moish. When there’s no action, make some. That’s my motto 😉
squeak- good question… very good question. I’d like to hear what Chofetzchaim, chacham, ROB, Joseph etc. have to say to this.
oomis- I have to say this is very new to me. I’ve never heard of women staying up shavuos night to learn. Not only is it not a minhag for the women to do this, women don’t have a chiyuv to learn at all (aside for what they need to be mechanech children properly). I am absolutely NOT saying women shouldn’t learn (in general). I just can’t comprehend why a woman would stay up through the night. It’s a new & strange concept to me. (I hope I don’t sound narrow minded. I don’t mean it’s wrong or unacceptable, it’s just new to me.)
ames, it’s probably not. but yeshiva guys are nocturnal. they can stay up no problem, but don’t try getting them up for vasikin. that one’s a tough cookie. (ok, depends on the guy, but in general…)
I’ve never heard of women staying up shavuos night to learn. Not only is it not a minhag for the women to do this, women don’t have a chiyuv to learn at all (aside for what they need to be mechanech children properly). I am absolutely NOT saying women shouldn’t learn (in general). I just can’t comprehend why a woman would stay up through the night. It’s a new & strange concept to me. (I hope I don’t sound narrow minded. I don’t mean it’s wrong or unacceptable, it’s just new to me.) “
Maybe in your neck of the woods it is unusual, but out here it is very commonplace. Women go to shiurim ALL the time here. We are no longer of the mindset that only men are capable of learning. that is not to say that the women are learnng Gemorah (they are not), but they are learning halacha, Tanach, hashkafa, and dinim based in the Gemorah. The schoolgirls virtually ALL stay up all night learning chumash, Megillas Rus, hilchos shavuos, etc. many of them walk two miles or more, to be by their limudei Kodesh teachers for the night, then return home the next day after davening. We are not that generation of our mothers and grandmothers, the Tzenna U’renna generation. Today’s frum female is a great deal more learned and connected to limud Torah, than was the previous generation. And that’s a great thing, especially for the little kids whose fathers are not home in the evening to help them study their homework for whatever reason.
one thing I don’t understand about the women who go out to learn all night, who watches the kids? Does the husband stay home so his wife can go learn or is it only women who don’t have little kids at home who go?
The women who go out at night have kids who are old enough to take care of themselves (and are themselves ALSO probably out learning all night).
To answer the question about “Does anyone have a good topic for a shuir? ” I think any area of jewish medical ethics is a great starting point. Halacha and medical advances (embryo transfer, surrogate mothering, live organ donation i.e. kidney transplants, stem cell research. Or how about ahavas chinam versus sinas chinam – how to bring all of klal Yisroel clsoer together?
welcome to the cr! join the fun!
why not give a shiur about how to give tzeddaka? how much to give and who gets first yadayadayada
Haha, I’m here, better late than never I guess.
Areivim, by asking “where’s the mitzvah to do this” you seem to be implying either that women shouldn’t do it, or that it’s somehow strange or unnatural for them to do so. Guess what- there are many mitzvot that women are not commanded to do that we nevertheless do because we can. How many women do you know who bentch lulav and etrog on Sukkos? Well, we don’t have to do that either, but I can’t think of any frum women I know who don’t do it. As long as it doesn’t interfere with other obligations, why not? In fact, isn’t it commendable to always be looking for more ways to serve Hashem? As someone pointed out, there are considerations of young children, but for unmarried women, women with older children, childless women, and women who have secured babysitters, staying up all night learning on Shavuos can be a wonderful opportunity.
ames, Hi. I’m anonymiss. Nice to see you. I’m frum and I bentch lulav and esrog. Actually, I know many frum women who do.:)
~a~
Where’s the mitzvah for MEN to stay up and learn? If you look in the S”A, you will see that on Shavuos it is a minhag. However, if you look in the same S”A by Hilchos Pesach, you will see that there is a mitzvah to stay up all night on Seder nights and learn Pesach/Yetzias Mitzraim inyanim. I don’t know of any packed Vasikin minyanim on Pesach mornings, so tell me what’s going on.
First of all, how do you know they don’t stay up until Alos and then go to sleep. Unlike on Shavuos, you are not in Shul Pesach night so it is harder to get people who have been up all night to go to a vasikin minyan. For those who do sleep, it is not as easy to stay up Pesach as it is Shavuos because people are probably more tired from the day’s activities of preparing for Pesach
Ashkenazic poskim permit women to say a bracha on a mitzvat aseh shehazman grama, while Sephardic poskim generally do not. Basically, it states that Sephardic poskim believe that for a woman to say “asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu” etc would transgress bal tosif, since she is saying that she is obligated when she is really not. However, Ashkenazic poskim believe that since the bracha is in the plural, a woman who says it is merely acknowledging that Hashem blessed Klal Yisrael by giving us this mitzvah, even if it doesn’t specifically apply to her.
HaQer, are you implying that most men DO stay up on seder nights and I just never knew it, or are you just hocking? Kindly keep irrelevant points out of this – I’m aware that it’s possible that some people stay up but for the most part they don’t. Ask around – no one is going to lie about it. Most people are busy bragging about what time their seder finished anyway 🙂
oomis and others, women staying up on Shavuos is a very public thing. If you shake lulav at home, no one knows it – but when women start congregating to learn past midnight, it makes some people question their motives. What’s the show for? Are they trying to rub out the line between women and men? Why can’t they just learn in the morning instead? Why can’t they pore over a sefer in their own dining room, b’tzina? You have to admit that public displays like this set off warning bells. Not to say that in every case this is the motivation, but it raises a flag.
As far as charlie brown’s point goes, even if only women who have no little kids at home are going out to learn, it sets the tone. As soon as one woman with little kids figures out a way to join the group, it becomes a pressure on her peers to do the same. Like going to shul on Rosh Hashana – and if they can’t figure out what to do with their kids then they’ll just bring ’em along (haha, I just jumped on oomis’ soapbox at the last second to protect myself 😉
I myself usually go to sleep at 1 or 2 AM. If I don’t, I won’t make it to any minyan. Last time I tried to stay up, I ended up davening Netz at home (alone), skipping psukei d’zimroh, and falling asleep right after until the early afternoon.
squeak- I’m reading your post and nodding… and nodding… and nodding. All very good points- my thoughts exactly. Thank you.
Now- any answers?
Ames, you can’t make a bracha at any time for no reason unless you leave out Hashem’s name. Women are permitted to say the bracha with Hashem’s name if they are actually performing the mitzvah at the time because a) it’s a statement that Hashem commanded Bnai Yisrael as a whole with the mitzvah, and b) the bracha is applicable to the mitzvah currently being performed. Is that clearer?
Squeak, I do know women who stay up to learn in their living rooms. (This makes childcare easier because they can just get up to go to the baby’s room when they hear it crying, calm it down, then go back to learning.) However, learning is always better in chavruta or group settings. Women who gather together to learn are gathered so as to enhance the learning experience all around, and even if it’s in a public setting, it’s not like we’re talking about a co-ed learning environment. I don’t see why a group of women getting together to learn Hashem’s Torah should raise a red flag. Are women suspected of “trying to prove something” every time they leave their houses now?
jfem, I would hope you can see the difference between women leaving their houses to go shopping and leaving their houses to go learn Toireh from midnight until dawn. If you want to make a comparison, think of something valid, like going to selichos. Yep, that raises the same red flag in this thorny brain.
To me “raises red flags” is too strong. I’d say these things seem out of place- where a woman belongs and when; what her priorities and obligations are. Something doesn’t have to directly contradict a woman’s obligation in order for it to stand out or seem out of place.
Areivim, are you saying that women don’t belong in the Bais Medrash?
thank you ames
to all and wide- I am of the old school (in thinking). Feel free to argue my “narrow” views
(haha, I just jumped on oomis’ soapbox at the last second to protect myself 😉
Good one, Squeak!!!!
I will gladly argue with you as soon as you give me a logical point. Why exactly don’t women belong in the Bais Medrash? (Or are you just trying to get me riled up, and don’t actually believe it is so?)
jewishfem- read through some of the (toward the end) Halacha and Mishna and Gemara Questions thread
Because it increases their yiras shamayim.
areivimzehlazeh:
There is no reason why a shiur can’t be given in practical halacha for women. Why shouldn’t they also be able to be mekabel the Torah after a full night of learning? Besides, the practical halacha may come in handy 🙂
Doesn’t learning increase yiras shamayim for men? Why shouldn’t it for women as well? (By the way, I say this from personal experience.)
Why does the learning need to be done in the bais medrash for men?
a beis medrash is a heilig place, designated to the learning of Hashem’s Torah
GAW- I’d never argue that point. Plus- I tried to make clear that I don’t think women should NOT learn, just this new idea of being up all night doesn’t shtim for me
And why can’t women learn anywhere?
You can. Go to Avi Weiss & Co.
And my point is that the Bais Medrash need not be a male setting.
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