Some thirty years ago, this author witnessed a dramatic, living embodiment of this aspect of Shavuot, when I had the opportunity to spend the holiday in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, within the community of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. Following the Yom Tov meal, the Hasidim returned to the Study House and sat down to read the Tikkun—the special book containing a series of texts appropriate for study on this night—or to learn Torah. At precisely 3:15 AM, the Rebbe entered the hall to deliver a ma’amar—a discourse on Hasidic thought, distinguished from the more usual sihah (an informal table talk) by its deeper, more mystical content. Both before the Rebbe began his discourse, and at its conclusion, the entire assembly sang a niggun devekut—a slow, meditative melody, expressive of yearning for union with the Divine. Throughout the talk itself, which lasted about half an hour, the entire congregation—including the elderly men among them—remained standing on their feet. The Rebbe himself spoke with his eyes closed, in a special chant totally different from the discursive, almost conversational tone used in his regular table talks. Although my Yiddish was woefully inadequate to understanding the words said, there was a powerful sense of the sacred, of wondrous, deep secrets of Torah being revealed, as befitting this night of preparation for revelation.
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