Timeless Torah

The Midrash relates how the Jews slept the entire night before the giving of the Torah. Even the next morning, when the Almighty appeared to bestow His gift upon the former slaves, He found the Israelites asleep. For this reason it is customary to stay awake the night of Shavuos and study the Torah; to undo the slumber of our forefathers.

After their departure from Egypt, a great longing overcame the Jews to receive the Torah. In their eagerness, they began counting the days till the anticipated moment. One can imagine that if they were impatient at the onset, how great their desire must have been just prior to the actual event.
It should also be remembered that their counting was a means of spiritual preparation. During those seven weeks the people underwent progressive purification. Each and every day they climbed the ladder of holiness until they had reached the Forty Ninth Gate of Understanding, which is the maximum degree achievable by human effort.
In light of all the above, it is difficult to understand the Midrash that relates how the Jews slept the entire night before the giving of the Torah. Even the next morning, when the Almighty appeared to bestow His gift upon the former slaves, He found the Israelites asleep. For this reason it is customary to stay awake the night of Shavuos and study the Torah; to undo the slumber of our forefathers that historic evening.
The first Rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, notes that the loftiest level of closeness to G-d while the soul is garbed in a physical body is limited. During sleep however, the soul divests itself of the body and ascends to higher realms. At times, spiritual concepts which remained unclear while awake were resolved after a period of sleep because of the soul's apprehension above.
Therefore, after the Jews had attained all that was possible while awake, they went to sleep, feeling that they would achieve even more exalted degrees of holiness.
Nevertheless, the Almighty was not content with Israel's slumber, for this was not appropriate. The purpose of Sinai was to enable man to recognize and evoke the G-dliness that was already hidden within the physical dimension of Creation. The ideal was not to neglect the body, but to work in conjunction with it and develop a complete and harmonious human being.
Since the singular importance of the giving of the Torah was the task of uniting the soul to the body, the preparation for that occasion had to be in a similar manner. So while the sleep might have been heavenly, G-d does not want us to forget planet Earth.