A prayer for Shavuot, to receive the Torah anew

Master of the World, on Shavuot we remember the day we received the Torah. I do not want only to remember. I want to receive it again, today, I myself.

I admit that my connection to learning was not always strong this year. There were weeks I did not open a book, and times I learned without the words touching me. Let me renew this connection, and commit to something small that I can keep all year.

On this night, whether I learn until late or only for a few hours, let me feel that the words are speaking to me. Let me hear in them something I have not heard yet, even in things I have already read.

And let me receive the Torah together with others. To learn with a study partner, to listen to an opinion different from mine, to see how many different people stand together before the same words.

Give me humility. Let me learn out of awareness of what I do not know, and not out of a wish to display knowledge. Let me ask when I do not understand, and rejoice when someone younger than me teaches me.

And let the Torah not stay in the house of study. Let it come home with me, to work, to the way I treat people, to everything I do.

And let me rejoice in the Torah as on a day of great celebration, and not see it as a burden. Let me return to it every day anew, regularly and with love, until it is part of my life and not one more task on the list.