While the world was sleeping, what kept you up all night?

On Shavuos, we stay up all night to receive the Torah—a tradition rooted in devotion and anticipation. But not every all-nighter is linked to such joyous expectation, at least not planned. People are awake at 3 a.m. for all kinds of reasons: a crying baby, a looming deadline, a soul-searching conversation with a needy friend, a family trauma, or just frustrating insomnia. Some nights are holy by design; others become holy by surprise.

Coordinated By: Michal Frischman

Keyed Up

Ariella Schiller

I stayed up all night traveling.

IT was me, my husband of two years, his parents, and our one-year-old son. It wasn’t supposed to be an all-nighter, although with the Schillers, I was fast learning, you just never knew. But this was supposed to be an easy one: We’d travel up north on the second day of Chol Hamoed from Ramat Beit Shemesh — where we had all stayed for first days — to visit my sister-in-law in the Pesach program she and her husband run in the Kinar Hotel on the shores of the Kinneret.

You know, they always remind you when you’re dating that you’re not marrying the boy’s family, you’re marrying the boy. And while that’s very true, you’re also kind of marrying his family. I mean, purely circumstantially, you’re probably going to be spending a lot of time with them.

Fortunately, though, the more time I spent with my in-laws, the more I grew to love them.

The drive itself back from the hotel was eventful. Watching my mother-in-law drive at breakneck speed over the roller-coaster hills of the Jordan Valley on the way back to Jerusalem (with no street lights), rounding curves like they were corners, I was pretty sure I was going to lose my matzah. Or my life. But we somehow made it safely back to our cozy apartment — where we’d be spending the second half of Yom Tov — at around three in the morning, tired, hungry, and extremely hyper.

The Jerusalem spring night air was brisk; my mother-in-law and I hopped up and down, shivering, while my husband searched his pockets for the key. And searched. And searched.

Eventually, he ran a tired palm over his face. “I think I left the key in Beit Shemesh,” he admitted.

My in-laws were not fazed.

My father-in-law made a wisecrack about how G-d will probably open a window, but the thing is, the windows were locked, too.

“Does anyone have your key?” My mother-in-law asked wisely.

I snapped my fingers. “Yes! Chedva has a key!”

Now, waking up most people at 3:30 a.m. because you locked yourself out of your apartment would be terrible behavior. But my upstairs neighbor Chedva wasn’t most people. And I knew she would be genuinely horrified if she heard we were locked out and hadn’t tried to wake her up.

We knocked on their door, not too loudly, but loudly enough that if anyone was a light sleeper, they’d hear us.

No one came.

We stood under their window and called out to them in whisper-like shouts.

Nothing.

My mother-in-law even made up a little song. “Chedva, Chedva, open that door!” Years later, after Chedva’s premature passing, I’d find myself singing that little ditty every now and then with a nostalgic smile.

My son tiredly clapped his hands to the beat and then fell asleep on my husband’s shoulder.

At 4:15 a.m. we decided to drive to Beit Shemesh to get the key. We piled back into the car, and by five, my husband triumphantly held up his key ring.

And by 6 a.m., we were all gathered tiredly in my little silver-foil-covered Jerusalem kitchen, sharing a bar of Schmerling’s chocolate before heading off to bed.

The Jerusalem sun was breaking over the horizon, and even though we all had every reason to be grumpy, annoyed, angry, and frustrated, we just kept laughing and rehashing the night.

Because sometimes, it doesn’t matter if you’re forced to stay up all night.

All that matters is who you spend it with.