Coffee
The Influence of Coffee on Tikkun Leil Shavuot and Other Midnight Jewish Rituals
One of the innovations of Lurianic Kabbalah was the creation of a variety of rituals which took place late at night. Joseph Karo is credited with the creation of the all-night study session on the eve of Shavuot, called Tikkun Leil Shavuot.
The Ari, founder of Lurianic Kabbalah, emphasized the importance of prayer and meditation late at night (called Tikkun Chatzot or Tikkun Rachel) and early in the morning (called Tikkun Leah). These times connected the individual with the daily creations of light and darkness. It also was an ideal time (according to the Zohar) to mourn the banishment of the Shechinah from Jerusalem. It also connected the individual with King David, who was said to have created the Psalms at midnight. The powerful image that the gates of Heaven are most available for prayer late at night was thus concretized in Tzfat in the late 16th century. Ironically, it didn't catch on in Jerusalem at the same time even though Jerusalem mystics were certainly aware of the Zohar's emphasis on midnight and all-night vigils. Jerusalem's mystics focused on pre-dawn rituals instead.
Coffee was introduced into Tzfat in 1528, and the first coffee house appeared there in 1580. None came to Jerusalem. The use of coffee as a stimulant might have encouraged the mystics of Tzfat to focus more on all-night and late-night rituals because they couldn't sleep anyway. Karo's Tikkun Leil Shavuot appeared two or three years after the introduction of coffee to Tzfat.
By 1673, Tikkun Chatzot had become the known ritual for the vast majority of Palestinian Jewry, and Italian Jewry knew that most Palestinian Jews drank coffee before prayers. Coffee had not yet arrived in Italy.
The first coffee house (making coffee available to the masses) opened in Venice in 1640. In 1655, a liturgy for Tikkun Chatzot was published in Italy, and a Chatzot group was formed. In that same year (for the first time), Italian Jews accepted Joseph Karo's ritual of Tikkun Leil Shavuot. However, coffee was not as popular in Venice as it was in Tzfat. By 1683, there was still only one coffee house in Venice, and there were few Jews drinking the exotic drink.
By 1759, coffee-drinking had soared in Italy. There were more than 200 coffee houses in Venice, including two in the ghetto. Jews in Mantua were making a fortune in the coffee industry. A scandal resulted in a ruling that "women could not enter coffee houses whether by day or night." The popularity in midnight and all-night rituals also rose impressively. More than eighty different midnight rituals were printed.
Coffee arrived in Worms Germany in 1728. By 1763 mystic circles were regularly celebrating midnight and all-night vigils for the first time.
In short, the introduction of coffee into Jewish communities markedly influenced their rituals and customs. Today, midnight and all-night prayers remain an important part of Kabbalistic ritual, and many Jews continue to stay up all night on Shavuot and meet for supplication prayers at midnight on Selichot. Our level of caffeine stimulation makes our participation in such all-night rituals much easier.