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From what I have seen, most people communities learn all night on just the 1st night of Shavu'ot and not the 2nd night. (Perhaps, there are some that do both nights.)

If in Diaspora, we tend to treat the 2nd day of Yom Tov identically to the 1st, why don't we repeat the same idea on the 2nd night of Shavuot? True, that learning is a minhag (there is no mention of this as a mitzvah in the Torah).

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    Please don't answer along the lines that there isn't enough cheesecake to feed everyone for 2 nights! – DanF Jun 5 at 16:13
  • Kind of touches on it a little (may have to delve deeper in the sources referenced) chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2156/jewish/… – alicht Jun 5 at 16:49
  • At first glance it would seem we pasken that mattan Torah was on the seventh of sivan, not sixth. As such, the reasoning to stay up all night would really only apply to the second night of Shavuos. So really you could ask why we stay up the first night as opposed to the second – robev Jun 5 at 17:15
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    IINM many indeed have the custom to stay up both nights. It certainly doesn’t seem as common, though. – DonielF Jun 5 at 20:03
  • @robev we stay up the first night because that’s the day that Israelis and people of the diaspora share. And we probably do only the first night because it’s too hard to stay up 2 nights in a row, and most people would fall asleep (if not I while learning, then while davening). – Lo ani Jun 6 at 3:43
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On page 68 of the Artscroll English Machzor Shavuos it discusses the custom of torah study for the first night of Shavuos. It says that the custom was from about 2 millennia ago but was only observed by small groups of scholars until widespread acceptance happened about 400 years ago. It then mentions a story of R' Shlomo HaLevi Aklabetz and Rabbi Joseph Karo...The following link describes this story of these great Rabbis how the second night was just as imperative if not more to stay up all night...

https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/379531/jewish/Shavuot-Night-in-Salonika.htm

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    If anything, this strengthens the question, rather than answers it. – DonielF Oct 20 at 1:52
  • This was just intended to give a proper source for staying up for the second night. Indeed, its probably not common today (which may strengthen the question) but it shows that there is in fact a source for staying up the second night. – code613 Oct 20 at 4:40

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