Tu B’Av You Didn’t Know

1. Most holidays in the Hebrew calendar are rooted in past traumas. While those traumas were resolved in a positive way that gave rise to the holiday, most begin from a negative starting point.
Tu B’Av also has negative associations connected to some of the events that occurred on this date, but overall it is regarded as a very positive, pure, and loving occasion. It is considered so auspicious that Tachanun (a penitential prayer) is not recited on this day.

2. So, what are the historical events that took place on this day? The most central source for the holiday, found at the end of Tractate Ta’anit in the Mishnah, contains the full statement of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel: “Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: There were no days as joyous for the Jewish people as the fifteenth of Av and as Yom Kippur, as on them the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in white clothes, which each woman borrowed from another. Why were they borrowed? They did this so as not to embarrass one who did not have her own white garments. All the garments that the women borrowed require immersion. And the daughters of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards. And what would they say? Young man, please lift up your eyes and see what you choose for yourself for a wife. Do not set your eyes toward beauty, but set your eyes toward a good family.”
In other words, on Tu B’Av, the daughters of Israel would go out to dance in the vineyards during the Second Temple period. They wore borrowed white garments so as not to shame those who had none (and also to blur class distinctions – a kind of social equalizer), and the young men would follow them, each to choose a wife.

3. Another positive event is that the generation of the wilderness, following the Exodus from Egypt, ceased to die.
As is known, following the sin of the spies, the Israelites were punished: anyone who was twenty years or older at the time of the sin would not enter the Land of Israel and would die in the desert over the forty years of wandering. So each year, on the ninth of Av precisely, a portion of the people would lie down to sleep and not wake up.
In the fortieth year of wandering, the Israelites rose on the morning of the ninth of Av and discovered to their surprise that no one had died. They assumed they had miscalculated the new month of Av and waited for the following day, expecting the decree to be fulfilled. After several days passed with no deaths, they saw the full moon at mid-month and understood they had not miscalculated – the punishment had ended, and they were close to entering the Land of Israel.

4. On Tu B’Av, the tribes were permitted to intermarry – that is, to marry partners from other tribes. This effectively restored the tribe of Benjamin to the congregation of Israel.
The ruling corrected the ban established during the period of the Judges against marrying members of the tribe of Benjamin, following the incident of the concubine at Gibeah. In that terrible episode, described at the end of the Book of Judges, men of the tribe of Benjamin raped and murdered the concubine of a visiting stranger, and the tribe refused to hand over the perpetrators. The incident led the other tribes to impose a marriage ban on the men of Benjamin, which threatened to lead to the tribe’s extinction. But in time, the nation’s leadership feared the negative trend of division and separatism, and the ban was lifted on Tu B’Av.

5. Jeroboam son of Nebat, one of the least righteous kings of Israel, stationed guards along the roads to prevent Israelites from making pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Hoshea son of Elah, the last king of Israel, abolished those road-guards on Tu B’Av, opened the road to Jerusalem, so that everyone who wished to do so could make the pilgrimage.

6. Another important event on Tu B’Av was the cessation of wood-cutting for the altar. After the construction of the Second Temple, a serious problem arose: the altar required a steady supply of wood, which was scarce in the desolate land. The final date for bringing wood to the altar was Tu B’Av, out of concern that wood cut later would become infested with worms and thus be unfit for Temple use. The successful replenishment of the wood supply thus created a celebratory feeling among those involved.

7. The slain of Beitar were brought to burial on Tu B’Av. During Bar Kokhba’s revolt against the Romans in 135 CE, the Romans breached the walls of Beitar after a long siege and killed the rebels. The dead were not buried, but on Tu B’Av permission was granted to bury them – with a surprising discovery: the bodies of the rebels were intact and had not decayed, even though they had been lying exposed for several days.

8. Today, Tu B;Av is perceived as a holiday of love, filled with weddings, marriage proposals, and bouquets of flowers. In Israel’s secular world it is the equivalent of Valentine’s Day; in the religious and ultra-Orthodox sectors, it is customary to arrange matches or weddings on this day, to hold gatherings for singles, and to give more generously to charity for brides (hachnassat kallah), out of belief in the spiritual power of the day.

9. Another thing worth noting about Tu B’Av is mentioned in the Talmud: from this day onward, the nights grow longer, and one should therefore increase Torah study during them.

10. Additional historical events that occurred on Tu B’Av in various years: the 17 founders of the settlement of Rishon LeZion arrived at the site; the Białystok Ghetto Uprising broke out; the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem was inaugurated; Anne Frank and her family were captured by the Gestapo in Amsterdam; and the cornerstone of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem was laid.

This article was originally published in Hebrew.

Main Photo: Benjamites take women of Shiloh as wives\ Wikipedia