Tu B'Av

You're going to wait until the...

I'm not, it's not the first day of Elul, or it's not Tesvah of, when people started, I heard this time for the first time in my life, that there are Hasidim starting Tu B'Av, they start saying K'shiva K'shiva Matai.

Now Tu B'Av, you can definitely say, let's say that, Benazman just started, you know what I mean? But they say K'shiva K'shiva Matai, but two days before Rosh Hashanah? Okay, so now, that's the Shaifah, that's the Shaifah.

Now he says another point.

That these 40 days.

What is this festival they're talking about? They say there's a festival, Yomim Yomima, from time to time.

So the festival they're referring to is what later became known as Tu B'Av.

The 15th of Av, it's mentioned in Masechet Ta'anit.

page 30b, and the sages describe Tubav as one of the happiest days of the year, right up there with Yom Kippur, but in a very different sense.

And then they give the following instructions.

When the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance, then you shall come out from the vineyards, and each man shall grab for yourself from the daughters of Shiloh, and then you shall go to the land of Benjamin." So that's the plan.

On Tu B'Av, the girls of Shelah were going out to dance.

They're there anyway.

Enough is enough.

You can bury them now." And this became one of the five reasons of the, the tremendous simcha on Tu b'Av 'cause on Tu b'Av they were buried.

But again, Chazal mentioned, we, we say the fourth bracha in, in benching of Hatov vehaMetiv because of this Harugei Betar.

Hatov sh-- uh, the Hashem is good that didn't let them rot away, vehaMetiv shenitnu lehikaber, the Gemara says, right? So this is the, the history behind what happened in, in the time of Rabbi Akiva of Darach kochav miyaakov vekam shevet Yisrael.

Now, of course, in the bracha we say, But the remez is, The whole tachlis of where we are right now, which we're coming to the time of We're in the time of is to bring each and every one of us to a place of knowing within ourselves that that the purpose of my life of my life is is to be able to stand in your presence.

The Sforums say, and I usually say this by Slichus Knight, the Sforums say that that the journey, the journey through Tubav and Elul, through Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and so on, till the end, till Shemini Yetzirah, it's a journey that's taking us, , the , which is primarily during this time of the year, , the , And to finally, finally, to get to the Yehud of Heviani HaMelech HaDor, which is Shemini HaTzeres.

Simchas Torah Heviani HaMelech HaDor, Nagila V'Nishmach HaBach.

So where are we by Slichas? So that's where I'm saying we're standing by the gates of Yerushalayim.

Whenever someone had to go out on a date, they borrowed clothes from a friend.

It sounds like the Mishner in Tainit with Tu B'Av, how the girls borrowed dresses.

Whenever they bought new clothes, the Minik in Avadik was, you gave the suit to your friend to try on for the first time.

You didn't try it on, he tried it on.

No, I ha- I have started thinking about it, you know, 'cause we always know mi yech and mi yomas.

We understood that all this was determined, and we were just trying to figure out, you know, it's after Tu B'Av, Chana Malka never got married.

I felt a connection there.

But going into Elul, Yom Kippur, she always wanted to davened Yeshiva, and Simchas Torah was the happiest day for the two of them.

What this Mashal is telling us is as follows, "Shekodem Rosh Hashanah, yesh le'adam harbeh tochniyot." We have a lot of plans, a lot, a lot, a lot of plans, right, before Rosh Hashanah.

"Kvar bachamisha asar be'av," already on Tu B'Av, "hu matchil etachtanen, keitzad haElul shel Hashanah lo yihiye kmo haElul shel hashanim hakedmoniyos." We already start planning, this Elul, oh, this Elul is gonna be for real.

It's not gonna be like previous years.

This Elul I'm gonna get my act together, and all the things that I set myself up to do, this Elul it's going to happen.

Perhaps the most striking connection between Yom Kippur and marriage appears in a celebrated Mishnah at the end of Mazzachas Tainis.

On Tainis, Rav Shimon ben Gamliel declares, There are no more joyous days for the Jewish people than Tu B'Av and Yom Kippur.

And the Mishnah then describes an extraordinary courtship ritual.

The young women of Yerushalayim would go out dressed in borrowed white dresses.

Relationships would begin.

Marriages would ultimately ensue.

Now we tend to associate the Mishnah almost exclusively with Tu B'Av.

That's why Tu B'Av has become the paradigmatic Jewish day of courtship and romance.