Tu B'av

Tomorrow, actually starting tonight, is the 15th day of the Hebrew month Av. The sages tell us "There were no greater festivals in Israel than the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur,"

Five special events throughout Jewish history took place on the fifteenth of Av.

They were:

1. The tribe of Benjamin was permitted once again to marry the remainder of the Jewish people;

2. The Generation of the Desert ceased to die; they had previously been condemned to perish in the desert because of the sin of the spies;

3. The blockades that had been set up to prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem for the festivals were removed.
   

4. The cutting of the wood for the Holy Altar was completed;

5. Permission was granted from the Romans to bury the slain of Betar.

There is another, all-encompassing reason.

Tisha B'Av is the day when the two Holy Temples were destroyed, signaling the start of the long and terrible exile we are still enduring. But these tragedies are not without purpose. "Descent is for the purpose of ascent," and the deeper the descent, correspondingly greater will be the ascent which follows. It is specifically after the awesome decline of Tisha B'Av that we can reach the loftiest heights, heights that would otherwise be inaccessible.

The fifteenth of Av transforms the evil of Tisha B'Av to the greatest good. The ultimate goal of the tragedies of the month of Av is that they should be transformed into a greater good -- the supreme festival of the fifteenth of Av.

May we merit to celebrate the fifteenth of Av this year in a truly befitting manner, with all Jews together in the Third and Eternal Holy Temple.