Tu B'Av, the 15th of the Hebrew month of Av, coincides this year with the 2nd of August. "There were no greater festivals in Israel than Tu B'Av and Yom Kippur," the Mishna tells us. What is so special about Tu B'Av that it is singled out together with Yom Kippur from all the other festivals?
A number of events in 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) Hoshea Ben Elah removed the blockades that the rebel Jeroboam had set up to prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem for the festivals; 4) The cutting of the wood for the Holy Altar was completed; 5) Permission was granted by the Romans to bury the slain of Betar.
These five events in themselves do not seem adequate enough to make Tu B'Av a festival greater than any other. There is another, all-encompassing reason.
There is another occasion of note in the month of Av, the ninth. Tisha B'Av is the day when the two Holy Temples were destroyed, signalling the start of the long exile we are still enduring-tragedies which were the result of the Jews' transgressions. Tisha B'Av is the nadir of Jewish physical and spiritual life.
But these tragedies are not for naught. "Descent is for the purpose of ascent," and the deeper the descent, correspondingly greater will be the ascent that 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 five festive events on Tu B'Av, then, are the counterpart to five tragic events that took place on Tisha B'Av. Tu B'Av transforms the evil of Tisha B'Av to the greatest good - "there were no greater festivals in Israel than Tu B'Av." 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 Tu B'Av.
