Summer of Love

Chevra, TuB'av is deep and I can only explain a little taste. Forgive me if it’s a little too gushy.

What the heck is Tu B'av? It says in the Gemara that the happiest days of the year were Yom Kippur and Tu B'av where single Jewish women would don beautifully simple white dresses and dance in circles, asking the men to choose their soul mates. You may be thinking how could this be done on Yom Kippur when we are supposed to be in shul praying to save our necks? The truth is that Yom Kippur is really a day of extreme closeness between us and G-d. On Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol, who represents the Jewish people, goes into the Holy of Holies or the Yichud room of the great wedding hall of the Beit Hamikdash. At the moment we scream Hashem Hu HaElokim at neila on Yom Kippur, no matter what we have done, we feel that all we want is to be one with Him and nothing else matters. It’s the same intense image of the Kohen Gadol with Hashem in that holy room, all alone. See chevra, Halacha is the same word as Hakala or the bride, because the reason we do the mitzvos and keep halacha is in order to make ourselves beautiful for G-d and to be unified with Him. If a Bride walks down the aisle and winks at her old boyfriend, we know it’s not a good shidduch because she has to be whole heartedly in love with her husband. We are totally dedicated and in love with G-d deep down, we just have to reveal that and shake away all our “spring flings” which only left us brokenhearted. So the great day where you go into the "Yichud room" with G-d, is the same day that you find your soul mate because the intense yearning and desire for oneness you feel for the person you truly love is the same longing to be alone with just the One above. The truth is, only when we get married, can we know what it means to go into the holy of holies on Yom Kippur. This is very deep. BTW, now that we are a little older and less immature, we must stop asking why do we do this and why do we have to do that but, how is this halacha allowing me to be one with G-d and bring his light into the world (its a whole different perception of things).

So chevra, why do we get married on Tu B'Av? Let me tell you a secret from the Bnei Yissascher. The Gemara tells us that 40 days before a child is created in his mother’s womb, a voice screams out in heaven declaring who will be his soul mate. In a few weeks, we will commemorate the first day of the creation of the world on the 25th day of Elul and 40 days before this is, that’s right, Tu, B'av! This was the day that G-d decided that he would create the world in order to be "soul mates" with the Jewish people. What’s really amazing about this is that we didn’t even exist yet, nor do anything to earn His love, but it was an ahava shlo teluya badavar, a love that depends on nothing. G-d saw our essence and loved us for that and in the same way on Tu B’av the women would go out all dressed in the same simple white because we were on such a high level that we would see past the exterior into our zivug’s essence and just know. What a simcha. After the separation we felt from G-d on Tisha B’av, Hashem reminds us of the unbreakable love He has for us on Tu Ba’v. Ya know chevra, its hard to talk about these things because growing up and watching TV really gave me such a diluted and shallow view of what it means to really love someone and for sure what it means love G-d. We really have to work hard to unbrainwash ourselves from all the 90210's and Dawsons Creeks etc, to think and feel deeply about what it means to be one with another. Bezrat Hashem.
Mazel Tov!