G-d’s Shidduch Résumé
By: Yochanan Gordon
By the time you read this, we will find ourselves between Tishah B’Av and Tu B’Av—the two holidays that stand at opposite poles of the Jewish calendar.
Tishah B’Av is our national day of mourning. It commemorates not only the destruction of both Batei Mikdash but also serves as the repository of every national heartbreak that has befallen our people. It is the day upon which Jewish history mourns itself.
Yet only six days later comes Tu B’Av, which the Gemara astonishingly places alongside Yom Kippur as the greatest festival in the Jewish calendar. On that day, the daughters of Jerusalem would go out to the vineyards dressed in borrowed white garments and seek prospective husbands.
Perhaps this scene is not merely historical. Perhaps the maidens are the Jewish people and the eligible bachelor is Hashem Himself.
I mentioned in a previous article that at the very moment the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed, the Keruvimatop the Aron were found embracing. Chazal teach that this embrace ordinarily reflected a time when the Jewish people were doing the will of Hashem—a startling image to accompany the greatest national catastrophe in our history.
Yet there is another halachah concerning marriage. Before a husband departs on a lengthy journey, he is obligated to be with his wife on the night before his departure. Perhaps the image of the Keruvim embracing on the eve of the Churban symbolizes that final moment of intimacy before a long and painful concealment.
Even if exile is not literally a divorce—as the Navi rhetorically asks, “Where is the bill of divorce with which I sent you away?”—it has certainly felt like estrangement. The greatest tragedy of exile has been the concealment of Hashem’s countenance and the distance that concealment has created between Him and His people.
Reb Hillel of Paritch, in his maamar Issa B’Pesikta, offers one of the most beautiful descriptions of exile I have ever encountered.
He describes a rebbe delivering a carefully prepared shiur. Suddenly, in the middle of the lecture, an entirely new approach flashes into his mind. For a brief moment, the rebbe stands suspended between the prepared lesson and the new revelation, struggling to decide whether to continue as planned or abandon everything in favor of the new insight.
To an ordinary observer, nothing has happened. But the devoted student senses it immediately. He feels, if only for an instant, that his rebbe’s attention has shifted away from him.
That fleeting sensation of alienation is exile.
The irony, says Reb Hillel, is that this apparent withdrawal is not abandonment at all. It is merely the birth pangs of something infinitely greater—the Torah chadashah me’iti teitzei, the entirely new revelation that will accompany redemption.
Exile, then, is not G-d’s absence.
It is His attention momentarily diverted toward preparing something we cannot yet comprehend.
Against that backdrop, the Gemara’s description of Tu B’Av takes on extraordinary meaning.
The Gemara describes three groups of maidens dancing in the vineyards. The beautiful ones urged the young men to choose beauty. Those of distinguished lineage urged them to choose pedigree. And those who possessed neither beauty nor pedigree asked only one thing: “Take us for the sake of Heaven—and afterward adorn us with jewelry.”
Perhaps these are not merely three categories of women. Perhaps they are three generations of the Jewish people. Some generations were spiritually beautiful. Others possessed illustrious pedigree, sustained by the merit of those who came before them.
And then there are generations like ours. Perhaps we are the generation that possesses neither obvious beauty nor distinguished spiritual stature.
There is little about us that naturally commands Heaven’s attention.
I have always been intrigued by another Gemara in Taanis. R. Elazar, the son of R. Shimon, once encountered a man whom he considered exceedingly mechu’ar. “How ugly you are!” he exclaimed. The man replied with remarkable dignity: “Go and tell the Craftsman Who made me, ‘How ugly is the vessel that You fashioned.’”
Chazal deliberately employ the very same language.
The “mechu’aros” of Tu B’Av seem to make the very same argument. They do not deny that they lack beauty. They simply ask to be married first—and beautified afterward. Only the One Who fashioned them can adorn them.
In the hierarchy of history, perhaps we are that generation.
Our résumé is unimpressive. We cannot point to prophecy, open miracles, or the spiritual greatness of earlier generations. There is little about us with which to attract G-d’s attention.
Yet perhaps that is precisely our distinction.
The beautiful maidens ask to be chosen because of what they already possess. The women of noble pedigree ask to be chosen because of where they come from. But the “ugly” maidens ask to be chosen because of what their bridegroom can yet make of them.
That is not an appeal to G-d’s appreciation of beauty.
It is an appeal to His ability to create it.
Beauty attracts revelation.
Poverty appeals to essence.
Perhaps that is the avodah of our generation.
We cannot rely on our brilliance, our pedigree, or even our spiritual accomplishments. We stand before Hashem without illusions, asking neither to be admired nor accepted because of our résumé. We ask only that He choose us despite ourselves, trusting that the One Who fashioned us is also the One Who can adorn us.
Perhaps that is what it means to appeal not to G-d in His revelatory state, but to His very Essence.
May we merit that day immediately.
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.
