By Yochanan Gordon
Tu B’Av is a propitious day for matchmaking. Famously, the Gemara in Ta’anis records: “There are no Jewish holidays quite like Tu B’Av and Yom Kippur.” The Gemara goes on to detail an event in which the young Jewish maidens would take to the fields in borrowed white outfits and seemingly facilitate their own matches, exhorting the available young men to focus on a different aspect that each of them felt took precedence in choosing a marriage partner.
If you were not aware of the Gemara, a cursory glance through this issue of the 5TJT would lead one to the same conclusion—that matches are the order of the day. On the front page we have a picture promoting an event by Yad L’Achim, a great organization that, in recent years, has used this day to facilitate prayers on behalf of all the available singles by the gedolei Yisrael, both current and at the gravesites of those who have already passed on.
10K Batay Yisroel is an organization that was founded by Rabbi Shaya Levin and his wife in loving memory of their son Yisrael Levin and his kallah, Elisheva Kaplan, whose lives were tragically snuffed out in a car accident on chol ha’moed Pesach three years ago. If you have been paying attention, you would have noticed ads for a three-part series of classes dedicated to the area of shidduchim, geared toward the singles and shadchanim and culminating next week on the heels of the 15th of Av with a final class dedicated to the parents of shidduch-age young men and women by Rabbi Efrem Goldberg of the Boca Raton Synagogue.
The coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns brought much of life as we knew it to a halt. It presented challenges to all people on multiple levels. One of the unique challenges presented by the lockdowns was the inability of young men and women to meet in a formal setting. Ian Mark of Israel sensed this issue early on and used his technological know-how to create a Zoom speed-dating platform on which young men and women can meet based on inputs to a number of questions and algorithms filtering through the answers to those questions. The initial meeting lasts seven minutes based on which each party can decide whether or not to further pursue it.
Coinciding with Tu B’Av is a worldwide digital shidduch event hosted on Ian Mark’s platform. It’s open to men and women of marriageable age, and you can read more about in the article in this issue by our own Rochelle Miller. A lot of ink has been spilled on the issue of shidduchim. There is no question that there are a lot of singles and a great need to pair them together so that they can build families of their own.
I am not venturing into the level of crisis that exists or solutions to the many issues that have been addressed over the years in this regard. However, I did want to focus on the significance of Tu B’Av itself, specifically in its juxtaposition with Tishah B’Av. We just observed Tishah B’Av, when for part of the day, like mourners, we had to sit near the floor in non-leather shoes and hear the megillah of Eichah, which laments the loss of the Batei Mikdash and the ensuing horrors that have followed those periods of our history. Thereafter, we read Kinnos, which bring the travails of exile into plain sight. Among many more, we read reflections from the Bobover Rebbe and Rav Shimon Schwab, zt’l, on their recollections of the Shoah, which, like many of the heartrending accounts of calamity before them, is an extension of what life in exile, without the full revelation of the Shechinah and the Beis HaMikdash, amounts to.
One of the prerequisites to rectifying any confounding situation is to be able to identify what the issue is and to figure out the necessary steps to fix it. In his pre-Eichah derashah, Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky of Khal Mevakshei Hashem pointed out that Yaakov Avinu only realized that he had been injured by the angel of Eisav after the sun had risen for him on the following day. The verse states: “The sun had risen for him and he was lame upon his thigh.” Rabbi Zakutinsky then pointed out that being able to identify with the pain that the loss of the Beis HaMikdash delivers indicates that we are one step closer to being able to extricate ourselves from within this narrow space.
As such, it’s important to be able to contextualize our relationship with Hashem and to identify what the experience of exile, and specifically a Tishah B’Av, says about that relationship. We enjoy a multi-tiered relationship with Hashem as delineated in Shas and Midrashim. At times G-d is our father or mother, at other times He is referred to as our sibling, and yet at other times He is our spouse.
In describing the moments in which it seems that our relationship with Hashem is somewhat strained, Chazal liken it to a child banished from his father’s table or a husband who left his wife for overseas, which is the first case in the tractate of Gittin, the order dealing with the laws of divorce. It seems that when we are sitting on the floor, mourning over the loss of the two Temples and our exiled existence, we are like a wife waiting longingly for her beloved husband to return.
Everything that we have been enduring is reflective in the ineffable name of G-d Himself, the Tetragrammaton. There are four letters to G-d’s primary name—Yud-Hei-Vav and Hei. Yud represents the faculty of wisdom and hei the faculty of binah, both of which we addressed last week in my column titled “The Age of Understanding.” The vav in G-d’s primary name represents a level in Chassidus termed the “small face,” or “ze’ir anpin,” corresponding to the faculties of kindness through foundation (kindness, severity, beauty, endurance, splendor, and foundation). The final hei corresponds to the sefirah of sovereignty, or malchus, which is representative of the world of speech and action. The system of the sefiros is one through which G-d chose to fit His infinitude within finite space. In describing the relationship between physicality and spirituality, the Kabbalists likened it to the relationship between light and its receptacle. Light is the most ephemeral of substances and therefore is fitting to describe spirituality or the soul, which is literally a part of G-d. The body, whose function is to house the soul and be enlivened by it, is best described as a receptacle to that light.
If G-d in His infinity wanted to enter into existence without easing His light into it, all of existence would be consumed by His great intensity. However, in following the down-chaining of Divinity from chesed through malchus, in the situation of exile in which we find ourselves, there is a break between the letter vav and the final hei—between ze’ir anpin and malchus. Meaning, G-d’s presence is not always felt in the most practical sense. Another term for ze’ir anpin (z’a) and malchus is Kudsha Berich Hu and Shechinah—the Holy One Be He and His glory—referring to the marriage between G-d, our chassan, and the totality of the Jewish people, His kallah. Anyone who recites L’shem yichud by davening or prior to the performance of a mitzvah will recognize the words: “L’shem yichud Kudsha Berich hu u’Shechinta, l’yachada shem Yud-Hei B’vav-kei b’yechuda shelim b’shem kol Yisrael.” Ultimately, what we are davening for is the unification of G-d’s name and its manifestation within the world that we live in.
Now that we have once again experienced Tishah B’Av, which is the stark realization of what it means to live outside the loving and secure succor of G-d in this world, we encounter Shabbos Nachamu, the Shabbos of consolation, called such due to the haftarah that kicks off with the words “Nachamu, nachamu ami.”
Our true and lasting consolation will occur with the coming of Mashiach and the return of our Husband in all His glory. However, while that represents consolation on a macrocosmic level, there is a nechamah on a microcosmic level, and that occurs with every chassan and kallah’s nuptials. Chazal teach that anyone who brings joy to a chassan and kallah it is as if he rebuilt one of the ruins of Jerusalem. How much clearer does it need to get?
There is a famous story in which the Tzemach Tzedek of Lubavitch guaranteed the coming of Mashiach by the conclusion of a specific year. When that appointed time came to pass and Mashiach seemingly had not arrived, his chassidim approached him demanding an answer. He said that Mashiach, in fact, had arrived in the form of the publication of the Alter Rebbe’s Sefer Torah Ohr, which was published for the first time that year. What this anecdote demonstrates is that geulah and nechamah transpire on a multiplicity of levels, and the more it occurs in the physical realm on an individual level in this world the closer we get to the day of our national redemption.
The Gemara says the son of Dovid will not emerge until all the souls in the treasure house have been expended. Similarly, it would seem that with the occurrence of every nuptial and the tying of every knot we inch closer to tying the knot with G-d in His full glory very soon.
So as we spend these days talking about shidduchim and davening for those who have yet to discover their other halves, let us understand that the promising nature of shidduchim on this day is due to the ultimate marriage up on high between Hashem and our people, and we pray that it manifests in our lives, in this world, today.
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at ygordon5t@gmail.com. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.