Said Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel:
There were no greater festivals for Israel
than the 15th of Av and Yom Kippur (Talmud, Taanit 26b)
The Talmud goes on to list several joyous events which occurred on the 15th
day of the month of Av:
1) The dying of the generation of the Exodus ceased. Several
months after the people of Israel were freed from Egyptian slavery, the incident
of the "Spies" demonstrated their
unpreparedness for the task of conquering the land of Canaan and developing it
as the "Holy Land." G-d decreed that that entire generation would die out in
the desert, and that their children would enter the land in their stead (as
recounted in Numbers 13 and 14). After 40 years of wandering through the
wilderness, the dying finally ended, and a new generation of Jews stood ready to
enter the Holy Land. It was the 15th of Av of the year 2487 from creation (1274
BCE).
2) The tribes of Israel were permitted to intermarry. In order to
ensure the orderly division of the Holy Land between the twelve tribes of
Israel, restrictions had been placed on marriages between members of two
different tribes. A woman who had inherited tribal lands from her father was
forbidden to marry out of her tribe, lest her children -- members of their
father's tribe -- cause the transfer of land from one tribe to another by
inheriting her estate (as recounted in Numbers 36). This ordinance was binding
on the generation that conquered and settled the Holy Land; when the restriction
was lifted, on the 15th of Av, the event was considered a cause for celebration
and festivity.
3) The tribe of Benjamin was permitted to enter the community. Av 15
was also the day on which the tribe of Benjamin, which had been excommunicated
for its behavior in the incident of the "Concubine at Givah," was readmitted
into the community of Israel (as related in Judges 19-21; this occurred during
the judgeship of Othniel ben Knaz, who led the people of Israel in the years
2533-2573 from creation (1228-1188 BCE)).
4) Hosea ben Eilah opened the roads to Jerusalem. Upon the division of
the Holy Land into two kingdoms following the death of King Solomon in the year
2964 from creation (797 BCE), Jeroboam ben Nebat, ruler of the breakaway
Northern Kingdom of Israel, set up roadblocks to prevent his citizens from
making the thrice-yearly pilgrimage to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, capital of
the Southern Kingdom of Judea. These were finally removed more than 200 years
later by Hosea ben Eilah, the last king of the Northern Kingdom, on Av 15, 3187
(574 BCE).
5) The dead of Betar were allowed to be buried. The fortress of Betar
was the last holdout of the Bar Kochba rebellion. When Betar fell on the 9th of
Av, 3893 (133 CE), Bar Kochba and many thousands of Jews were killed; the Romans
massacred the survivors of the battle with great cruelty and would not even
allow the Jews to bury their dead. When the dead of Betar were finally brought
to burial on Av 15, 3908 (148 CE), an additional blessing (HaTov VehaMeitiv)
was added to the "Grace After Meals" in commemoration.
6) "The day of the breaking of the ax." When the Holy Temple stood
in Jerusalem, the annual cutting of firewood for the altar was concluded on the
15th of Av. The event was celebrated with feasting and rejoicing (as is the
custom upon the conclusion of a holy endeavor) and included a ceremonial
breaking of the axes which gave the day its name.
These events may all be worthy of commemoration and celebration; but how do
they explain Rabbi Shimon's amazing statement that "There were no greater
festivals for Israel"? In what way is the 15th of Av greater than Passover,
the day of our Exodus from Egypt, or Shavuot, the day we received the Torah?
Rabbi Shimon even places it before his other "great festival," Yom Kippur!
Lunar Time
To understand the significance of Av 15, we must first examine the workings
of the Jewish calendar.
The most basic feature of our calendar is that it is primarily a lunar
calendar -- a calendar whose months are set in accordance with the phases of the
moon. The Zohar explains that the people of Israel mark time with the moon
because we are the moon of the world: like the moon, we rise and fall through
the nights of history knowing times of growth and diminution, our moments of
luminous fullness alternating with moments of obscurity and darkness. And like
the moon, our every regression and defeat is but a prelude to yet another
rebirth, yet another renewal.
At a certain point in its 29.5 day circuit of the earth (the point at which
it is closest to the sun) the moon "disappears" from the nighttime sky. The
night on which the moon is first visible to the earthly observer after its
concealment marks the beginning of a new month on the Jewish calendar. For the
next two weeks, the Jewish month grows with the moon, reaching its apex on its
15th night -- the night of the full moon. There then follow two weeks of
decreasing moonlight, until the night when the moon falls completely dark and
the month dwindles to a close. The rebirth of the moon, 29 or 30 nights after
its previous birth, ushers in the next month: a new climb to fullness, followed
by another descent to oblivion, followed by yet another rebirth.
Accordingly, the 15th of the Jewish month marks the high point of that month's
particular contribution to Jewish life. For example: Nissan is the month of
redemption, and it was on the first day of Nissan that the process of our
liberation from Egypt began; but the results of this process were fully manifest
only on the 15th of Nissan, with our actual exodus from Egypt. So it is on the
15th of Nissan that we celebrate the festival of Passover and experience the
divine gift of freedom through the observances of the seder.
Another example is the month of Tishrei. On the 1st of Tishrei (Rosh HaShanah)
we crown G-d as king of the universe, rededicating the entirety of creation to
the purpose for which it was created and
evoking in G-d the desire to
continue to create and sustain it. But the celebration of the divine coronation
is eclipsed by the days of solemnity and awe which occupy the first part of
Tishrei, and comes out in the open in the joyous festival of Sukkot, which
commences on the 15th of the month. (Thus the Talmud interprets is the meaning
of the verse (Psalms 81:4), "Sound the shofar on the moon's renewal,
which is concealed until the day of our festival." The shofar, whose
trumpet-like blast signifies our "coronation" of the Almighty, is sounded on
the 1st of Tishrei, the day of the moon's renewal; but like the moon itself,
the experience remains "concealed" and largely unexpressed until "the day
of our festival" -- Sukkot, on the 15th of Tishrei.)
The same is true of each of the twelve months of the Jewish year. Each month
possesses a character and quality uniquely its own, which undergoes a cycle of
diminution and growth, concealment and expression, reaching its climax on the
15th of the month.
The Rebound
Therein lies the specialty of the 15th of Av.
The greater an object's plunge down a mountainside, the greater the
momentum that carries it up the next mountain; the further an arrow is pulled
back on the bow, the greater the force that will carry it forward when it is let
fly. This basic law of physical nature also governs the flow of lunar time and
the spiritual qualities it enfolds: the lower the descent, the loftier the
ascent to follow.
Hence, the month of Av must indeed possess the greatest 15th of them all. For
what darker eclipse is there than the one preceding the full moon of Av?
The latter half of Tammuz and the first days of Av mark a breakdown in the
very heart of the universe and the onset of a spiritual winter from which we
have yet to emerge. On the 17th of Tammuz in the year 3829 from creation (69 ce),
the lunar orbit of Jewish life swung into the steepest decline of its 4000-year
history. On that day the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Roman armies;
for the next three weeks, from Tammuz 17 to Av 9 (observed to this day as "Three
Weeks" of mourning), the enemy steadily advanced through Jerusalem, invaded
the Holy Temple, and, on the 9th of Av, set it aflame. The 9th of Av is also
the date of the destruction of the First Temple in the year 3338 (423 bce) and
numerous other calamities in Jewish history (see below).
The destruction of the Temple was but the physical counterpart of a deeper,
spiritual loss. The Holy Temple in Jerusalem was the seat of G-d's manifest
presence in our world -- the source of everything spiritual and G-dly in our
lives and the focus of our efforts to implement the divine purpose in creation
of "making a dwelling place for G-d in the physical world." Its
destruction marked the withdrawal of the direct and open relationship between
G-d and His creation and the onset of a state of Galut -- a hiding of the
divine face, a shrouding of the true, underlying reality of creation behind the
mask of the corporeal and fragmented world we experience today.
And yet, the greater the descent, the greater the ascent which springs from
it. The great darkness of the latter days of Tammuz and the first days of Av
carries the seeds for an equally great "full moon" on the 15th of Av -- a
full moon that represents the perfect and harmonious world of Moshiach which is
the product and outgrowth of our long and bitter Galut.
The Events
Therein lies the significance of the various joyful events recounted by the
Talmud as having occurred on the 15th of Av: they each mark a step in the climb
out of the descent of Av 9.
The destruction of the Temple on Av 9 was preceded by another tragic event on
the very same day many centuries earlier. It was on the eve of Av 9 that the
twelve spies sent by Moses returned from their reconnaissance of the Holy Land
and dissuaded the people of Israel from settling and sanctifying the land,
causing G-d to decree that the generation of the Exodus would die out in the
desert.
Indeed, the two events are deeply interrelated: our sages tell us that if
Moses' generation had merited to enter the Land of Israel and to build the
Holy Temple in Jerusalem, it would have been an eternal edifice, inviolable and
indestructible. The goal of a "dwelling place for G-d in the physical world"
would have been fully and perfectly realized, avoiding the need for any
subsequent regressions or descents. Thus, the events of that Av 9 in the desert
were the source and harbinger of the destruction and Galut which the day
eventually wrought.
So when the dying of the generation of the Exodus ceased on Av
15,1 this also marked the
beginnings of the "ascent" of Av. A new generation stood poised to enter the
land and lay the foundations for renewal and reconstruction.
And when the barriers between the tribes were removed, allowing their members
to unite in marriage with one another, another element of the "descent" was
being rectified. Our sages tell us that the primary cause for the destruction of
the Temple was divisiveness within the community of Israel. Accordingly, the key
to the ascent of the Redemption is the fostering of unity and harmony amongst
us. Such is also the significance of another two of the special events
associated with Av 15th: the reacceptance of the errant tribe of Benjamin into
the community, and the removal of the roadblocks which had rent the people of
Israel into two nations and had prevented the Holy Temple from serving as the
unifying force between brothers torn apart by political strife.
The fall of Betar on Av 9, which spelled the end of the last significant
effort to free the land of Israel from Roman rule, was the culmination of the
tragedy of the destruction of the Holy Temple and the exile of Israel on that
same date a generation earlier. The first respite from this crushing blow to the
Jewish people -- the bringing to burial of the dead of Betar on the 15th of Av
fifteen years later -- is another example of how Av 15 achieves the redemption
and rectification of the 9th of Av.
Shattered Irons
The manner in which the conclusion of the wood-cutting for the Temple service
was celebrated on Av 15 is yet another manifestation of the significance of the
day. For the breaking of axes expresses the ultimate purpose of the Holy Temple,
whose destruction we mourn on the 9th of Av and whose rebuilding will herald the
harmonious world of Moshiach.
Why break the axes? Why not store them for next year's cutting? Because the
ax represents the very antithesis of what the Altar, and the Temple as a whole,
stood for.
Regarding the making of the Altar, G-d had instructed: "When you build a
stone altar for Me, do not build it of cut stone; for if your sword has been
lifted upon it, you have profaned it"; "Do not lift iron upon it… The
altar of G-d shall be built of whole stones" (Exodus 20:22; Deuteronomy
27:5-6) If any metal implement as much as touched a stone, that stone was
rendered unfit for use in the making of the altar.
Our sages explain: "Iron was created to shorten the life of man, and the
Altar was created to lengthen the life of man; so it is not fitting that that
which shortens should be lifted upon that which lengthens" (Talmud, Middot
3:4). Iron, the instrument of war and destruction, has no place in the making of
the instrument whose function is to bring eternal peace and harmony to the
world.
Awaiting the Light
Of course, these events were only first glimmers of the full moon of Moshiach
-- a full moon which has yet to emerge from the darkness that envelops it. So
today, Av 15 is a relatively minor event in our experience of the yearly cycle.
We mark the day, but without the grandeur of Passover, the joy of Sukkot or the
exultation of Purim. For unlike these festivals, whose "full moon" we have
already experienced, the luminance of Av 15 has yet to shine forth. We are still
in Galut, still in the dark stretch of this cycle, still climbing out of
the descent in which we have been plunged by the events of Tammuz 17-Av 9.
But the date is already fixed in our calendar as the greatest "15th" of
them all. And with the imminent coming of Moshiach, the true import of the "Day
of the Breaking of the Ax" shall come to glorious light, and the 15th of Av
will be truly revealed as our greatest festival.
