Last Sunday, we observed Tisha B’Av, which mourns the loss of our Temple, caused, our sages say, through our internal ‘Sinat Chinam’ -baseless hatred. I’ve read and heard many wise people declare that the antidote we must strive for is the opposite, ‘Ahavat Chinam’ - a kind of broad-spectrum love, a love without boundaries.
As beautiful a sentiment as this is, I must disagree with the notion. I believe that any kind of love - romantic love, filial or family love, love of people, of place, of tradition and experience - is at its strongest and most effectual when it is intentional, when it is ‘Ahava Mechavenet’ - intentional love.
Our tradition tells us that tonight and tomorrow - the 15th of Av or ‘Tu B’Av’ - is the day in our calendar most relevant and attuned to the love that develops into a relationship, a marriage, a Jewish family. During the second Temple period, young women would dress in white and dance in the vineyards of Judea, and the young men would approach as suitors. Since those times, even during exile and dispersion, it has been a time for matchmaking and celebration. Each element of this tradition as described here is intentional, from the place, mode of dress, approach, dance (and presumably music) to the matches made and families created. All intending to bring our people together in love with purpose.
What may not be apparent to all is that according to some traditions, this echoed the events in the book of Judges - ‘Shoftim’ the culmination of an incident a thousand years earlier, described in the 19th through 21st chapters. The tribe of Benjamin, often perceived as being one of the two ‘royal’ Israelite tribes, gave grave offense and was the instigator of what amounted to a short civil war with the other tribes. Most of its young men were killed in battle. To ensure that the tribe would not be erased from its place in the land and in the tapestry of Israelite/Jewish life, the other tribes agreed that through some (frankly unempowering, even sordid) machinations, that they would encourage their young women, who would be dancing in the vineyards near Shiloh, to become mates to those few young men from among the remnant of the Benjaminites.
Beyond the echoes of the intentionality described above, this even more ancient tradition gives us a deeper message. Even at the end of a vicious fratricidal war, there was enough love of People to ensure that one of the 12 tribes would not be lost to history. The way in which this was accomplished more than 3000 years ago eventually evolved into a tradition which encouraged familial and romantic love more than 2000 years ago, and continues to bring Jewish couples together in the present day.
In recent years we’ve learned to describe ourselves again as ‘Am HaNetzach’, the Eternal People. With a 3000 year legacy of ‘Ahava Mechavenet’ - intentional love, we partner with the Almighty as authors of our own eternal nature.
Happy Tu B’Av!