Last week, I sat on the floor in my home in Beit Shemesh on Tisha B’Av and reflected on the state of the Jewish people. I thought about the darkness of recent years, the pain since October 7, the continuing war, the soldiers we have lost, the hostages and their families, the hatred directed at Jews throughout the world, and the deep divisions within Israeli society.

But I also found myself wrestling with a feeling that has been growing within me for many years:
– How do we mourn everything that remains broken without ignoring the miracle of everything that has already been rebuilt?
– How do we sit on the floor mourning two thousand years of exile while living in a sovereign State of Israel, where the Jewish people have returned to live as a nation in its own land, building cities, defending itself, and creating schools, hospitals, universities, yeshivot, communities, and families?

I want to be very clear. I am not speaking about the personal pain of those who have lost children, parents, spouses, siblings, friends, or fellow soldiers to war and terror. That pain is real, immeasurable, and sacred.

Over time, I have come to understand that light and darkness do not cancel one another. We can mourn what is still missing while giving thanks for what has already been restored. And perhaps the Jewish calendar itself is teaching us how. Only six days after Tisha B’Av, we arrive at Tu B’Av.

In modern Israel, Tu B’Av is often presented as the Israeli version of Valentine’s Day. Restaurants offer couples’ menus, stores advertise gifts, and the entire day is reduced to romantic love. There is certainly a connection between Tu B’Av and marriage. The Mishnah describes the daughters of Jerusalem going out in borrowed white garments while the young men of Israel sought wives. But Tu B’Av is about something much larger than romance.

A Day of Renewed Relationship
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel makes an astonishing statement: “There were no days as joyous for Israel as the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur.” Tu B’Av and Yom Kippur.
One is viewed as a pleasant and festive summer day. The other is the most elevated and solemn day on the Jewish calendar. Why did our Sages place them side by side?Perhaps because both are days of renewed relationship.
Yom Kippur is not merely a day of guilt and punishment. It is the day on which the second Tablets were given, demonstrating that the covenant between God and the Jewish people could survive even the sin of the Golden Calf.
It is the day when distance can become closeness again. Tu B’Av carries the same fundamental message.

Nearly every event our Sages associated with Tu B’Av concerns a relationship that was damaged, severed, or endangered – and then restored.

1. The Tribe of Benjamin Returned to the Family

Following the terrible episode of the Pilegesh B’Givah, the tribes of Israel went to war against the tribe of Benjamin. The conflict became so destructive that Benjamin was nearly eliminated. The other tribes had sworn not to give their daughters in marriage to the men of Benjamin, threatening the tribe’s continued existence. Eventually, the people of Israel recognized what their anger had produced. A member of the family had committed a terrible act. But in attempting to punish the tribe, the nation had nearly destroyed one of its twelve parts.
On Tu B’Av, the prohibition separating Benjamin from the rest of Israel came to an end. The tribe was restored to the national family.

The lesson is not that wrongdoing does not matter. The lesson is that even after the most bitter internal conflict, the Jewish people cannot accept the permanent disappearance of one of its tribes. There must be a path back.

2. The Roads to Jerusalem Reopened

Generations later, the united kingdom divided into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Jeroboam ben Nebat, the first king of the northern kingdom, feared that if his citizens continued ascending to Jerusalem and the Temple, their loyalty would return to the House of David. He therefore placed guards along the roads to prevent them from going up. Political power was preserved by blocking Jews from Jerusalem. Generations later, on Tu B’Av, King Hoshea ben Elah removed the guards and reopened the roads. Hoshea is not remembered as one of our greatest kings. Yet in this act, he removed a barrier that had separated Jews from their brothers and from their spiritual center.

The road to Jerusalem was open again. Tu B’Av celebrates the removal of barriers, both physical and spiritual. It invites us to ask which barriers were once built for political, communal, or institutional survival but now prevent the Jewish people from reaching one another.

3. “Until the Generation of the Wilderness Had Died, There Was No Divine Speech with Moses”

After the sin of the spies, the generation that left Egypt was condemned to die in the wilderness rather than enter the Land of Israel. Our tradition describes the terrible ritual that returned each year. Around Tisha B’Av, members of that generation prepared themselves for death. In the final year, they entered their graves, but no one died. Fearing that they had miscalculated the date, they waited until the full moon of Tu B’Av. When they realized that the date had passed, they knew that the decree was over. But the deeper restoration was not only that the deaths stopped. The Gemara teaches: “Until the generation of the wilderness had died, there was no Divine speech with Moses… ‘And the Lord spoke to me.’” (Taanit 30b; Deuteronomy 2:16-17) The Gemara emphasizes the word “to me.” Only after the decree had ended did God once again speak to Moses with that direct closeness.

Tu B’Av therefore marked not only the end of punishment, but also the renewal of relationship. The Jewish people could prepare to enter the Land. The period of wandering was ending, and a new stage of national life was about to begin.

4. The Fallen of Beitar Were Brought to Burial

After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Bar Kochba revolt was a final attempt to restore Jewish sovereignty. It ended in catastrophe. The Romans killed the defenders of Beitar and initially refused to allow their burial. The Jewish people were denied even the most basic right to honor their fallen. Finally, on Tu B’Av, permission was granted to bury them. Our Sages teach that their bodies miraculously did not decompose. In response, they instituted the blessing HaTov VeHaMeitiv in Birkat HaMazon: “HaTov” – because the bodies did not decompose, and “HaMeitiv” – because they were finally permitted burial.

This is an extraordinary response to national defeat. The revolt failed. The fighters were killed. Sovereignty was lost. And yet, even within that darkness, the Jewish people found a sign that they had not been abandoned. God’s anger did not cancel His love. Defeat did not erase the honor owed to those who had fought for the Jewish people. The fallen could finally return to their people and be buried with dignity.

For Israelis living after October 7, it is difficult to read this account without feeling its weight. We understand the sacred obligation to bring our fallen home. We understand that bringing home a soldier or civilian is not a technical detail. It is an expression of national loyalty, human dignity, and the covenant that no Jew is abandoned.

The Day When Love Means Covenant

When these events are considered together, Tu B’Av emerges as far more than a celebration of romantic love. It is a day of restored belonging.

-Benjamin returned to the tribes.
-The residents of the northern kingdom could once again ascend to Jerusalem.
-The closeness between God and Moses returned, and the wilderness generation could begin moving toward the Land.
-The fallen of Beitar could finally return to their people.

Every story begins with fracture. Every story ends with reconnection. Perhaps this explains why Tu B’Av is compared specifically to Yom Kippur. Both days teach that a relationship that has broken does not have to remain broken forever.
There can be guilt without permanent rejection.
There can be punishment without abandonment.
There can be separation followed by return.
There can be distance followed by renewed closeness.

From Tisha B’Av to Tu B’Av

The movement from Tisha B’Av to Tu B’Av takes place in less than one week. The calendar does not allow us to remain on the floor forever. It asks us to mourn honestly, and then to stand up and begin repairing what was broken. This does not mean that mourning disappears after Tisha B’Av. Nor does it mean that love requires us to pretend that our disagreements are insignificant.

A healthy marriage does not succeed because the couple never faces difficulty. The family grows, circumstances change, pressures increase, and new disagreements emerge. A marriage succeeds when both partners know that the relationship itself is not something they are prepared to abandon. They can argue intensely and still remain committed to finding a way forward.

Perhaps the same is true of the Jewish people. We are a nation composed of twelve tribes, not one. The choshen (Breastplate) worn over the heart of the Kohen Gadol contained twelve different precious stones. It was not made from one uniform stone. Each tribe had its own character, strengths, and responsibilities: twelve different stones resting over one heart.

Unity has never meant uniformity. But difference can endure only when it rests upon covenant. When each side knows that the other may challenge it, frustrate it, or disagree with it profoundly – but will not abandon it.

The Growing Pains of Sovereignty

For nearly two thousand years, the central challenge of Jewish life was survival. Jewish communities lived as minorities in foreign lands and developed distinctive customs, institutions, and worldviews that allowed each community to preserve itself.

Then, seventy-eight years ago, everything changed. The Jewish people restored sovereignty in its homeland. We built an economy, revived a language, defended ourselves, absorbed millions of immigrants, cultivated the land, and created cities, schools, hospitals, universities, yeshivot, and communities. When we pause and consider what has been accomplished, it is difficult to see it as anything other than a miracle.

But when Jews returned home, we did not bring only our traditions, values, and dreams. We also brought the walls that had protected and defined our communities in exile. Those walls helped preserve us. Now some of them may prevent us from becoming one nation.

The central challenge is no longer only how each community will survive. It is how all our communities will live together and take responsibility for a shared country. Perhaps many of the conflicts that frighten us are, at least to some extent, problems of success. They are the growing pains of a people that has returned home.

A people in exile can remain divided into separate communities. A sovereign nation must learn to carry shared responsibility. What brought each community safely through exile may not, by itself, be enough to carry the entire nation into its future. That recognition creates fear. But the difficulty of the challenge does not mean that the Jewish national project is failing. It may mean that we have reached its next stage.

Shared Responsibility

If Tu B’Av represents the renewal of trust among the different parts of the Jewish people, we must ask where that trust is expressed most concretely in Israel today.

The institution that most powerfully brings together Israelis from different religious, political, ethnic, and social backgrounds is the Israel Defense Forces. Two soldiers may disagree about almost everything and still stand shoulder to shoulder on the battlefield. Each may be willing to risk his or her life for the other. That willingness creates a foundation of trust strong enough to contain profound differences.

It is therefore deeply painful when any community separates itself from the shared responsibility of protecting the country and its residents. It is equally painful when participation in the country’s defense is presented as conditional upon political agreement.

The details of the obligation and the forms of service may be debated. The ways of contributing may differ. But no part of the nation can place itself entirely outside our shared responsibility for one another.

October 7 revealed both our vulnerability and our greatness. It showed what happens when we fail to protect one another, but it also revealed the extraordinary strength that emerges when the Jewish people remembers that we are one family. Soldiers, reservists, volunteers, communities, and ordinary citizens rose with remarkable courage. For a moment, many of the walls between us were less important than the people standing beside us.

That spirit cannot exist only during war or national emergency. It must become the foundation upon which we build our future.

Forty Days Toward Creation

Rabbi Hagai Londin shares a beautiful teaching in the name of the Bnei Yissaschar.

Our Sages teach that forty days before the formation of a child, a heavenly voice announces whom that person will marry. Counting inclusively, Tu B’Av falls forty days before the twenty-fifth of Elul, which Jewish tradition identifies as the first day of Creation. Tu B’Av can therefore be understood as the moment when the relationship underlying Creation begins to take form. The image is not merely of one person finding another. It is the beginning of the renewed relationship between God and the world, between God and His people, and between the Jewish people and its shared destiny.

From Tu B’Av, we begin moving toward Elul. Then come Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when we stand before God as individuals and as a nation. And finally Sukkot, when we leave the security of permanent walls and sit together beneath the shelter of the Divine Presence. The journey begins with love, but not love as emotion alone. Love as covenant.
Love as responsibility.
Love as the decision to rebuild a relationship after it has been damaged.

The Work of Our Generation

October 7 revealed our vulnerability and our greatness. It showed the terrible cost of division, complacency, and failure. But it also showed what happens when the Jewish people remembers that we are one family. Soldiers, reservists, volunteers, communities, and ordinary citizens rose together with extraordinary courage. For a moment, many of the walls between us were less important than the people standing beside us. That spirit cannot exist only during war or national emergency. It must become the foundation upon which we build our future.

We do not need to erase our differences. We do need to know that the relationship between us is stronger than our disagreements.

We need political and religious leaders who remain faithful to their values while staying open to adjusting them where doing so is right and appropriate. We need leaders who recognize the legitimacy and contribution of other parts of the Jewish people, and who understand that their own communities may have something to learn from them. They must understand that change can be difficult and that meaningful change takes time. But difficulty is not a reason to avoid moving forward.

We need communities that ask not only, “How do we protect ourselves?” but also, “What responsibility do we carry toward the whole?” And we need the humility to recognize that the leadership and institutions that brought us this far may need to grow and change in order to take us further.

The Light Within the Darkness

On Tisha B’Av, we mourned everything destroyed through hatred, division, spiritual failure, and national collapse. On Tu B’Av, we are reminded that destruction does not have to be the final chapter.

Roads can reopen.
Tribes can return.
Decrees can end.
God can speak to us again.
The fallen can return home.
Relationships can be rebuilt.

I do not pretend to possess the answers to all the conflicts confronting Israeli society. I offer only a change in perspective. It is permissible, and perhaps necessary, to live within the duality of light and darkness. We can mourn what is still broken while giving thanks for what has already been restored. We can recognize the seriousness of our divisions without concluding that we are destined to be destroyed by them. We can understand that the pains we experience are not necessarily only signs of national failure. They may also be the growing pains of a successful return home.

Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon concluded a kina written after October 7 by thanking the Holy One, blessed be He, for everything He has given us and praying for the strength and guidance to complete our journey:

מודים אנחנו לך על מדינתנו,
על גאולתנו ועל פדות נפשנו,
מאחים תוליכנו קוממיות בארצנו,
החֵש בן דוד משיח צדקנו.

Perhaps this is the prayer that connects Tisha B’Av to Tu B’Av, and it is also the prayer of our generation:
Thank You for bringing us home.
Help us learn how to live here together.
Help us transform survival into responsibility, division into trust, and sovereignty into redemption.
And help us see, even in the darkest moments of the Jewish calendar, the light already beginning to emerge from within the darkness.

Selected Sources

Mishnah Taanit 4:8.
Babylonian Talmud, Taanit 30b-31a.
Deuteronomy 2:16-17.
Judges 19-21.
I Kings 12; II Kings 17.