Love Is Showing Up (Tu B’Av)
To my wife, with infinite love
Tu B’Av is one of the lesser-known holidays on the Jewish calendar. My dear friend and teacher Dr. Ora Horn Prouser, with whom I recently edited a Tu B’Av supplement for the Academy for Jewish Religion (ajr.edu), notes that although the ancient rabbis described how Tu Be’Av was celebrated, those practices have not developed into established rituals for the contemporary Jewish community. It is a minor holiday, without a fixed liturgy or a widely observed set of customs.
Perhaps that leaves us with an invitation: What might a ritual of love look like for us?
Love takes different forms in every life. But there is one blessing we can share: May you be loved well, and may you love well.
Imagine the world that blessing calls us to build. Imagine a world in which more people knew that they were loved, and more people understood themselves as capable of loving. Imagine how much could change if every person felt seen, heard, held, and cherished.
A child recently told my wife that being loved means knowing someone is listening to you. There is deep wisdom in that. To be heard is one of the great gifts we can offer another person. But Jewish tradition asks us to go even further. Judaism teaches that love is not simply a feeling. Love is an action.
The Torah commands: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” How do we love God? By giving of ourselves. By showing up with our hearts, our souls, and our resources.
Love is showing up.
Love is doing the dishes. Love is folding the laundry. Love is driving carpool. Love is listening when we are tired. Love is asking someone to give generously so that another person can be cared for (the literal translation of philanthropy is ‘loving people’). Love is offering our presence when there are no words capable of repairing what has been broken.
We sometimes imagine that loving someone means knowing them completely. But no human being can fully know another. Even the most intimate partners remain mysteries to each other. And this is exquisite: the human heart, the seat of the Divine, is infinite and ultimately unknowable. But though no one cannot know another person fully, we can show up fully.
That is the sacred demand of love. “Do not tell me that you love me. Show me.” Give more than you were asked. Stay longer than expected. Listen more deeply. Risk tenderness. Make another person’s burden lighter.
So, on Tu B’Av, this is the blessing for each of us: May you be surrounded by love. May you recognize it when it arrives. May you offer it freely and courageously. May you show up, even unreasonably, for those who need you.
The heart remains a mystery.
And yet, we love fiercely.
May you be loved well. May you love well.
