The shared white Shabbat dress

Earlier this week, the Jewish calendar marked one of its lesser-known holidays, Tu B’Av, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Av.

Today, especially in Israel, Tu B’Av is often described as the Jewish Valentine’s Day, a day of romance, engagements and weddings. But its origins are considerably more interesting than greeting cards, chocolates and overpriced restaurant reservations.

The Mishnah teaches:

“Amar Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel: There were no days as joyous for Israel as the 15th of Av and Yom Kippur.” (Mishnah Ta’anit 4:8)

That is quite a pairing.

Yom Kippur, when we fast, confess our sins and spend most of the day in synagogue, and Tu B’Av, when young women go dancing in the vineyards.

Although, depending upon your idea of a good time, perhaps spending the day fasting in synagogue and going into a field to look for a spouse are equally terrifying.

The Mishnah describes what happened:

“The daughters of Jerusalem would go out in borrowed white garments, so as not to embarrass anyone who did not have her own and dance in the vineyards as a courting/mating ritual. The young women danced, the eligible young men watched, and marriages were made.”

A Talmudic Love Island, Bachelorette kinda thing. I don’t really know if that is an appropriate analogy; I don’t watch those shows and I can’t imagine watching the women dancing in white dresses, but I can’t deny the historical reference.

There is plenty to discuss about the gender dynamics of that arrangement, but this year I found myself particularly interested in the dresses.

The women did not simply wear white. They wore borrowed white dresses.

The Mishnah tells us exactly why: shelo levayesh et mi she’ein lo, so as not to embarrass the one who did not have a dress of her own. (Mishnah Ta’anit 4:8)

On Monday night, our daughter Estee returned from Jewish summer camp

She was away for 12 days. Sharon did all the packing, and somehow 12 days at camp required two duffle bags of clothing.

I am not criticizing. I was not involved in the packing. I understand that the person who did not participate in a project should be exceedingly cautious about commenting on the project’s scope or execution.

I also know that a significant amount of preparation went into finding the correct white dress for Shabbat.

Anyone who has sent a daughter to Jewish summer camp knows about the ubiquitous white Shabbat dress. From a distance, they all appear to be wearing more or less the same one.

I have learned, however, that they are not the same.

There are important and apparently obvious differences of length, style, fit, fabric, neckline and numerous other qualities that remain invisible to the untrained eye, and even more so to this particular dad. Sharon and Estee went through many iterations. Dresses were considered, purchased, rejected, returned and ruled unsuitable before the correct white Shabbat dress was finally selected and packed.

Then Estee went to camp and wore someone else’s clothes.

She was wearing her own clothes when she came off the plane. I want to be precise about that. But when she showed us her pictures, and in the few photographs the camp posted during those 12 days, she was often wearing clothing we did not recognize.

I have learned that this is part of camp culture. The girls share their clothes. They borrow from one another. They lend one another dresses, shirts and sweaters. They help put outfits together. They dress one another for Shabbat.

What went into one girl’s duffle bag somehow becomes part of the communal wardrobe.

And there was something so sweet about seeing it.

At camp, among friends, the answer to the question, “What should I wear?” Is often, “Here, try mine.”

There is generosity in that. There is trust in it. There is an ease about possessions that many of us lose as we get older. The clothes may still belong to the individuals, but they circulate through the community. One person’s abundance becomes another person’s possibility. Or put another way, one person’s Lululemon becomes another person’s Lulu-mine.

The Talmud expands upon the Tu B’Av custom. It explains that the daughter of the king borrowed from the daughter of the High Priest, who borrowed from the daughter of the deputy High Priest, and so on down the social hierarchy, until, the Talmud says, ve-kol Yisrael sho’alin zeh mizeh, all Israel borrowed from one another. (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 31a.)

Even the king’s daughter borrowed a dress.

Had only poor women borrowed clothing, everyone would have known who was poor. The borrowing itself would have become a public declaration of need.

So everyone borrowed.

The community created a culture in which receiving was normal because giving was universal. No one needed to stand at the edge of the vineyard explaining that she could not afford to participate. No one needed to expose her family’s finances or plead her case. Before the dancing began, the community had already opened its closets.

That’s a remarkably sophisticated form of tzedakah.

Tzedakah is often translated as charity, but the Hebrew word comes from tzedek, justice. Tzedakah is not merely the generosity of a person who has, toward a person who does not have. It is the work of creating a community in which each person can participate with dignity.

Rachel Sumekh, an anti-poverty advocate, wrote a powerful article this week connecting this Tu B’Av tradition to economic vulnerability within today’s Jewish community.

Sumekh cites research showing that financially struggling Jews often believe they are rare outliers, that everyone else in Jewish communal spaces is managing comfortably. Shame convinces them that everyone else can afford the tuition, the membership, the camp fees, the dinner ticket, the clothing and the cost of participating in Jewish life. (Rachel Sumekh, “What Tu B’Av Can Teach Us About Addressing Jewish Poverty,” eJewishPhilanthropy, July 28, 2026.)

And because they do not want to reveal that they cannot, they quietly withdraw from those things: camp, eating out, parties, synagogue.

They stop coming.

Sumekh writes that Tu B’Av worked because no one had to ask twice for a dress. The community understood that some people would arrive at the vineyard without what they needed, and it made borrowing an ordinary part of belonging. “Borrowing is Belonging” is right up there with “Sharing is Caring”

That may be the deeper connection between Tu B’Av and love.

The love of Tu B’Av was not found only in the matches made in the vineyard. Love was present before the dancing ever began. “Love was in the lending.”

• Love was in one woman opening her closet for another.
• Love was in the decision that no one should be identified by what she could not afford.
• Love was in creating a community where every person could enter the field dressed in dignity.

Perhaps that is why the Mishnah calls Tu B’Av one of the happiest days in the Jewish year. Happiness grows when an entire community decides that no one will be left outside.

We live in a culture that teaches us to accumulate. We measure success by how much we possess, how much we control and how little we need from anyone else. But our children at camp sometimes remember something we have forgotten.

Life can be sweeter when the closet is open. Community becomes stronger when we are able to say, “I have something you can use.”

And community becomes gentler when we can also say, without embarrassment, “May I borrow that?”

Of course, the lesson extends far beyond clothing.

• Can we lend someone our confidence when theirs has been shaken?
• Can we share a professional connection with someone searching for work? (teaser alert, more on that during the High Holy Days, stay tuned)
• Can we offer a meal without making someone explain why it is needed?
• Can we make camp, synagogue, school and Jewish communal life accessible before someone has to reveal what they cannot afford?
• Can we share our time, our attention, our homes, our celebrations and our sense of belonging?

Sometimes we imagine generosity as an extraordinary act of sacrifice. But often generosity is much more ordinary and intimate. It emerges from empathy, seeing that your friend needs something and saying, “Here. Try mine.”

Tu B’Av asks us to create a world in which that instinct reaches beyond a circle of close friends.

A world in which the resources of the community circulate and those who have do not cling quite so tightly, and those who need do not have to stand alone at the edge of the field.

A world in which everyone gets to dance.

Our daughter went to camp with two duffle bags of carefully selected clothing, including precisely the right white Shabbat dress.

She came home having worn some of her friends’ clothes, while presumably some of her clothes appeared in their photographs.

And perhaps that is exactly as it should be. Because the most important thing she brought home was not everything we had packed. The most important thing she brought home was the experience of living in a community where friends open their closets to one another, where generosity is natural, borrowing carries no shame, and someone is always ready to help you find something to wear.