Dvar Torah: Tu B’Av
Written by Student Rabbi Nicola Feuchtwang — 17 August 2022
Today’s date – 12th August in the secular calendar – has special significance for some people.
There was even a debate about it in Parliament about 160 years ago: Should MPs be allowed to continue ‘sitting’ at Westminster beyond this date? The official reason was that Westminster was insufferable in the heat of summer. The houses of Parliament are right by the River Thames, and – not to put too fine a point on it – the river was the city’s main sewer and it stank, and anyone who could get away from London would wish to do so.
The other reason of course was that the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ is the start of the grouse shooting season. The Red Grouse is native to the UK and not found anywhere else, and its numbers fluctuate from year to year, depending on weather and parasitic infections. It seems that some of those 19th century Members of Parliament were rather keen to travel north and join their shooting parties while there were still some grouse left to bag. After all, there was nothing to stop them continuing to discuss politics and parliamentary business while they enjoyed themselves.
Today’s date is also special in our Jewish calendar, officially one of the most joyous days of the year. It is Tu B’Av, the fifteenth day of the month Av. According to the rabbis of the Mishna 2000 years ago, on this day unmarried women would go out and dance in the vineyards, inviting men to choose them as a partner. The custom was that each woman would borrow white clothing to wear, so that no-one need be embarrassed if they did not own a white garment, and the men could not tell who was rich or poor.
I am always intrigued by the ways we choose to mark and measure time, and how & why certain dates come to have special meaning for us, personally and as community. Birthdays, anniversaries, yahrzeit, beginning and end of the holidays, festivals of course… They can be just islands in a sea of time, or we can use them to steer a much more meaningful course through the year. If we only take note of the islands (the major festivals), it can be like one of those join-the-dot puzzles before you join the dots: you cannot really see the picture.
For example: Last night was full moon, the last supermoon of this year (if you didn’t manage to see it, it will probably still be fairly splendid tonight). And this week is in some respects the turning point of the summer. We are halfway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox; the nights now start to ‘draw in’, 3 minutes earlier each day. We have made it beyond the season of communal catastrophe which culminated in Tisha B’Av last weekend, and tomorrow we begin to read about comfort as we start the countdown to Rosh HaShanah and the High Holyday season. Each item makes more sense when we connect it to the others.
I am pleased to report that I have never shot grouse, or anything else.
And I am rather sorry to admit that I have never (yet) frolicked in a vineyard on Tu B’Av wearing a white dress, my own or anyone else’s. The dots and islands in my own sea of time are those of the academic year and this community – and it is community which can help us to join the dots and see the bigger picture.
Shabbat shalom.