Don't diminish Tu B'Av by calling it a Jewish Valentine's Day

What is Tu B'Av?

The Gemara (Taanis 30b-31a; Bava Basra 121) remarks, Yom Kippur was a day of joy and celebration, for "selicha and mechila," as well as the giving of the luchos, but what happened on the 15th of Av? It goes on to list the events that Kehati refers to in his gloss of the Mishna. 

 The way it ends forces a connection between this event that would lead to marriages and the building of the Bais Hamikdash, which is what is signified by "yom simchas libo" [the day of his {Shlomo's} heart's gladness]. As a marriage of accord is one in which the yud and the heh combine from Ish and Isha, it is meant to serve as a dwelling, so to speak for the Schina [Divine presence]. So building a marriage is building a Mikdash, which is what the Bayis ne'eman everyone wishes for the young couple in their congratulation is supposed to be about.

6 positive things are commemorated on the 15th of Av. Two of them are directly related to marriage, or, more specifically, permission to marry:

1. On this day, the tribes were granted permission to marry out of their tribes. In the first generation to enter the Land of Israel and to receive their portion of land, women who inherited their fathers were not allowed to marry out of their tribe, so as not to allow land belonging to one tribe to pass over to another, as we read in the recent Torah portion about the daughter of Tzlofchad. On Tu B'Av, it was clarified that this limitation was only for the generation of the daughters of Tzolfchad and would not apply to future generations.

2. The tribe of Benjamin was allowed to marry other tribes after the episode of pilegesh bagiva that prompted the rest of the Israelites to pronounce a ban on offering their daughters to the tribe from which the people responsible for the atrocity sprang. Then they realized that a whole tribe may be lost and came up with the idea for the men of Benyamin without possible wives from their own tribe could grab their brides from the women in the vineyards.
Just to fill out the list:
3. The "Desert Generation" ended.

Following the Sin of the Spies, when the people of Israel cried that they would not go to the Land of Israel, the whole generation of Israelites who had left Egypt was sentenced to die in the Desert.

Every year until the fortieth year, on the eve of the Ninth of Av, Moshe Rabeinu would command them, "Go out and dig!" They would go out of their desert camp, dig themselves graves, and sleep in them overnight. The next morning, a messenger would proclaim, "Let the living separate from the dead!" About fifteen thousand men would have died that night; the others would return to the camp for another year.

In the last, fortieth year, no one died. At first they thought that they might have counted the days wrong, and so they slept in their graves the next night too. This went on until the fifteenth of Av, when they finally realized that no more people would die, and they declared that day a day of celebration (Talmud Yerushalmi, Ta'anit 4:6).4. The decree of guards to prevent anyone from the Kingdom of Israel from crossing over into the Kingdom of Judah and going to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem set up by Yerovam Ben Nevat was annulled this decree on Tu B'Av.

5. Those who were killed at Beitar were buried.

6. No more trees were cut down for use on the Holy Altar.
The wood used to fuel the Holy Altar was dried, since fresh logs might contain worms. After Tu B'Av, the days become shorter and the sun is no longer strong enough to dry out freshly cut logs.Because it marked the completion of the work for Hashem, it was made into a Yom Tov.

How Tu B'Av was celebrated

All the events described above contributed to Tu B'Av being one of the of the most joyous days of the year in Israel, as described in the last Mishnah in Taanit (4:8) :


Rabban Shimon the son of Gamliel said: There were no holidays so joyous for the Jewish People as the Fifteenth of Av and Yom HaKippurim, for on those days, daughters of Yerushalayim would go out dressed in borrowed white clothing, so as not to embarrass the one who didn't have. . . And the daughters of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards. And what would they [the women] say?

"Young man, lift up your eyes and see what you are choosing for yourself. Don't look only at physical beauty - look rather at the family - 'For charm is false, and beauty is vanity. A G-d - fearing woman is the one to be praised...' ("Mishlei"/Proverbs 31:30)

They proceed to quote further further from Eshes Chayil, and the Mishna concludes with Tanna's addition of a quote from Shir HaShirim. whose explications leads up to "this is is the building of the Holy Temple that should be rebuilt speedily in our days, Amen."

There are more lines ascribed to the girls who participate in the festivities of Tu B'av in the Talmud's account in Taanis 31a than in the Mishna cited above.  It also goes into more detail about the borrowing of white dresses --who lent to whom -- and the necessity for purifying the clothes. In addition to sparing one the possibility of embarrassment by lending her a white dress when she may not own one, the fact that everyone was borrowing meant that all had to purify the dresses with a dunk in the mikvah.

The daughter of Israel go out and dance in the vineyards. Anyone who lacked a wife went there. . . . Our rabbis learned: The beautiful ones among them would say: "Raise your eyes to beauty, for a wife is only for beauty." The girls who had yichus [well established, reputable families] would say, "Raise your eyes to family, for a wife is only for children." The ugly ones among them would say, "Take what you take for the sake of Heaven, and adorn us in gold jewelry."


This version sounds a lot less pious than the one in the Mishna. The girls here are not quoting verses from TaNaCh to make their sales pitch. Instead, they are essentially putting their best assets forward. The ones who have beauty flaunt it here and capitalize on it in this marriage market. They would not be singing "sheker hacheyn vehevel hayofi," but the opposite as it suits their purposes in being selected as a wife. The ones with good family seem to not be the same as the beautiful ones, so they are not talking about genes that lead to good looks in children but genes and environment that lead to other positive traits for children.

The most amazing is that the girls who have the least to offer -- the ones termed outright ugly in the description -- declare that they too have a right to marry, and the men should be motivated by the sake of Heaven (I imagine they meant the mitzvah) to marry. Furthermore, they place the onus of attractions on their husbands-to-be with the assurance that the right jewelry and clothes (as Rashi, I believe, says) would work wonders on their looks. 

The most remarkable expression here is that even the girls who are not only B but possible C list as far as shidduch rankings may go do not see themselves as rejects. The problem lies not in them but in the vision of the prospective husband. Instead of looking for what he could acquire that builds his status from a wife, he should look at what he could do for her!

Another two variant accounts

The Yerushalmi learns differently. In its account there are only two types who present themselves -- the beautiful and the ugly. The way the original Mishna quote is rendered as follows: "The ugly ones would say, do not look toward beauty [noy], and the beautiful ones would say, look toward family."

 Thus, the ugly ones offer only a negative statement of "don't look for beauty," without a positive directive of what virtue can be gained by looking elsewhere. Though the Korban Haedah offers a gloss on the text that the statement would finish with "rather look for a woman who would find favor in your eyes because of her deeds," the text itself does not indicate what virtue the ugly ones have to offer. Only the beautiful ones say what to look toward. Instead of the "look toward for family" becoming a redirection for those who may have looked toward beauty initially to look beyond, it is a less boastful way of the beautiful ones to direct attention to the beauty they have to offer. In a way this makes sense, as physical beauty is largely genetic as parents pass on their physical traits to their offspring. Still, it does really wrench apart the way the Mishna quoted in the Yerushalmi reads, "do not look toward beauty but rather to family."

There is yet a fourth variation on this account, which actually identifies 4 groups speaking in the Eyn Yaakov. While it preserves the Gemara's account with the 3 groups, it also inserts another after the ones who cite the virtue of family in parentheses: ashiros shebahen omros, tnu eynechem bebaley mammon [the rich ones among them would say, look at masters of wealth]. Of course, the parentheses indicate that you skip that part of the text. Still, it is interesting that the one category that looms so large today was added in.

What the three groups could mean 

I examined that here: Related:15th of  Av 

and then thought of another idea related to tov, arev, and moil [good, sweet, and yielding other benefit] The beautiful ones offer something arev, with an immediate pleasure of attraction. The ones with family offer something moil -- the benefit for children. The ugly ones, though, offer the ultimate tov in an option to do something purely good with no ulterior motive.

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