עוד ישמע בערי יהודה ובחוצות ירושלם קול ששון קול שמחה קול חתן קול כלה
We have left behind a mourning period for the Bet haMiqdash, which extended from the 17th of Tamuz until this past Thursday night when we ended the fast of Tish’a BeAb. Throughout this time, we had no weddings or other celebrations. However, once Tisha B’Ab ended, we resumed festivities and joys.
Today we celebrate a date that, although not well-known, is very significant: the 15th of the month of Ab. According to the treatise of Ta’anit, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: “There were no happier days for the people of Israel than the 15th of Ab… because on those days the unmarried young women of Jerusalem went out dressed in white to dance in the vineyards… and said to the single young men: ‘Consider who you will choose (to be your wife)’ and then they highlighted their own qualities: their good families, their virtues, their beauty”. Many couples met for the first time on this day, and thus, new marriages began.
To explain why this day was selected for such a joyful and significant event, “the day of the SHIDUKHIM (or formation of couples)”, the Sages mention what happened on the 15th of Ab throughout Jewish history.
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Shortly after leaving Egypt, when the people of Israel refused to enter the land of Israel, all those over 20 years old were condemned to die in the desert during the long journey. Forty years later, this decree was canceled on the 15th of Ab.
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When the Jewish people began to settle in Israel in the times of Joshua and secured the orderly division of the Land of Israel among the twelve tribes, which were established in twelve “provinces” or “states”, the Sages only allowed marriages between members of the same tribe or province (Numbers, Chapter 36) because this would cause the transfer of lands from one tribe to another. These restrictions were lifted on the 15th of Ab when marriages between the different tribes were allowed.
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The 15th of Ab also reminds us that the tribe of Benjamin was readmitted to the people of Israel. Its members were excommunicated for their behavior in the terrible episode of the rape of a woman in Gib’ah (Judges 19-21), an event that was uncommon in Jewish society and shook the people of Israel for years.
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There is one last event that occurred on the 15th of Ab. The Sages say that on that day, the people of Israel were allowed to bury the dead of Betar.
What does this mean, and what does it have to do with celebrating marriages?
To understand it a little better, I will present a brief historical review:
When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 68 of the common era, the land of Israel no longer belonged to the Jewish people: “Judea” was converted into a province of the Roman Empire. Some emperors were lenient with the Jews, and others were not. But there was one emperor who was the Jews’ worst enemy: Hadrian. This wicked ruler was obsessed with exterminating our people on a level similar to that of Hitler. His “dream” was the final solution: to destroy the Jewish people and erase their memory forever. He started with Jerusalem. He destroyed what was left of the ruins of the Temple so that the Jews would stop mourning for Jerusalem (as we do today when we visit the Kotel) and forget to rebuild it forever. To ensure the success of his mission, he had a city built on the ruins of Jerusalem and changed its name to Aelia Capitolina. As if this were not enough, he also changed the name of the land of Israel to “Palestine.”
The Jews, led by Bar Kokhba, decided to rebel, but after about three years of heroic battles, in 135, Hadrian defeated the rebels. It is estimated that around 400,000 Jews who lived in Betar, the last bastion of Jewish resistance, were massacred by the Romans “until their blood reached the Mediterranean Sea”. And as an additional punishment, Hadrian issued a special decree: he did not allow the bodies of these murdered Jews to be buried and instructed his troops not to leave any survivors. All Jews were to be systematically killed. Even those men and women who could serve or be sold as slaves. In that desperate moment, some sages expressed that weddings and marriages should be canceled. Why marry and bring children into the world if those children are condemned to death from the moment of their birth?
Finally, Emperor Hadrian died on the 15th of Ab (July 10) in 138. In those times, when a king or emperor died, his decrees were automatically canceled. The first action the Jews took was to bury their dead. According to the Talmudic tradition, the bodies miraculously did not decompose for a period of three years. The death of this monstrous emperor resembled the end of the Holocaust for the Jews of that time, like the end of the Second World War in 1945 or the day Hitler died.
To commemorate the end of this tragic period that the Talmud called SHEMAD, “genocide”—the Hebrew word closest to SHOAH, Holocaust—the Sages made a far-reaching and relevant decision: they formulated a new blessing (Berakha) of gratitude to God for the end of the systematic genocide of the Jews and incorporated this blessing called HATOB VEHAMETIB for posterity in the Birkat haMazon, the prayer we recite daily after eating a meal with bread.
And at that moment, the Sages also encouraged the survivors—our ancestors—to bring children into the world again.
And so it was that on the 15th of Ab in the year 138, the Jewish people were reborn from their ashes. And in the cities of Judea and the streets of Jerusalem, the voices of the bride and groom’s joy were heard again, celebrating their weddings and forming their new families.
Rabbi Yosef Bitton
