Thursday, August 07, 2025

Someich Hashem l'kol ha'noflim -- T"U b'Av

Brachos 4b

אמר רבי יוחנן מפני מה לא נאמר נו"ן באשרי מפני שיש בה מפלתן של שונאי ישראל דכתיב נפלה לא תוסיף קום בתולת ישראל במערבא מתרצי לה הכי נפלה ולא תוסיף לנפול עוד קום בתולת ישראל אמר רב נחמן בר יצחק אפילו הכי חזר דוד וסמכן ברוח הקדש שנא' סומך ה' לכל הנופלים


There is a famous vort of the Apter Rav on T"U b'Av which 
I thought I had posted once but can't find it. The very last gemara in Taanis, after the sugya that discusses what happened on T'U b'Av, tells us:

אמר רבי אלעזר עתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא לעשות מחול לצדיקים והוא יושב ביניהם בגן עדן וכל אחד ואחד מראה באצבעו שנאמ' ואמר ביום ההוא הנה אלקינו זה קוינו לו ויושיענו זה ה' קוינו לו נגילה ונשמחה בישועתו

We will one day dance in a big circle, with Hashem in the middle, and everyone will point to the middle and say הנה אלקינו זה קוינו לו etc. In a circle every single point is equidistant from the center. In the future, every single person, from the biggest gadol to the average Joe, will see that they made a contribution, that they have a connection to Hashem, that their portion and their avodah is as valuable to Hashem as anyone else's. The Apter Rav explained that this celebration is what T'U b'Av represents. T"U = the 15th letter of the aleph beis, the letter samech, which is round like a circle. On T"U b'Av all the girls would go out and dance in the vineyard, and each would declare a reason why an eligible bachur should marry  them. Everyone has something that makes him/her special. We are each points on a circle.

R' Teichtel in his Mishnas Sachir writes that on 9 Av we mourn the churban caused by machlokes and infighting and strife. This is the greatest nefila of Klal Yisrael. Comes T"U b'Av, the culmination of the shiva for the churban, as R' Tzadok writes, and we want to do away with all that enmity and make a tikun for our sins. The gemara describes how on T"U b'Av the girls  would all borrow clothes from each other כל ישראל שואלין זה מזה כדי שלא יתבייש את מי שאין לו.   No one should feel that they are less valuable than anyone else; no one should feel pain because someone else made them feel less than special.  T"U b'Av is that letter samech, with no start and no end, no one point closer or more distant than any other from the center.  Everyone's cheilek is equally important, so there is no reason to fight.  This is what the gemaa means חזר דוד וסמכן ברוח הקדש שנא' סומך ה' לכל הנופלים  Hshem took the nefilah and connected it with the letter samech, the holiday of T"U b'Av, giving us the means to make things whole, giving us the greatest simcha in the world.

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