The Mishnah teaches in the name of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel that Israel had no days as joyful as the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is joyous despite its fast because it brings forgiveness and atonement, and because Moshe descended with the second Tablets.

The Gemara lists several reasons for Tu B’Av: intertribal marriage was permitted; Binyamin was readmitted; the wilderness generation ceased dying; Hoshea ben Elah removed the roadblocks to Jerusalem; the dead of Beitar were buried; and the cutting of wood for the altar ended.

Following the sin of the spies, the generation that left Egypt was condemned to die in the wilderness. The tradition cited by the Sages describes the men digging their graves each Ninth of Av. In the final year, the survivors again lay down in their graves but rose alive.

They first feared a calendar error. When the full moon appeared on the fifteenth, they knew the decree had ended. The shiur presents two approaches: Aharon’s death on the first of Av brought atonement through the merit of a righteous person, and the people’s repentance and prayer refused to surrender hope.

The Gemara does not merely say that the wilderness deaths ended. It adds: “Until the wilderness dead had ceased, there was no speech with Moshe.” This detail forms the heart of the shiur.

For thirty-eight years, Moshe shared the pain and reproach of the people he shepherded. When the decree ended, Hashem again spoke to him with familiar closeness. Our joy on Tu B’Av joins Moshe’s joy at recovering his loving dialogue with Hashem.

The daughters of Jerusalem danced in the vineyards wearing borrowed white garments so that no one without fine clothing would be shamed. The custom frames the search for marriage beyond social comparison.

The shiur warns against collapsing every reason for Tu B’Av into one historical episode: they belong to different periods. Their shared theme is repair — removing barriers, healing separation, and reuniting Israel.

A tradition dates the beginning of Creation to 25 Elul, with humanity created on Rosh Hashanah. Another teaching says that forty days before the formation of a child, a heavenly voice announces the future match.

Counting back forty days from 25 Elul leads to 15 Av. Tu B’Av therefore symbolizes the primordial announcement of the union between Knesset Israel and the Holy One, blessed be He.

The parashah asks: “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your God ask of you?” The Sages teach: do not read mah, “what,” but me’ah, “one hundred.” From here comes the duty to recite one hundred blessings each day.

The shiur connects this enactment with King David: a plague claimed one hundred lives daily, and one hundred blessings were instituted. Beyond the number, blessing restores the Aleph — the One of the world — within food, the body, time, study, and every act. A blessing turns ordinary life into relationship.

The shiur’s final development offers a symbolic structure: Israel gives a tithe to the Levite, and the Levite gives a tithe to the Kohen. The numbers become 100, 10, 1. Likewise, the hundred blessings are progressively refined until the soul is joined to the Aleph, the One of the world.

M. Himi connects this with the phrase “נִרְגָּן אַלּוּף מַפְרִיד.” He reads נרגן as a disordering of nefesh, ruach, body, and neshamah: when the Aleph is separated, body and soul come apart; when blessings restore the Aleph, material life again becomes a path toward the soul.