“Summer of Love”: Seasonal Themes in the Jewish Tradition

Originally shared with the SJCS community in August 2026 Summer Message

In the Jewish tradition, themes associated with summer feature distinctive juxtapositions. Since nearly everyone through much of human history kept busy during these months – just as many do to this day – notions of the season as a time of recreation and refresh awaited industrialization. In Jewish text and practice, its preeminent opening themes have involved tragedy and sorrow. Our sources connect the date of Tisha B’Av/תשעה באב (the 9th of the month of Av, marked in 2026 on July 23) to a stunning litany of misfortune, with the destruction of both the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE as lead examples, but also including events before and after, such as the scouting party’s fateful report on the Promised Land that doomed the Ancient Israelites to forty years in the desert, the expulsion of Jews from both England and Spain, and the beginning of mass deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto. No wonder the tradition establishes Tisha B’Av as one of only two full 25-hour fast days in the Jewish calendar.

More than setting a single, extended fast, the tradition also consciously deepens grieving practices over a more extended period, beginning with a sun-up-to-sun-down fast three weeks before the 9th of Av, this one on the 17th of Tammuz, and also including limitations on pleasures over the next 21 days, further constriction of recreation during “The 9 Days” from the first of Av until the fast day, and designation of two passages from Yirmiyahu/ירמיהו (Jeremiah) and one from Yishayahu/ישעיהו (Isaiah) as the prophetic readings for the Shabbatot between the fasts. Traditionally, we call the group of these texts by their Aramaic name Talata D’Puranuta/תלתא דפורענותא (“The Three of Retribution”) characterizing their warnings of looming destruction, spiritual decline, and rebuke.

After three weeks of ...

  • descent into despair,
  • pushed deeper by a final nine days of more extensive mourning,
  • and reaching their lowest point with a dark fast, filled with elegies and lamentations – most notably from the scroll of Eicha/איכה (“Alas, how could it be?”), describing the destruction of Yerushalayim/ירושלים (Jerusalem) 

... how can our tradition guide us through the next stretches of the summer, into the fall, a period we aim to mark with awe, atonement, and pursuit of holiness?

One straightforward answer brings us back to the selection of prophetic readings, this time the ones designated for the Shabbat following Tisha B’Av and the six weekends after that, bringing us to the threshold of Rosh HaShana/ראש השנה (The “Head of the Year”). These seven readings, all taken from the book of Yishayahu, carry an Aramaic name as well, reflective of their purpose as a response to the themes of their predecessors: Shiva D’Nechemta/שבעה דנחמתא (“The Seven of Consolation”). Each of the seven texts offers reassuring promises of hope and redemption, exemplified, for example, by the opening words of the sixth of the seven haftorot:

 

Kumi Ori Ki Va Orech

U’Chvod Adonai Alayich Zarach

קומי אורי כי בא אורך

וכבוד אדוני עליך זרח

"Arise! Give Light! For your radiance dawns

And the presence of Adonai shines on you."

We thus have, in response to tragedy and sorrow, prophecies of comfort and hope, calls to thoughtful attention from the Shofar/שופר (Ram’s Horn) – starting on the first day of the month of Elul and every weekday thereafter until Yom HaKippurim/יום הכיפורים (The Day of Atonements) – and ascent, in general, toward positive purpose in our liturgy, practices, and returns to school as well.

Along with these, our tradition offers another powerful response to tragedy and sorrow: and that is love.

The Jewish intellectual tradition lets no coincidences pass as mere coincidence or serendipity. Rather, we take note of these as opportunities for explication, for digging deeper and seeking connections. For example: given that the number 127 appears only twice in the Hebrew Scriptures – once in chronicling the years lived by the matriarch Sarah/שרה and once in enumerating the provinces under the rule of King Achashverosh/אחשוורוש – what connections might we find between Sarah’s life and Purim? Or: when we note that we always read the Biblical account of the ascent of Yosef/יוסף to Vizier of the Ancient Egyptian empire during Chanukah, what insights could this juxtaposition provide into both narratives? I welcome conversations on these questions and others like them!

Returning to the summer months: the Torah contains three – and only three – distinct injunctions “to love,” using the word V’Ahavta/ואהבת (“you shall love”). If you are not certain of which three objects of commanded love the Torah specifies, you might pause for a moment and take a guess before joining me in the next paragraph.

*        *        *

These are the three, in order of their appearance in the text, with approximations used in the translation of Hebrew words without exact equivalents in English:

  • Reyacha/רעך (your companion, neighbor, friend, or associate)
  • Adonai Elohecha/אדוני אלהיך (Adonai your God)
  • HaGer/הגר (the sojourner, outsider, stranger, or alien)

Jewish congregations always read the second injunction, contained in the opening passage of the Shema/שמע (“Attend!”), on the Shabbat immediately following Tisha B’Av. That could tell us something!

A further reinforcement of the juxtaposition – of the identification of “love” as core to the response to sorrow and tragedy – comes with a lesser-known holiday that goes back to ancient times and whose practice has grown in recent years, notably in Israel. This is T”u B’Av/ט״ו באב (the 15th of the month of Av, celebrated in 2026 on July 29), sometimes superficially identified as the “Jewish St. Valentine’s Day.”*

The first known textual reference to T”u B’Av comes in the Mishna, codified by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi around 200 C.E., amidst efforts following the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans to secure extensive content preserved until then only in “oral” law. The reference to the 15th of Av comes in the 8th Mishna of the 4th chapter of the tractate Ta’anit/תענית (“Fast Day”). Here, Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel offers a bold pronouncement:

Amar Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel, Lo Hayu Yamim Tovim L’Yisrael K’Chamisha Asar B’Av U’Kh’Yom HaKippurim

אמר רבן שמעון בן גמליאל, לא היו ימים טובים לישראל כחמשה עשר באב וכיום הכיפורים

“Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: There were no days as good (joyous) for the Jewish people as the fifteenth of Av and as Yom HaKippurim (the Day of Atonement).”

Aside from the identification of Yom Kippur as a preeminent “good” day for the Jewish people, with a clear connotation of “joy” conveyed in subsequent discussions in the text – a worthy topic for another day! – the passage also surprises with the companion event identified as standout in its goodness or joy, alongside Yom Kippur: T”u B’Av, an otherwise obscure occasion, coming just six days after the dark fast. The Mishna itself offers elaboration: on this day, we learn, young women in Yerushalayim would go out in white clothes they had borrowed from each other – to ensure no embarrassment for anyone who might not have a white dress – and they would dance in the vineyards and call out to their male peers, encouraging them to lift their eyes and choose a wife, with the priority placed not on beauty, but on hopes for a good family.

Over the next four centuries, Babylonian Rabbis** engaged in further discussions of parts of the Mishna, including the one we have been considering, and they compiled them in the Gemara (texts “completing” the Mishna and, together with it, forming the Talmud Bavli/תלמוד בבלי or Babylonian Talmud). In extended discussions, lasting more than a folio of text and bringing the Tractate of Ta’anit to its conclusion, these Rabbis shared multiple ties to T”u B’Av, going further back in Ancient Israelite history. These included the pronouncement that, on this date, authorities lifted a temporary ban on marriages between members of different tribes. Also on 15 Av, during the era of the Shoftim/שופטים (Judges), later authorities lifted a particular prohibition on members of the tribe of Binyamin/בנימין (Benjamin) who had been forbidden to marry outside their tribe, as a consequence for misconduct within it. Later, after all 12 tribes split into two separate kingdoms – with 10 tribes united in the north, centered around Shomron/שומרון (Samaria) and 2 joined in the south, centered around Yerushalayim – northern Jews who wished to come to the Holy Temple for the pilgrimage festivals could not do so until King Hoshea/הושע removed the sentries of long-standing, on 15 Av, and let his citizens come together with their brethren in the south.

Aside from these associations, T”u B’Av has long retained its impact on traditional daily liturgy, even during extended periods of our Jewish past when the occasion otherwise received little notice. Daily morning and afternoon prayers typically include, near their end, recitation of Tachanun/תחנון (prayers of supplication), including especially extensive texts on Mondays and Thursdays as well as a regular practice, each day, of Nefilat Apayim/נפילת אפיים (“falling on faces”) while whispering the words. These prayers do not get recited on days regarded as particularly celebratory, and T”u B’Av has long carried this distinction of being a Tachanun-free day. In contemporary Israel, this particular date has also become an especially popular day to get married, and it carries the popularized name of Chag HaAhava/חג האהבה (The Holiday of Love).

The multi-faceted features of the 15th of Av, coming right on the heels of the 9th of Av, advance us well beyond the coincidence (or is it?) that the first Torah reading after the dark fast includes one of our scriptures’ few injunctions to love. More than this, T”u B’Av’s examples provide deeper insight into what our texts have in mind with references to “love.” Even as celebrations of marriage – not to mention evocative images of ancient woman dancing in vineyards – highlight a notable expression of love, complementary themes also carry prominence. The Talmud takes care to note that the dancers wore borrowed dresses, as an expression of camaraderie, and that notable events on this the date specifically involved lowering barriers between people and allowing for them to come together.

Robert Frost wrote that “good fences make good neighbors.” The Torah pushes for a different value, calling on people to extend beyond divides – between neighbors, between “residents” and “outsiders,” and between humans and the transcendent.

Coming full circle, I take to heart this message of the “Jewish Summer of Love”: our history features much tragedy and much sorrow. These qualities, we note poignantly, land that much closer amidst the challenges of our own times. Traditional summer commemorations require that we focus our attention through practices of grieving, restraint, and lamentation. They also pivot for us: extending consolation, in anticipation of ascent to new beginnings. And they do more than that: they call on us to love, precisely in response to our misfortunes, reaching across our divides to find purpose, meaning, and consolation too, in extending our bonds of community

 

* Notwithstanding the shared themes of “love,” this identification carries especially unfortunate qualities given St. Valentine’s Day’s association with lethal anti-Jewish harm, most notably in 1349, when a mob in Strausburg, France, burned to death or exiled roughly 2,000 Jews, a majority of the Jewish residents of the city. Personally, I prefer to think of February 14 as my daughter Margalit’s birthday.

 ** Rabbis in Roman Syria Paelestina, mostly in the vicinity of Teveria/טבריה (Tiberias), engaged in analogous discussions over a shorter period of time, and these are codified in what is called (with geographic inaccuracy) the Talmud Yerushalmi /תלמוד ירושלמי (Jerusalem Talmud).