When I wanted to get Asher worked up during yeshiva, I would tell him, "But fundamentally, I'm a serious Chassidic guy."
I would always say it after my behavior had been anything but serious—for example, sleeping in late or generally wasting time. Asher was, and still is, a soulmate of a friend, but back then he had a fairly short fuse (which, to his credit, has grown considerably longer over the years). He would get visibly irritated and mutter through clenched teeth, "Your 'principles' ought to be lined up in front of a firing squad."
I genuinely couldn't understand why he got so upset. After all, fundamentally I really was a serious, G-d-fearing Chassidic fellow. I wasn't lying.
Patterns of thought and behavior don't change easily. After I got married, I noticed that this theme kept repeating itself. Time and again I insisted that, fundamentally, I was amazing, while my wife would respond, "Frankly, my grandmother couldn't care less about your principles."
I remember a defining moment—the moment before the change, after which everything was different. We were already deep into family life, with our growing family, thank G-d, and we were talking (or, more accurately, analyzing the subject to death) about optimism, positive thinking, and joy.
I argued passionately that fundamentally I was a happy, optimistic, positive person. The proof, I claimed, was that I navigated plenty of life's bumps and setbacks without falling apart.
My wise wife answered with one of the most practical and considerate things she has ever said to me: "But how does it help me that you're fundamentally happy? If, in principle, you're a happy person, but your face looks like Tisha B'Av because you've had a rough day, then you're not happy. Period. As far as I'm concerned, you can be fundamentally sad—but practically joyful."
That conversation didn't transform me overnight. It was the culmination of years of discussions on the subject. It was the final hammer blow that drove the point home. Something inside me finally understood: principles aren't what matter. What matters is what you actually do.
Or, in the language of Chassidus: the essence is good, but without revelation, it doesn't amount to much. Perhaps that's why the Rebbe so often concluded his blessings with the phrase: "May it be good in a revealed and visible way."
This week I studied a maamar on Tu B'Av that the Rebbe delivered in 5747 (1987), and it gave me a beautiful confirmation of this idea.
The maamar, which is based on an earlier discourse by the Rebbe Rashab and ultimately on Pri Etz Chaim by Rabbi Chaim Vital, explains that the essential significance of the Fifteenth of Av is that it is the day when the moon shines in its fullness—"kayma sihara bishleimusa" ("the moon stands in complete fullness"). From this central idea flow all the other miracles that the Gemara associates with Tu B'Av, until it earns the remarkable description: "There were no greater festivals for Israel than the Fifteenth of Av."
The insight that captivated me is that the entire essence of Tu B'Av is simply revelation.
As the maamar puts it: *"The unique quality of the Fifteenth of Av lies in the realm of revelation."* The Rebbe develops this idea on several levels. I'll mention just two.
The simplest example is the full moon itself.
Except... that's not actually true.
The moon is always whole. It doesn't literally shrink and grow over the course of the month. Its size never changes. What changes is only how much of it is revealed to us. On the fifteenth of the month, it is simply fully revealed.
A second example is the earliest event that the Gemara associates chronologically with Tu B’Av: "the day when the wilderness generation stopped dying."
After the sin of the spies, the generation of the wilderness was decreed to die before entering the Land of Israel. The Midrash describes how every year, on Tisha B'Av, the men would lie down in graves they had dug for themselves, and about fifteen thousand would not wake up the next morning.
In the fortieth year, they again entered their graves on Tisha B'Av. When everyone woke up alive the next morning, they assumed they must have miscalculated the date. So they returned to the graves the following night—and then the next, and the next—until the night of the Fourteenth of Av.
When the moon finally appeared in its full brightness on the Fifteenth of Av, they realized they had not made a mistake after all.
They said, "The Holy One, blessed be He, has removed that harsh decree from us, and they celebrated with feasting, rejoicing, and a festival.״
In other words, the decree had actually been lifted on Tisha B'Av. The Fifteenth of Av was merely the day when it became revealed that the decree had been lifted.
And yet, the feast, the celebration, and the holiday were not established on the day the decree ended—but on the day its cancellation became visible.
Because that's how life works.
The essence may be sound. The principle may be correct. But revelation is what gives us reason to celebrate.
So if you're fundamentally happy, remember that it doesn't impress my wife's grandmother. What matters is not the principle of joy, but the revelation of joy.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalman Wishedski