First of all I would like to explain why I read from Shir HaShirim, then why I chose to read the first chapter and not one of the other chapters, a little bit of information about Shir HaShirim, and, finally, some information about Tu B'Av, the fifteenth of Av, which is my hebrew birthday.

I read from Shir HaShirim because Tu B'Av is a celebration of love, and Shir HaShirim is a love song.

When I first met with Pam and Margalit, they came up with many ideas to help me make this a special occasion, out of which I liked reading a chapter from Shir HaShirim the best. Up until then, I hadn't really known what Shir HaShirim was about. Pam told me that it was a love song. After I read it for the first time, I didn't really understand how it was a love song. Then, after I had read a chapter about Tu B'Av from a book Pam lent me about Jewish holidays, I read it again and it seemed more like a love song to me. Then I read it again, looking at the details to see if one of them jumped out at me. None of them did, so I decided to just do the simplest thing - I started from the beginning. It is, in fact, commonly believed that King Solomon wrote Shir HaShirim, but no one knows for sure. One interpretation of Shir HaShirim is that it is a love song is between G-d and Israel, which depicts Israel as the female figure, and G-d as the male figure. There are other interpretations of Shir HaShirim, too. For instance, one parshan says that it's written as if a shepherd couple is singing it, and another that it's a collection of old wedding songs. Shir HaShirim is different from the other Megillot and Parshiot in a few ways, of which I will mention two. First of all, it does not mention G-d in it, and secondly, it does not have to do with laws and mitzvot.

Why is Tu B'Av so special?

One reason is because as a punishment for the sin of the golden calf, every year of their forty years in the desert, on the night before Tisha B'Av, Moshe cried "Let everyone go out and dig!" and all of the men in Bnei Yisrael would go out to the fields and dig their graves, and then lay down and sleep in them. And in the morning, he would cry "Rise and seperate yourselves from those who have gone to eternal life." They rose and found that 15,000 of their number were dead. But on the fortieth year, when only 15,000 were left, they did this and when they rose, they were all alive. So, of course, they thought they had miscounted the days, and so they did exactly the same thing every night until Tu B'Av, when they saw the moon was full. And then they said "It appears that G-d has repealed the harsh punishment against us." And then they rejoiced and turned the day into a Yom Tov.

Yet another thing that happened on Tu B'Av is that it was the day when, after they defeated Bnei Yisrael on Tisha B'Av in the battle of Beitar, the romans allowed Bnei Yisrael to bury their dead. But a miracle happened. None of the bodies decayed, or got flies, or even got smelly. When they were buried, the bodies were in the same condition as they were in when they were killed.

Another thing that happened on Tu B'Av was that the men of the tribe of Binyamin were again allowed to intermarry with the rest of the tribes after the scandal of the concubine in Give'ah, which I will now explain. Once, in the lands of the tribe of Binyamin, there was a city called Give'ah. Now, the people in this city hated strangers. Well, once a man who was traveling came to Give'ah with a few of his servants and a concubine, to spend the night when he was on his way home. And only one old man would let them stay at his house. In the middle of the night, a crowd came to the old man's house and pounded on his door and demanded that he give them the strangers. But the old man knew what they would do with the strangers, so he tried to calm them by offering them his own daughter and the man's concubine. The crowd wouldn't take the old man's daughter, but they carried the man's concubine off. In the morning, the concubine collapsed on the man's doorway after having been assaulted, and died. When the man discovered this, he was very angry, and as soon as he got home, he cut her body up into twelve pieces, and sent one piece to every tribe to alert them of the grevious crime that had occured. So, in order to avenge the concubine, the rest of the tribes demanded that the tribe of Binyamin give them the evil people of Give'ah. But the tribe of Binyamin would not, so the rest of the tribes declared war on the tribe of Binyamin. Of course, the rest of the tribes won. In fact, only a few men actually escaped with their lives. But many of the people from the other tribes swore that none of their daughters would marry a man from the tribe of Binyamin. But in time, these people regretted having done that, because the tribe of Binyamin almost died out. So they decided that on Tu B'Av, when the young women went out to the fields, the young men of Binyamin were allowed to go to the fields near Shiloh, and kidnap a girl to marry. And so thus the tribe of Binyamin was saved.

I just mentioned that the young women went out to the fields to dance, and since that is one of my favorite things that happened on Tu B'Av, I am going to expand on that subject. On every Tu B'Av when Beit HaMikdash still existed, all the unmarried girls would go out, dressed in white, and dance. But none of them wore their own clothes. They all borrowed clothes from one another, so that they might be equal. For example, a princess borrowed from the daughter of the Cohen Gadol, and so on and so forth. And all the unmarried young men would go there and walk among them and talk to them, and try to find the person they were going to marry (in other words, their true love or bashert). Since this is such a special day to find your true love, it is also a very special day to get married. Another reason why it is so special to get married on this day is because, as is common knowledge, Jews fast on their wedding days in order to make themselves purer. But if the wedding is on this special day, they don't have to, because Hashem forgave Bnei Yisrael on a few counts on this day, as I mentioned before, so they don't have to fast, because they are already pure because of that.

You know, I've noticed that Tu B'Av and Tisha B'Av have many links. For instance, in the case of the digging of the graves, it was on Tisha B'Av that they rose from their graves and lost 15,000 of their number, and it was on Tu B'Av that they discovered that that harsh punishment had been repealed. And at the battle of Beitar, the Jews lost on Tisha B'Av, and they were permitted to bury their dead on Tu B'Av. So, in fact, the two days are exact opposites. On Tisha B'Av, we mourn our losses, and on Tu B'Av, we have a chance to, and usually do, convert that sadness into happiness, which gives us hope that even in the worst situation, things can improve.

I want to thank Margalit for teaching me the Megillah Trop, and Pam, even though she couldn't make it, for helping me to decide what to do for my bat-mizvah. I also want to thank my parents for supporting me the whole way, and urging me not to give up. I also want to thank my Abba for teaching me the Torah Trop, and my Imma for helping me with this speech, Ilan for helping Abba teach me the Torah Trop, and Keren and No'a for helping me get ready. Thank you, and I love you all!