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Tu B'Av 5786 in West Hartford

We're still building our West Hartford listings for Tu B'Av 5786. Tu B'Av, the 15th of Av, is one of the most joyous days on the Jewish calendar and is often called 'the Jewish Valentine's Day' or 'the Jewish Day of Love.' Falling just six days after Tisha B'Av, it serves as a deliberate counterpoint to that day of mourning, marking the swing from communal grief back to celebration. The Mishnah (Ta'anit 4:8) calls Tu B'Av one of the two happiest days of the Jewish year, alongside Yom Kippur. On this day in ancient times, unmarried women would dress in white garments (borrowed so as not to embarrass those without their own) and dance in the vineyards near Jerusalem, where young men would come to find a match. The day also commemorates several joyous events: the lifting of the prohibition on intertribal marriage, the end of the desert generation's dying, the resumption of the daily tamid offering after the breaking of the Bar Kochba revolt, and the burial of those killed at Beitar. In modern Israel, Tu B'Av has become a popular date for weddings, engagements, and romantic celebrations.