“There were no holidays as joyous for the Jewish People as the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur …” (Mishnah, Taanit)
15th of Av, Happy Day, Holiday of Love Yom Kippur is known as the “Wedding Day” of Israel to the Lord and Tu B’Av to be the day of Jewish weddings.
Burial Day One can therefore appreciate the emotion of dread which would cause them, as the Midrash says, to dig their own graves on the night of Tisha B’Av, the anniversary of their Great Sin, and lie in them. In the morning, Moshe (Moses) would proclaim, “Separate yourselves from the Living!” After a horrible moment of uncertainty, all but fifteen thousand would arise from their graves, “happy” that they had survived another year. On the fortieth Tisha B’Av, they followed this practice, but this time, nobody died. Thinking they had erred in their calculation, they repeated the exercise the next night, and the next, until, on the Fifteenth of Av, they saw a full moon, and knew that they could not have erred, and rejoiced that Hashem had shown mercy on the last fifteen thousand. On the 15th of Av on the 40th year in the Wilderness, the punishment for the evil report of 10 of the 12 spies was finally ended.
15th of Av, Happy Day, Holiday of Love Yom Kippur is known as the “Wedding Day” of Israel to the LORD and Tu B’Av is the day of Jewish weddings or engagements.
Day of finding one’s predestined soul-mate with dancing in the Vineyard. It is now known as Chag Ha’Ahavah, the festival of love- the Jewish version of Valentine’s Day. Yom Kippur and Av 15 both are dates for prospective marriage partners. The remnant 600 from the tribe of Benjamin were allowed to pick virgins to keep the tribe alive after the massacre with the other 11 tribes, (Judges 21:18-23). Story begins with “At this time there was no king in Israel” and ends with “Each man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
Burial of the Beitar Victims Beitar was the stronghold of Bar Kockba, who led the last Jewish revolution against the Romans. Roman General Adaryanus massacred the fighters of Beitar and there were rivers of blood and hundred of thousands of Jewish corpses. The general did not allow the bodies to be buried, but rather piled them up. When a new Roman general arrived, he allowed the burial of the bodies on the 15th of Av. (Recorded miracle that there was no smell from the decomposing bodies during that time)
Axe-breaking Day No more wood would be cut down for the Holy Altar burning because of the shortness of daylight for drying out the fresh cut logs (to make sure they had no worms or bugs).
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/53683/jewish/The-Day-of-the-Breaking-of-the-Ax.htm
King Hoshea of Israel removed the guards from the border to Judah and allowed the people to go to Jerusalem and worship. This is the only good thing recorded that this wicked king did. The day the borders were opened was the 15th of Av
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Modern_Holidays/Tu_BAv.shtml
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/tubav.html
the gemara (Taanit 30b-31a) lists seven reasons to celebrate Tu b’Av, and three of them offer the underwhelming applause line, “We didn’t die!”
:http://rechovot.blogspot.com/2010/07/tu-bav-holiday-of-hitting-rock-bottom.html
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