Tu B'Av: Simply tu much

The Jewish holiday of love is upon us. Yonathan Yavin gives 10 reasons why the most annoying holiday on the capitalist calendar should be boycotted

Yonathan Yavin Published: 07.29.07, 16:18 / Israel Singles


Are you planning to celebrate Tu B'Av (the 15th of the month of Av)? Here are 10 reasons why you should reconsider:


1. Because – and it's a cliché – it is all a cynical capitalist conspiracy. Businesses discovered that the force the makes the world go round is love, and that the stronger force of money combined with the most Jewish emotion of all (guilt) mix together beautifully on Tu B'Av.

2. Because it's provincial. Somehow we've turned into a group of Levantine copycats that adopt foreign traditions indiscriminately (proms, giant weddings) with the same sleaziness that commercial networks adopt show formats from abroad. True, there's nothing wrong with celebrating love, but why copy the commercialism of Valentine's Day?

3. Because we celebrated Valentine's in February anyway and there is only room for one saccharine day a year.

4. Because it's too close to Tisha B'Av (the ninth of Av, a day of mourning over the destruction of the Temple). Forget about grieving for architectural disasters from 2,000 years ago; maybe it's no coincidence that the Holiday of Love is schedule six days after the day of mourning for the hatred that brought the Temple down. Why don't we spend Tu B'Av reflecting about ending hate, jealousy and anger?

5. Because love should be celebrated throughout the year, not one day a year. It's like the attention everyone pays the environment on Earth Day while the rest of the year they're polluting and damaging it. If you need a day to remind you of love, my condolences: that's no love.

6. Because you can't celebrate love. Period. Like you don't celebrate oxygen. You live it, live by it, supported by it, and enjoying it, in the silent sense of security and comfort it provides regardless of ego.

7. Because no matter how much you try you will not have an original idea. A vacation somewhere "romantic"? A massage? Higher, stronger, faster (but especially more expensive)? Forget it, it's business. If you truly want to be original, Tu B'Av is not the time for it.
8. Because whatever you end up doing, it won't be good enough.

9. Because whatever you'll do, she'll tell you "you shouldn't have." So, what's the point?

10.Because you don't buy it. Every fiber in your body screams this fake holiday is not for you. Love has a Siamese twin: truth. At their best, truth and love are conjoined. This clone of a day has nothing to do with truth.