Happy Tu B’Av!

Sunday night begins the ‘Matchmaking Holiday’ of Tu B’Av. Rabbi Hershel Reichman discusses the meaning of this holiday in his Naaleh.com class entitled Spiritual Elevation of Physical Reality.

To summarize, Rabbi Reichman points out that the point of marriage is to elevate the physical to the spiritual. You take a relationship that may look purely physical and you elevate it to the spiritual via the Jewish couple utilizing their marriage as a way connect to Hashem. A Jewish couple recognizes the inherent divine aspect to their marriage. We see this is the marriage ceremony when the blessing of  ‘shehakol bara lechvodod- that everything is created for Hashem’s honor’ is recited under the chuppah. And thus the marriage itself is created in order to honor Hashem. And so too, all mundane acts in this world have the opportunity to be elevated to the spiritual (i.e. making a blessing over food elevates the act of eating).

For me, I think about the mundane act of mothering on a day to day basis. Changing diapers, making lunch, wiping tears- these are all seemingly mundane acts. But in truth I am nurturing a yiddishe nechama- a Jewish soul. And all throughout the day I have the choice to just do mundane acts without much meaning or I can have an ongoing dialogue with Hashem throughout the day- asking Him to help me be a loving, nurturing mother, and to emulate for my child what it means to live a spiritually attuned life. It is my hope to aspire to the former and to elevate my daily routine to something meaningful and spiritual.

Shabbat Shalom!

Here is the class I mentioned above: