Tu B'Av: Dancing in the Moonlight
From the perspective of the moon, there are two main types of Jewish festival. Some of our festivals fall when the moon is dark, and some fall when the moon is bright. Rosh HaShanah is on the first day of the month, and since our months are tethered to the waxing and waning of the moon, this means that Rosh HaShanah comes when there is the barest sliver of moon in the sky. It is not a bright night. We increase light into Yom Kippur. By the time we leave the Kol Nidrei service and walk home, we look up into the sky to see a steadily waxing moon. Likewise, Chanukah straddles the darkest time of the month, beginning of the 25th of Kislev, when the moon is waning into darkness. We light our candles into the darkest part of the month, into the darkest time of the year. And then there are festivals which fall mid-month, when the moon is at its very brightest. The most obvious of these festivals are the beginning of Pesach and the beginning of Sukkot. They ar...