A word of Torah:

        The Talmud says that Tu be-Av, the fifteenth day of the month of Av, was one of the most festive days of the year (Ta’anit 30b). Why? A number of explanations are given, but I want to quote only one.

“Rabbah bar bar Chana said: This was the day that those destined to die in the desert finished dying. For Mar said: So long as they hadn’t finished dying God didn’t speak to Moses.”

        It’s a strange text. The context goes back to the story of the spies who brought back a negative report about the land of Israel. In response,the people didn't want to go on so God decreed that this whole generation would die in the desert. The midrash says that every year on the ninth day of Av the Israelites would dig graves and sleep in them. Each year some of the Israelites would die. In the fortieth year, the last Israelites of the desert generation dug their graves expecting to die. The next morning, they discovered no one had died. They assumed they had miscalculated the date. The next night the same thing happened. Finally, on the fifteenth of the month they could see the full moon and knew they couldn’t have miscalculated. They realized that they had been spared the punishment of dying in the desert.
        This is a remarkable, even terrifying midrash. Imagine lying in a grave each year knowing that this could actually be your grave.  In the last year, you were sure this would be your last night alive. Equally remarkable is that there is a whole group of people who are spared the punishment and presumably will enter the Promised Land. This midrash thereby contradicts the biblical text that states that the whole generation that left Egypt died in the desert except for Joshua and Caleb.
         Perhaps, the second line of the text is even more stunning. “For Mar said: So long as they hadn’t finished dying God didn’t speak to Moses.” What?! Isn’t the Torah filled with many times that God spoke to Moses?  One possibility is that there is an intimate quality to God speaking to Moses and it is that quality that is absent during the forty years of wandering. With this death sentence hanging over the Israelites, the relationship with God has to be affected. 
         The Fast of Tisha be-Av (the 9th day of the month of Av) is the low point in the festival cycle. Yet we immediately begin to move on to the reconciliation that leads to the High Holidays. God forgives the Israelites. We are to forgive people who have hurt us. We are to forgive ourselves. Less than a week later, Tu be-av was among the most festive days of the year because it reminds us that change, forgiveness and reconciliation are possible no matter how distant we are from other people and from the self we want to be.