According to Kabbalah, each month of the year was created with a special letter, and the letter of the month of Menachem-Av is Tet (numerical value of 9). Indeed, the significant date in this month is the ninth of Av, Tet in the month. It seems, then, that the letter Tet does not herald good tidings. Is this really so? After all, the Holy One, Blessed be He, is good and bestows goodness upon all, "Nothing bad descends from above," so how could it be that the month was created from the outset for evil? Heaven forbid.
Hidden Good
From the words of the Sages, we learn that the letter Tet signifies good, just as its first appearance in the Torah is in the words "the light, that it was good." This explains why in the Ten Commandments written on the first tablets, which were destined to be broken, the letter Tet does not appear. In the second tablets it is written "that it may be good (yitav, with a Tet) with you" (see Bava Kamma 54b). What happened to this goodness in the month of Av?
There is revealed good and there is hidden good. The Zohar explains that the letter Tet means "its goodness is hidden within it," and thus the shape of the letter Tet converges inward, as if pointing to a hidden drop inside. There is simple good, good that from the first moment is revealed and shining, but the letter Tet points to a deeper good, which precisely because of its intensity is initially hidden and is not apparent. The world is not yet ripe to receive it as it is, and it must be concealed beneath a dark covering.
This is the good of the month of Av. On every Rosh Chodesh we pray, "Renew for us this month for good and for blessing," but in the month of Av there is a unique kind of good. At the beginning of the month, the good is hidden, and the concealment grows stronger until the ninth of Av. On the ninth of Av, the letter Tet is completed, and from this point, the good begins to be revealed and shine, until the joy of Shabbat Nachamu and the fifteenth of Av.
How to Diminish in Joy
Where can we sense the hidden good even before it is actually revealed?
"When Av enters, we diminish in joy." But don't stop smiling. "Serve God with joy" even in the month of Av and even on Tisha B'Av! The exile was because "you did not serve Havayah your God with joy and gladness of heart," and the great Kabbalists and Chasidic masters warned strongly against sadness throughout the year.
Joy, however, appears in different manifestations. "When Adar enters, we increase in joy" – this is a joy that grows and multiplies in quantity, breaks boundaries, expands and sweeps everyone into the circle. But when Av enters, joy diminishes in quantity, yet does not disappear. "We diminish in joy" – we reduce the quantity of joy (as expressed in the laws of mourning for the destruction of the Temple). It 'compresses' into itself, "its goodness is hidden within it," until we achieve the concentrated quality of joy.
The qualitative point of joy is faith. When all the lights go out, when everything seems failing and bad, evil and bitter and depressing, when it seems that there is nothing to rejoice about – we encourage ourselves and remember that the good God is with us in every situation. Even if we have descended to the lowest depths, "If I make my bed in the depths, behold, You are there" – You Yourself, the Holy One, Blessed be He, are here with me. This is the faith planted in every Jew, and this faith alone is worth endless joy. "The tzaddik shall live by his faith" and rejoice, for the tzaddik is not dependent on quantitative abundance but on the qualitative point of good, "Better is the little of the tzaddik."
Birthday
If so, the inner work of the month of Av is to diminish joy, meaning to concentrate it, to focus on the qualitative point of joy, to rejoice in faith. This direction aligns with another interpretation in Chasidut of "diminishing in joy" – we diminish all undesirable things through joy, an inner joy in God.
At the beginning of the month, one should not divert attention from mourning the destruction. That is, one should not direct joy to the relatively external layers, but rather "serve God with joy" within your hearts. Thus, the first nine days of the month become concentrated "nine months of gestation," like a pregnancy in which something good develops inside, "its goodness hidden within it."
The process culminates on Tisha B'Av itself, when the letter Tet is completed, pointing to the good within it, and the time of birth arrives: "On the ninth of Av, Mashiach is born" – the best and most joyous thing that will happen to us!
