Despite the plethora of columns and reader responses in heimishe publications seeking to identify the cause of the shidduchim crises, we are “cause wise” still collectively empty handed. And what’s worse is that we have made Hashem part of the problem.
When a column carries a title something like: Too Many Girls and Not Enough Boys, we would suspect the writer of not having the proper Torah hashkafa if we didn’t already know that he was an erliche yid and a Ben Torah.
When we state that there are too many girls are we not in fact saying that Hashem messed up even if we don’t mean it as such? Is there even one amongst us who would claim that Hashem made even one girl too many or one boy less than the perfect number?
The whole demographic argument falls of its own weight because it simply isn’t Jewish. Even if the numbers are correct, they are meaningless because this is not about a census in the Midbar. We are talking shidduchim here which means nissim, not teva, and there is therefore no causal link between those dry numbers and the fact that there are many girls without a proper shidduch.
Okay, so Hashem can count, but we are also told that there is a problem because boys tend to marry girls that are several years younger than themselves. The Gemara states openly that girls marry earlier than boys but omits any discussion of a shidduchim crisis.
And what are we to make of the maimorei Chazal that say that Hashem busies Himself making shidduchim and that making shidduchim is as hard as Krias Yam Suf? Nice vertlach to say over at a sheva brochos? Chazal use the language of nissim because shidduchim are a function of nissim. In the same way that one should not count one’s money if not necessary so as to allow an opportunity for Hashem’s brocha to rest on it, we should not get too involved with the “numbers” vis á vis shidduchim so as to allow Hashem wiggle room to make it work out despite the numbers. If we insist on running the numbers then Hashem will leave us to our own resources, and as the demographers tell us ad nauseum, the numbers don’t compute.
Moreover, if we buy the demography argument we can’t have it both ways. If we are locked into the numbers in relation to all of the twenty-three year old boys marrying girls several years younger, what words of encouragement will we be able to give to the hundreds of girls above the age of twenty-five who are seeking a shidduch? Sing them the siren song of Siata D’shmaya? According to the numbers their marriage prospects are toast, plain and simple.
No, it’s not about numbers, and it’s not about money either.
The money argument is an effect of whatever is causing the supply/demand imbalance, not a cause. If there were “too many boys” chasing fewer girls, the boys in question wouldn’t have the leverage to make the demands that are being made in some circles. It’s only because there are fewer good boys (shvaker bochurim are not presumed to be in a position to make demands) due to a yet to be determined reason, that such demands are able to be made.
The smoothing out of the present imbalance will take some time, possibly a generation, hopefully less, assuming that we focus on the real problem, and not the sideshows like demographics and money issues. Small comfort indeed to those girls who are looking for a shidduch today.
While attempts are being made to deal with the problem in the short term, most of these are simply stop gap measures that remove the problem from one girl and place it on another. Whether we are talking about giving financial incentives to shadchonim or encouraging boys to marry older girls, if the boy in question would have gotten married in any case then we have only exchanged one girl for another with no net gain. If a twenty-three year old boy marries a twenty-four year old girl instead of twenty-one year old girl that he otherwise might have been expected to marry, then that twenty-one year old girl may well be one day a twenty-four year old girl in need of a shidduch. But with that said, even if in numerical terms these measures are a wash, they may be beneficial nonetheless because they target the girls that are most at risk of never finding a proper shidduch.
So how do we achieve a net gain?
With men at a premium, every man who never marries is a double tragedy, both for himself and for the unnamed girl that will never marry. There are frum men, many of them Bnei Torah who make decent livings and, if given the chance would make fine husbands, and yet most of those who aren’t married by forty will never marry.
Why is no one talking about these people?
In our collective angst about the shidduchim crisis as it affects girls we have forgotten that there are hundreds of men similarly situated who would like to get married but can’t find a shidduch.
Forget about those who have serious life issues. We are talking here about normal men who simply gave up over time and became old, and most women would rather not marry at all than share married life with someone that doesn’t meet a minimal threshold of physical attractiveness however that may be defined in each case.
I personally know several such men in their forties and fifties who I also knew back in their twenties, and there was nothing wrong with them. The worst that could be said about them then was that they may have been on the shy side.
What a waste.
The only thing keeping many of these men away from the chuppah is that they don’t feel like men and don’t carry themselves like men. What they need is not yet another fruitless singles weekend or the name of a shaddchan who will want nothing to do with them.
They need a heimishe form of boot camp.
For some it’s already too late, but not for most. Anyone who is otherwise normal, who will gird himself and commit to a serious regimen of physical training appropriate to his circumstances for three to six months, can be married within a year. They will lose that “old” look and become younger again. They will feel better both physically and emotionally and regain long lost self esteem. And the girls will react accordingly. Although some physical fitness programs have already been set up, those with the greatest need, shidduchim wise, lack the necessary motivation to participate.
And as far as the below thirty group of unmarried girls is concerned, the amelioration of their situation will have to come from elsewhere. I know a very bright girl out of town whose dream was to marry a Talmud Chochim who would learn in kollel many years. When she wasn’t married by age thirty or so she married a working guy who was not much of a learner. She basically gave up on her entire dream except for one thing. Her husband’s hashkafa was rock solid and he agreed to give her a free hand with the children. Moreover, he wanted each of his yet to be born sons to be the serious Ben Torah that he himself never was. This girl gave up on the dream of marrying a Talmud Chochim for the opportunity to raise numerous Talmedei Chochimim.
The tragedy here is not that a very bright and serious Bas Torah had to marry beneath her station in life. The tragedy, as such, is that there are not enough girls who think this way and boys like this to go around.
So if it’s not about numbers and not about money then why are hundreds of above average girls who were raised to marry Bnei Torah davening their hearts out into tear stained siddurim and tehillims without a shidduch in sight? And to bang one more nail into the demographic coffin, most, if not all of these girls have gone on shidduchim, some of them numerous times, and more times than not they were the ones to say no, their desperation for a shidduch not withstanding.
Reb Aharon Kotler z"l has been quoted as saying that if not for Rebbitzen Kaplan and her Bais Yaakov there could never have been a Lakewood Kollel. From the vantage point of fifty years of hindsight viewed within the context of the current shidduch crisis, Reb Aharon’s statement is somewhat of an understatement.
Bais Yaakov in the United States and Canada has succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations in inculcating into our daughters the desire to live within the framework of a Torah lifestyle. For many girls a Torah lifestyle has come to mean marrying a serious Ben Torah who wants to learn in kollel for a number of years.
In her thirteen years or so in Bais Yaakov, even an average girl can be transformed into a Bas Torah who can think of nothing better than building a life with a Ben Torah. No one tells her that it has to be this way. It’s simply a natural manifestation of a mindset that has matured at an even pace from nursery until twelfth grade with seminary being simply the makeh b’patish.
A Bais Yaakov girl whose dream is to marry a Ben Torah has paid in advance by dedicating her youth to becoming a Bas Torah worthy of her dream, and in many cases that decision is made by Bas Mitzvah, if not before. So what happens to so many of these girls?
It goes something like this:
“Hi, I’m here to claim my chosson.”
“What chosson?”
“You know. The one I lived my whole life for.”
“Sorry, we’re out of stock.“
“We’re out of stock” is the leitmotif of the shidduchim crisis for all too many of our very best girls.
The reason that there are so many of the finest girls of all ages not married is that Bais Yaakov as a whole has done a significantly better job than the Yeshivas. Simply put, the Yeshivas haven’t produced enough serious Bnei Torah with good heads to marry all of the girls who are worthy to marry such boys, and therein lies a good piece of the shidduchim crisis as it impacts on many of our girls. Or as a prominent Rosh HaYeshiva told me, “It’s not that Bais Yaakov has done a better job than the Yeshivas, but rather that it’s much easier to produce a frum Bais Yaakov girl with a 99 average than a Talmud Chochim. Either way the result is the same.
