In "We’re Out of Stock" we ventured a few thoughts as to what may be driving at least part of the Shidduchim “crisis.” Right or wrong, the focus of that piece was on a tevadik explanation of how we got to where we are, which for all too many girls is nebach nowhere r”l. But tevadik explanations, as insightful as they may be on occasion, can not be expected to caress the bottom line of a problem that is solely a function of nissim without a shmeck of teva in sight.
It’s no less a nes for a top Brisker bochur, whose father happens to have more money than Bill Gates, to marry a Bais Yaakov princess charming than for a thirty-five year old dirt poor adopted girl in a wheel chair from twice divorced parents to marry a thirty-six year old Talmud Chochim who amazingly seemed to appear out of nowhere. It’s all one and the same.
Nissim only come in one size. They're not easier nor are they harder. They just are.
So how exactly does one caress the bottom line of a nes anyway?
For this particular nes, the nes that will morph the angst laden tears of the Bnos Yisroel, both individually and collectively, into a baby’s tear trickling ever so slowly half way down his cheek, in juxtaposition to the smile induced by his mother’s soft kiss, we should be davening, and that’s pretty much all we should be doing. After all, if it's all about nissim then it’s all about davening. How else should one throw the Divine Presence into gear?
But isn’t everything a function of nissim? As we said in EmunahSpeak: So Who are You Relying on…, doing one’s hishtadlus amounts to nothing more than answering “present” at Life’s roll call because Hashem does 100% of everything, not the 97% you didn’t do.
If everything is nissim, then what’s so special about the nissim inherent in the shidduchim process, and why is davening the only ticket to a destination, one stop past the shidduchim “crisis?”
The everyday nissim that Hashem causes to be subsumed into Nature are overwhelmingly not a contradiction to Teva, and that’s exactly the reason so few of us can see the Yad Hashem in the natural order of things. At the other extreme are the Imahos who were more than barren. They were actually born without reproductive organs. The nissim that were done on their behalf didn’t go lost in Nature; they went into Nature’s face instead. But no less miraculous was the means by which their nissim were put into play. Hashem wanted to hear their davening. And to that end He put the existence of Klal Yisroel on hold until such time as their davening broke Divine glass.
And it’s no different by shidduchim, or rather by the nes of shidduchim, because Hashem wants to hear the davening of those in this generation who are seeking a shidduch no less than He wanted the davening of the Imahos. And like the Imahos, those who are davening for a shidduch are in essence davening for the ultimate fruits of that shidduch, the only substantive difference being the time frame, with davening for a shidduch commencing a little further upstream in the process.
So it comes out that today’s Bnos Yisroel are standing in the shoes of the Imahos; they are also davening for children and they are not being answered. But the problem, as such, is that while they may be standing in the shoes of the Imahos, vis á vis their respective madreigas it will take the davening of our entire generation (men included) to hit the high note of the Tefilla of the Imahos.
Not only does it qualitatively make sense that it would take all of us to replicate in some fashion the effect that their davening had in Shomayim, but it happens to be quantitatively seicheldik also.
After all, the Imahos were actually their entire generation, each one in her own Dor.
We asked above: “If everything is nissim, then what’s so special about the nissim inherent in the shidduchim process?”
According to Rashi, even though all of Creation was set in place before Man was created, it was as if had been flash frozen. Nothing happened until Adam davened for rain, and when he did his tefillos threw the whole Teva into motion.
Man preceded the Teva as we know it; a Teva that is a study in divinely inspired animation. Therefore, a shidduch whose bottom line goal is to replicate the creation of Man is somewhat unique in its relation to nissim because it is part and parcel of a world that was nissim and only nissim without any Tevadik distractions.
