NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN

Over the last few weeks there has been intense discussion about the shidduchcrisis — its presence, its causes,and its solutions. People are expressing a burning desire to undo this situation, but are confused by the many suggestions being offered from across the klal.

By way of introduction — and against our personal preference for maintaining a low profile — there is little choice butto acknowledge that it is now well over seven years that I, as director of the North American Shidduch InitiativeProject(NASI), have dedicated days and nights (weeks, months, and years), b’lev v’nefesh ad kichloskochosai mamash,to work on the age gap–induced shidduch crisis.

During this time, we have gleaned a considerable working knowledge from hundreds of people including roshei yeshivah, rabbanim, rebbeim, shadchanim, not-yet-marrieds,parents, mentors, and laymen. We continue, as always, to seek input and collaborate with any individual, group, or organization that shares in this awesome achrayus. No one has all the answers, and some of the most effective ideas have come from the least likely sources. Based on this ongoing, collective effort, we have innovated and run various programs that address various angles of the situation. We tweak and expand those programs that are effective while discarding those that have proven ineffective, while making sure to glean from them valuable lessons to improve our efforts as we go forward.

On behalf of NASI, therefore, allow me to identify one core issue and then to share several key strategies and solutions.

Main Contributor to the Shidduch Crisis

While several factors contribute to the overall hardship, the most glaring fact is that there exists a situation in which each year significantly more girls enter shidduchim than boys. Termed the “age gap,” this reality dictates that b’derech hateva there is, and will continue to be, a significant percentage of precious bnos Yisrael who desperately need us to address this issue immediately

Fortunately, there are minor shifts underway that will yield massive favorable results.

Understanding the Effects of the Age Gap

This age gap–induced crisis has a macroeffect and a microeffect.

The macroeffect is the overall national catastrophe wherein hundreds of girls are encountering great difficulty in meeting and marrying their zivug. The micro effect is the individual girls or groups of girls (for instance,in out-of-town communities) who are the ones more likely to be left out as a direct result of there simply not being enough dating boys to match up with the dating girls.

The micro effect is obviously a result of the macro issue, but while the long-term solution for the micro issue is to alleviate the macro issue, surely in the interim, any effort to directly alleviate the micro issuesis beneficial.

As many have intuited, money is not the solution to the macro issue. In fact, the legitimate and implementable ideas on the table that I am aware of to effectively close the age gap do not involve money.

Three Small Shifts That Will Positively Influence the Crisis: Macro Solutions

In order to significantly alleviate this cause of the shidduchcrisis, we do notneed boys dating at 20 years old; we do not need to overhaul the entire US high school/beis medrashsystem;and we do not need to close down kollelim or change what Bais Yaakovs and seminaries teach.The following three suggestions will yield the desired results without causing a new set of challenges that precipitate collateral damage.

1.There is no question that enabling boys to date when they and their parents and mentors feel they are ready — as opposed to artificially holding them back — would be a positive thing for the boys themselves, and would be a very positive development for the shidduch scene.

2. There is no question that creating options in the US for boys — and there are many such boys who fit this criteria — who don’t want to and/or shouldn’t be going to Eretz Yisrael — would be a positive development. In fact, numerous roshei yeshivah have been clamoring for just such a development for years — completely unrelated to the shidduch crisis — since it is in the best interest of the boys themselves. Truth be told, there is already a huge demand for this from the boys, which is why I firmly believe that it willhappen — hopefully sooner rather than later — and many roshei yeshivah will readily admit that Eretz Yisrael is not for all the boys. A large percentage of boys from across the spectrum, from “top boys” to “weaker boys,” do much better in their American beis medrash yeshivah, both beforeand after their time in Eretz Yisrael. The current situation —with basically no options for boys who would prefer to stay in America, but have outgrown their first beis medrash yeshivah — is a unacceptable situation on many levels that is primed to changed very soon.

Inevitably, boys staying in America will enter shidduchim at a considerably younger age than they would have had they goneto Eretz Yisrael.

Some people[MP1]  wonder if boys marrying at a younger age will result in a new crisis — a shalom bayis crisis. Might we bepromoting an adjustment that can have negative consequences? Perhaps for boys at the age of 19 or 20 this might be accurate; however, the notion that boys at age 23 are more prepared for marriage then they are at age 22 is simply not rootedin reality. As many people will tell you, the boys who aren’t ready at 22 aren’t any more ready at 23.

In fact, before beginning this campaign, I reached out to Shalom Task Force and asked them whether, based on their vast involvement and expertise in dealing with shalom bayis issues, they would say that boys getting married at 22 are anymore likely to end up in in marriages with issues than those who marry at 23. Their unequivocal answer was that they have absolutely no reason to think so and they had no reason to discourage the efforts for this adjustment in our community.

In fact, there are reasons to think that delaying the process for the many boys ready to begin dating at 22 likely exerts a negative impact —b’gashmiyus and b’ruchniyus — that can linger well into their marriages, although this is not the forum to address those issues.

All this notwithstanding,a big part of NASI’s efforts going forward is to encouragethe work of the various organizations who arepreparing groundbreaking programs to ready and steadyouryoung adults for marriage. Preparing our boys for marriage at any age, and particularly for a slightly younger age, is our collective responsibility. We have begun to encourage widespread mentoring, coaching, and guidance programs for those ofshidduch age and in shanah rishonah, via a joint effort of leaders in this arena such as Mesila, Shalom Task Force, and an innovative projectunder the guidance of Rebbetzin Dr. Efrat Sobolofsky and Dr.Dovid Pelcovitz.Instructing bochurim in understanding and managingthe many aspects of a marital relationship, from the emotional to the financial, is surely beneficial, whether the boys enter shidduchim at 23 or at a younger age. If and when this takes root, it will im yirtzeh Hashem go a long way toward addressing peripheral concerns related to the shidduch scene and will thus greatly help strengthen the young marriages in our communities.

Baruch Hashem, the trend is changing. Increasingly we hear of bochurim from many different yeshivos — South Fallsburg, Torah Vodaath, Torah Temimah, Novominsk, Mir, and others —who are starting shidduchim earlier.

3. Currently there are many boys who are open and interested indating girls close to their own age. Yet many shadchanim send them girls who just came home from seminary instead of redting them to girls who are in the 21 to 23 age range. There is no question that it would be a positive step to encourageshadchanim to give a bit of extra attention to girls who didn’t just start dating and to redt them to boys who are looking for just such girls,.

Now, for some details. Those who have studied the age gap and understand its intricacies will tell you that if we were able to achieve average starting ages for shidduchim of 22 or a bit younger (21.5) for boys, and 20 for girls, that would practically solve the problem going forward, andhave a great impact on the current backlog of older girls. This is verydoable and it doesn’t require drastic changes and major overhauls to the system.

Regarding girls starting shidduchim close to age 20: This doesn’t mean necessarily that they would choose to wait until then — they probably will not. However, if a substantial percentage of boys prefer girls who aren’t right off the boat, and shadchanim don’t chase the girls who are just back from seminary, then the same net effect is reached.

This article is not the forum to discuss what steps are being taken to implement these minor adjustments; it is simply an attempt to more accurately frame the discussion.

May we be zocheh to see the day when all our sons and daughters will be happily married and building batim ne’emanim b’Yisrael, with the complete fulfillment of the nevuah, “od yishama b’arei Yehudah uv’chutzos Yerushalayim, kolsasson v’kolsimchah, kol chassan v’kol kallah,”bimheirah v’yameinu, Amen.

Rabbi Moshe Pogrow is the director of the NASI Project