Shidduch Crisis Problems & Solution

How about: Restore high school education to where it was back in the 60s thru 80s in yeshivas like Torah Vodaath – where there were 4 or 5 classes every year. Encourage the boys to get a degree – Plenty of bright boys came out of Touro. Stop the nonsense where EVERY boy must go to kollel. We all know that there are way too many there that dont belong there.

Second: This is for parents – if you want your daughters to marry working boys, tell them this as they are growing up. Don’t send them to seminaries that will brainwash them and tell them “If you marry a kollel boy, u will go to gan eden”. It’s all a crock. Just look how the divorce rate is rising among the yeshivish crowd. And please don’t compare it the goyim – nobody cares about their divorce rate. If you know your son or daughter is not cut out for kollel life, then don’t give in. No matter what the teachers in seminary say.

A more benign explanation is that the community is reacting to two big changes. First, the economy collapsed six years ago and while improving is unlikely to ever recover, and more and more young men are (responsibily) reluctant to get married and start a family until they have the means to support them, meaning men will marry later. Such developments are natural and hardly earthshaking. Even for families with a tradition of becoming professional scholars, the economic decline affects them indirectly since the donors who finance the yeshiva world are less well off.

Second, we are finally adjusting to the fact that prior to the mid-20th century, we have very high infant and maternal mortality, but this radically changed in the mid-20th century (invention of anti-biotics, defeat of the Nazis, etc.), and there is less pressure to have as many children as possible since now, unlike a century ago, we can reasonably expect that all the mothers will survive their childbearing years, and almost all the children will reach adulthood. There is less to worry about. In all cultures, family patterns take a few generations to shift when these changes occur, and due to the holocaust the decline in child mortality (of which anti-semites were a major factor) occured somewhat later.

TO Boys Work,

Here’s another idea like yours. Boys who are now considered “bums” could be trained (while in high school) to be truck drivers, plumbers, etc. Perhaps it should be O.K. to admit that some boys don’t have the IQ or sitz flaish – not for college and not for yeshiva? And that for some boys this is obvious to everybody by the time they are 14? They could begin working as apprentices after high school. By the time they were 23 or so, they would be journeymen – and ready to support a family.

To do this, you would need PROFESSIONAL vocational counselors who would test boys, talk to their Rebbeim and parents, etc. and suggest a course of action (and arrange work/study where appropriate.) The concept of this school would be to continue the habit of working and learning for the rest of their lives.

How does this help the Shidduch Crisis? Because the “bums” are considered unfit for marriage – by all women. This increases the number of learner/earner men available.

And from what I am reading on other threads, the Seminaries telling girls, to marry only kollel boys are not helping, the situation, either. Seminaries, need to tell the girls, that boys who work are not bad and that it is a mitzvah for a man to take care of his wife and children. I also think parents need to sit down with their daughters, that should also consider dating a working boy and not turn down a shidduch just because the boy is working. Also, if parents made their girls realize the expenses, involved, even for the necessities, of what things cost nowadays, their eyes might be a little more open, especially, when told, Mommy and Daddy, can not help out.

The logical solution is for boys to marry more girls.

Aside from a few sarcastic comments here, I am surprised that some people are just missing it.

1) The myth of the “learning boy” needs to be debunked forever. It does not exist in the universal sense that it is bantered about by yeshivos or by girls schools. For someone who is material for full time learning, kollel is great. Whatever can be done to support that, whether by wife working, family support, or community support – it is a good investment. For others, a brief period of kollel life is more than enough. Young men must be addressing their need to be earners from their mid teens, and their roshei yeshivos need to prepare them to make ????? ???? ????? a major goal in life.

2) The Torah community needs to extend appreciation and recognition to the working class. If any elementary school is audacious enough to close the admission to their school to children whose fathers work (despite maintaining regular shiurim), and the leadership gives any credence to this, well, shame on them. The child of the honest, working, Torahdige parent is worthy in Hashem’s eyes as one of His children. It is disgraceful to consider this child anything less than that. The recognition of the Torah committed baal habuss should not be limited to those capable of donating large monies to yeshivos.

3) Our roshei yeshivos have placed themselves (not universal, but close) on pedestals where it has become beneath them to know every talmid, with their respective liabilities and assets. Thus, a talmid might not be long term learning material, and would serve himself and the community better by entering a career, but will never receive such guidance because it is politically unpopular. I’m sorry, but this cannot be branded as Ratzon Hashem.

4) We are also deluded that our kollel systems work and are worthy of the aspirations of those looking forward to marriage and establishing homes. There is greater Kol Torah on Planet Earth than anytime in recent history, perhaps all of history. But are the yungerleit there appropriately disconnected from distraction and fully invested in their learning? Or are the kollelim just repositories for yungerleit who are hesitant or apprehensive about working? Is there a sense of entitlement, “es kumt mir”?

When we can eliminate the myths of the “system”, maybe we will have youth ready to mature into adult bnei Torah who will be ovdei Hashem at whatever level is most fitting for them. Maybe we can trash the “one size fits all” delusion of “kollel for everybody”.

When I was in shidduchim, someone asked me why I didn’t say I was looking for boy in learning in order to ‘get a better shidduch’. I firmly believed (and still believe) that zivugim are from Hashem, and if you are true to yourself, then it will happen with less heartache and anguish. I knew I was wanting to marry someone who worked, and that’s what I did. And I’m happy I did. A friend of mine was officially looking for a learner, and got engaged to a bachur. Right before the wedding they decided that kollel wasn’t really for them and ended up moving to my town right after the wedding. (Actually, they got married before us, so we moved to their town…)

I think that, as others have mentioned, teachers should be more open-minded with their students and help them find the right path for them, instead of ‘one fits all’.

You may google “shidduch crisis theory” to find my salient thread: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/bread-theory-of-the-shidduch-crisis

I think the major problem in shidduchim is the preconceived ideas. Everyone means well, but shadchanim and rebbeim determine who is for whom. Usually they aim to match people who are similar when opposites attract. We tend to complement each other rather than marry those who are similar to us. We also expect perfect families. Do they even exist?