I think that my ax grinding is very clear. I think that given the financial hardships that most of our families are undergoing, if someone creates a program that extorts exorbitant sums of money from families, through playing with the hearts of young girls who are likely to be petrified by the over the top advertising, (10% of the girls graduating Bais Yaakov will NEVER get married! remember that one?) they had better have some serious Daas Torah.
The Shalom Bayis issues that you’re going to cause by causing people to stress out to an unprecedented level just to get on a list would be enough to scare me out of initiating such a project.
I think also that by your over emphasizing shidduchim being red to older girls, and forbidding people from redding shidduchim to younger girls, means than in short order, EVERY SINGLE girl will be an older girl. That will in effect quadruple shadchan fees for everyone. Not just the unfortunate few that hit their 22nd birthday while still single. You can’t redd a shidduch until the girls is 20. And at 22 the fee quadruples. Actually it quintupled, until the game changing program changed its game three weeks later.
If the problem is not enough boys for the girls, how does exponentially increasing the fee schedule answer that problem?
If someone raises a foolish (at best) solution to a problem, and there are strong reasons to believe that it is the incorrect solution, should we just roll over and accept it, because they creators of the solution care a lot, and because I don’t have an alternative? If it’s wrong, then it’s wrong.
And finally, I think that a large reason for the shidduch crisis can be found in a very short famous six word line in the gemara.
“Tav l’meisav tan du, milemeisav armelu.” There are loads of single boys out there. Go visit the Irv, and you’ll find them by the dozens, even the hundreds. They are not bothered by being single nearly as much as the girls are. It is very sad for them, but it is the teva that Hashem put in the briah. Boys can handle being single more than girls can. Since the girls are more desperate than the boys, there is a crisis for them. You can fiddle with the numbers, move the incentives here or there, but the teva habriah remains the same.
Boys have always been getting married older than girls. There are reasons for this that are also built into teva habriah.
I have no doubt that Rabbi Pogrow’s intentions are 100% lishmah. He is a man of impeccable integrity. But there is a goyishe expression that talks about the material used to pave a certain path. I chas veshalom don’t wish that upon him or any of the NASI operatives who are surely all acting with the best intentions. But to decide centrally and organizationally how to run the economy was the path of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. It is doomed to fail, but not just on itself, but while taking down who knows how many along with it.
Lo almon Yisroel. If Hashem created the world, Mahn d’yahiv chayei, yahiv mezonei. And I firmly believe that yahiv shiduchei as well. You want to make hishtadlus to help what you perceive to be a deficiency in the system, you’re entitled to do that. But please don’t inflict undue economic hardship on an already overtaxed parent body of Bnos Yisroel because of your dreams.
And the final piece of my ax is that I am a father of 6 daughters, 5 of whom are still single (only one is already of age to be in the parsha). Where is all the extra money gonna come from? I firmly believe that Hashem will provide. He has until now, halevai vaiter. The original game changing kole koreh back a few months ago said that if we don’t act then we will be responsible. I say that if you do act, then you will be responsible for the financial hardships you are inflicting on us all.