A posek can tell you who to marry

Joseph,

The SA says that he is only talking about a case where someone does not want to marry at all. However, if he says that he is waiting for a good shidduch the bet din does not interfere. He does not say anything about forcing someone to marry a particular girl. In fact, Yeshayahu did not force Chizkiahu to marry his daughter. He simply told him that if he did not agree to marry someone he would die. Chizkiahu then suggested the specific shidduch. In any case, the Rema says that today we do not interfere at all. Your kal v’chomer is not a kal v’chomer. Someone who does not want to marry at all at any time is violating a Torah mitzva. Someone who is waiting for the proper person or circumstances (in Lithuania it was common for men to postpone marriage until relatively late in life in order to learn full-time without financial pressures) merely wants to wait to do it properly.

As for marrying off the daughter without her permission and your “age old Jewish tradition”, Chazal say not to do either until she decides that she wants the guy. So far as I know, the only times it was actually practiced were during the Crusades, when no one knew if it would be possible later, and in Yemen, where girls whose fathers died were forcibly converted to Islam unless they were married.

Lilmod, what is the difference between telling him not to marry a certain girl and to marry a certain girl? Why should he ask a bet din? RJS obviously did not think that he was required to do so. This is a matter of the spiritual connection between the people themselves. Their lives, thieeir decision.

Lilmod, there is also a difference between telling someone not to go out with a particular person because of a halachic (e.g. cohen and gerusha) or personal (e.g. a health issue) reason. However, in the latter case the person must tell you the reason and you are not allowed to fully believe it but only to have a suspicion and seek to clarify it if you can. Unfortunately, it does happen that people exaggerate or even outright lie either to exact revenge or because of personal prejudices.

That’s a decision for the beis din to deliberate and decide on in individual cases. It isn’t a decision a coach potato can judge in the abstract. There are certainly cases where someone is inappropriately electing to not get married, and the relevant halachos previously mentioned including the power of beis din to act apply. And there are certainly cases where an individual is unable to marry, perhaps for the reason you mentioned or for a number of other reasons, and beis din will recognize that handicap and accept those limitations.

ITFT, what do those last two sentences mean? Are they directed at me? If so, I’d remind you that we as a people are named after one of our Avos whose name literally means “to struggle with the almighty”. HKBH didnt create the world for robots. Anyone who isn’t seeking clarity on what challenges him, or seeks understanding where human vicissitudes have muddied the waters of HKBH’s Torah, isn’t being honest with himself. But that is another matter entirely.

I brought this up in a polite and non confrontational way, to someone who I rarely agree with, asking for his perspective, because I know people in this circumstance. In fact I’ve taken a very non confrontational approach here for the better part of a year already. Your comment presumes something that is simply not the case.

I’m sorry that you felt a need to turn it into a personal attack on me. I’ll daven for you.

I am BH enthused with my emunoh in HKBH. I will never cease to struggle with the moral, halachic, and philosophical questions that arise from a Torah life and, thanks to my rebeim and my parents, from a good Jewish education.

I will continue follow the Kotzker’s interpretation of “Lo Saasu Kein L’Hashem Elokeichem” and the example of Yaakov Avinu. I won’t presume to tell you how to express your emunoh. Kindly refrain from presuming to tell me how to express mine.

DY, see Rashi on Lo Yaakov. he brings the pshat in Hoshea 12:5. clearly the Novi Hoshea and Rashi see it as struggling and prevailing. Also the Sifsei Chachomim citing the Gemoro in Menuchos describe it as the malach of Esav who he was struggling with and prevailing over. So, yes, if you want to say “Yisramalach” or “Yisramalcho”, you can I suppose, but the pshat says Yisrael.

And, DY, I’m not looking for readers here to understand it the way I do. I was simply explaining my own perspective.

I appreciate your being don l’kaf zchus of ITFT, but even if I saw the second last line as general, the last line can’t be understood any other way.

“I appreciate your being don l’kaf zchus of ITFT, but even if I saw the second last line as general, the last line can’t be understood any other way.”

Yichusdik, I actually had also understood both of the last two lines as general as well. I wasn’t going to say anything because I am tired of being attacked for defending other posters, and since DY said something, I didn’t think it was necessary, but now I suppose it is necessary.

I didn’t say it doesn’t mean to struggle, I said it doesn’t mean to struggle with Hashem. ?? doesn’t always mean Hashem, e.g. ?? ???? ?????.

I also didn’t say life doesn’t have its struggles, they’re just not against Hashem, they’re against the yetzer hora. I don’t see how my words can be taken as denying the concept of bechirah.

I also think the last line wasn’t necessarily directed at you. IITFT has a unique writing style, and I wouldn’t take anything personally.

Thank you, Joseph, for your response earlier. That’s a logical approach.

As I am in a rush, I’ll try to give an example to explain. its the difference between “How can I find a way to serve HKBH even with my doubts, my weaknesses, my pride and my limitations?” and “I don’t want to serve HKBH in this way but I do because of my family, my peers or my environment. I don’t get it, I don’t want to get it, and its meaningless to me.” The first is struggling with Hashem.

To me, its how in the story Elie Wiesel z’l wrote about the court of Jews in an Auschwitz barracks they tried and found HKBH “chayyav” and then they davened mincha. The second is abdicating responsibility to live as a Jew and finding rationales to NOT serve HKBH, only doing so when expectations force one to – but with an emptiness rather than enthusiasm.

I don’t know how I can explain it better. I strive to struggle WITH HKBH. In my field of work, we call even a challenging interaction “engagement”. it is predicated on “with”. What is predicated on “against”? insincerity, debasement and devaluation of a meaningful life, anger, vindictiveness, guilt.

yichusdik, you’re welcome.

lilmod, what would you do if, hypothetically, Rav Chaim told you to marry Yankel Doe? (I’m hoping you’d immediately ask Rav Chaim if he could be mesader keddushin.)

If I really didn’t want to, I would ask R’ Shteinman what to do, and if he says to listen to R’ Chaim, then I would.

But if anyone of a lesser status said that, I wouldn’t listen. MAYBE if the person were almost as great as R’ Chaim, I would ask R’ Chaim or R’ Shteinman what to do.

But I think it’s a totally theoretical question because I don’t think it would happen. Every question I’ve asked R’ Chaim about shidduchim so far had the same response: “?? ???? ????”

This was probably because he knew with his ruach hakodesh that that is what I needed to hear because most of my life I have been bombarded by people telling me to do what they want and not what I want.

Which derech agav,is what concerns me about this thread in the first place – I know how much I have suffered in my life from feeling like I had to listen to people whom I didn’t have to listen to – and I can see other girls who are like me getting the wrong impression from this thread, and it could potentially have really bad repercussions.

I will come to yichusdik’s defense and concur that he has been much milder. I don’t think he deserves to be suspected of recidivism.

I guess I was wrong earlier.

Thank you, DY for being a meilitz yosher.

ITFT I didn’t know I was on trial, or parole, for that matter.

There’s one Dayan, and that’s HKBH.

And for the record, I have changed my approach to others here and I have hopefully demonstrated more respect for individuals and their opinions than my all-guns-blazing approach has evidenced in the past.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I have a different world view, just that I don’t feel its appropriate or necessary to put down or even challenge someone else’s or to gaslight a discussion into a specific way of thinking. I also value each person here, wherever on the spectrum their perspective comes from. That doesn’t mean I believe a more strict perspective is more correct than a more lenient one, or that a more lenient one is more correct than a strict one.

I value Jewish opinions informed by Jewish learning, and I value critical thinking informed by both broad and specialized knowledge and experience.

ITFT if you feel a need to be judgmental, or suspicious, I’ll leave you to it.

Avi K- it’s very impossible.

I was surprised though because it’s not the answer that anyone else (or at least any non-Gadol) would have given to the particular questions being asked. That’s why I thought that it was it was probably coming from a combination of a general shita and knowing what I personally needed to hear.