Shidduch Parshah Question

I have mixed feelings on this, in one case I agreed to go out with a girl before I saw pictures of her and then I saw some pictures before the first date and it made me a lot less excited to go on the date. When I actually saw her in person I wasn’t even sure she was the same person, she was so much better looking, it was just a bad picture. On the other hand the last girl I went out with did not provide a picture, and if she had I might have saved her time and feelings by not going out in the first place.

In general if you don’t provide a picture it will be assumed that there is something you’re trying to hide. I’m not saying that it’s fair and maybe the system should be changed but you probably shouldn’t try to change it by yourself b/c it could hurt your daughter in the meantime.

At first, I’d say it should be a 2-way street however you bring up a point that the picture may cause too much prejudgment to take place and you are not giving the other person a fair chance.

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I say give a picture, at least you can send a very nice one and not risk them somehow getting a hold of a picture of the girl that is not flattering. Just because they want a pic doesn’t mean that it’s the only thing they care about.

“I say give a picture, at least you can send a very nice one and not risk them somehow getting a hold of a picture of the girl that is not flattering.”

I definitely agree with that, from the guys point of view I like to see a picture so I know there’s a possibility that she’s attractive. It doesn’t have to be a professional photo shoot, but it should give an idea of what she looks like. Also if your daughter has a facebook account make sure that she doesn’t have unflattering pictures of her on there, it’s amazing what people put up, even with good intentions.

hilary18;

This is a very complicated matter. There are many factors to consider.

Firstly though, if the boy wants a picture of the girl, he should provide

a picture of himself too. If not, too bad! The girls is to get a preview

just as much as the boy is. He has no right over her.

Now, having said that, the main reason for this picture phenomenon,

originally, is for boy who has to travel out of town for a girl.

Which is an inconvenience, if it turns out that her looks aren’t to his satisfaction. This could’ve been avoided simply by looking at a picture of her.

Problem

1)

There are some people who are not photogenic.

They may have a major Chein, that just doesn’t register in a photo.

2)There are also those who photograph well, though the friend redting the shidduch

may have a bad photo of the girl. like eating salad, her mouth half open,

which she thinks is cute, but you don’t. or a pic taking when she was yawning or blinking, which may make her look insane, though she isn’t.

3)It could also be of when she was in high school and wasn’t so into her hair etc..

Though now, a year later, she looks like a different person.

So you really generally, can’t judge by a picture!!!

I am an expert at getting a good idea of a person physically, from a picture,

I even once told the shadchan that the girl was too tall based

on a photo of her sitting down alone. Though he promised she wasn’t over

5’10, I ended up being right, as I later found. On the date It was like deja vu.

Then I remembered my visit to the safari and i calmed down.

Though I must admit, there were times I was pleasantly surprised,

even after seeing a photo and being very doubtful.

So I suggest,(with serious experience in this matter) to anybody in the parsha,

if you want to see a photo, use it just to get a general idea,

and decide to give them a chance in person, no matter what.

Except for instance if you are slim looking for a slim mate,

and the photo reveals that the person is totally the opposite of that,

then it is fair to say, it is not what you are looking for.

Or vice versa.

I do not like photos of either party. Some people photograph poorly, and some look WAY better in a photo than in person. It is a subjective matter, and no one should have a preconception. Just my opinion.

Most of the time it is the boy’s MOTHER who wants to see the picture. I agree with the rav who told you if the boy won’t go out without seeing a picture, then he is not for her. Not giving a photo does not mean someone has something to hide. Much can be hidden in a really good photo. It is demeaning under normal circumstances. Only exception – if the boy or girl will be travelling a great distance, across the country or out of the country, to meet each other. Then an exchange of photos is a reasonable request for BOTH parties.

Kol Hakavod hilary18-It is always encouraging to hear how people go to their Rov for hadrocha. A talmid chochom and daas Torah is such a brocha-especially in the parsha of shidduchim.

May you be zoche to go through the process quickly and pleasantly, and have many simchos to celebrate.

Well, I am not exactly excited about the way shidduchim are made altogether, because you are right. It feels as though it is more of a line by line comparison of resumes (what is this anyway – a job interview?)to see which candidate is more qualified. In the olden shidduch days, if someone had an idea of a shidduch, they went to the matchmaker (and sometimes only the two fathers hashed it out together), and a name was suggested to the other party. No one looked at papers, no one asked for pictures, and the couple met each other and it was a shidduch or it was not. So we live in modern times now, but have we really improved the process? I am inclined to think, NOT so much.

“The shidduch scene has gotten really strange in the last ten years. Can’t we come up with better solutions”

Yes, we can, but no one is willing to hear them. They are too radical, i.e. (gasp!) allowing boys and girls to meet each other at fun get-togethers (NOT shiurim, and not overseen by a Rov)and not going through shadchanim. Allowing boys and girls (even more of a gasp!) to actually talk to each other from the time they are little kids, through their adolescence, through adulthood, is even better, because it ensures that both sides learn how to socially interact comfortably and not awkwardly, in a normal way.

I disagree oomis. allowing boys and girls to interact in a “fun get-togethers” at an young age is detrimental! lets not fool ourselves and believe that kids are capable of exercising self control without supervision. you paint a picture where interaction between boys and girls from young age will lead to better dating experience and marriage success…I beg to differ! looking back at my High School experience, the girls who had “boyfriends” or talked to guys on a steady basis developed either low self esteem because they depended on the boy’s value judgement of whether they were “cool enough” or “pretty” or “awesome” ect. and those who didn’t have low self esteem and were confident enough about themselves developed this gaming attitude where you make the boy like you by playing games, like being unreachable and talking to the other boy to make first boy more interested…ect. now some of you might be thinking, oh this is probably one of those modern high schools or s/thing…NO! this happened and happens in our local bais yaakovs! MY POINT: girls and boys at a young age DO NOT know what is appropriate or not because they have not developed sensitivities in tznius yet. you can’t expect a 15 year old to be as sensitive to tznius as one whose 20 who just returned from sem and learned the value of real dating and building a Jewish home, not just having “fun” with a boy!

same goes for a boy, you can’t expect them (with a boy’s mind) to keep things “clean” at this age, their yetzer hara is too strong!! they have not learnt yet enough to have self control and know the real value of building a Jewish home!

Do you know how many Yichud issues come up??!! children are children…u can’t expect them to act like adults and have an adult interaction!

Im speaking from expereince because I had friends and classmates who succumbed to this…what started as an innocent interaction with a boy lead a frum girl do serious averos!! what started off as FB friend lead to emotional damage and low self esteem in others….

So I bet your going to say that it doesn’t have to be this way, and that there can be interactions that wont’ lead to this…well then you do need it to be “overseen by a Rov”, because without authority or supervision, these pp get lose and it pulls away the best and the finest from yeshivos and bais yaakovs…

A boy should not have girls in his head when he’s learning, a boy should not have girls numbers on his cell phone or have FB girl friends…it leads to taivos, leads to averos…and these “fun get togethers” will just encourage that.

I can’t say I have a real solution to the shidduch crisis but if everyone in coffee room claims that today boys and girls are marrying too young, or too young to date…well are they suddenly adult enought to know how to control themselves when they are merely in high school?! I don’t think so.

“I do, however, have one suggestion before we implement yours”

My “suggestion” was the way things were always done when I was growing up. We lived a wholesome, healthy socially and halachically acceptable lifestyle, and I had friends of both genders. I was never afraid to talk to a boy on a date or any other time. I also did not feel pressured to think that every date was “the ONE” so that I could not relax and enjoy getting to know the person with whom I was on a date.

You infantilize kids, potsandpans, when you say they are not capable of exercising self-control. That may be true in an environment such as today when they feel like kids let loose in a candy store when they are around other genders. That is what happens when boys and girls are treated as mysteries to each other. I was a kid, once, too, beleive it or not, and my parents raised me to be both tzniusdik and a conversationalist who was comfortable speaking with virtually anyone.EVERYONE is capable of exercising self-control, but they must be given some tools to develop that control. That is what good chinuch in school and parental reinforcement at home are supposed to be, no?

Don’t equate a girl having a boyfriend with her having low self-esteem. That may or may not be true, but IMO it is a frivolous and unfair statement. The kids whom you believe have no knowledge of what is appropriate or not, are possibly that way because they are not permitted to act appropriately with each other. You learn social graces by example, and by utilizing them in social settings. Do kids automatically learn how to eat without talking with a mouth full of food, if no one sits them down at a dinner table and teaches them good manners? I know that the Bais Yaakov (or Yeshivah of your choice) mentality dictates a certain frum lifestyle, but that lifestyle is ultimately ironically causing problems with many children who are not learning how to relate to each other in a frum but also healthy and proper way. I am certain you will disagree with me, and I am not trying to change your mind, because we both know that will not happen. But if you try to be a little objective, you may possibly see SOME merit in what I say, even if you reject it.

mybat…”parents should allow it as long as it will lead to marriage”…the second i read that line i right away thought of What will Rabbi Walerstein say about this??!!for those who don’t know, Rabbi Walerstein has been involved in Kiruv rechokim and kerovim for over 10 years, he has more experience than, I dare say, many of us on CR!

In a recent Shiur discussing boys and girls hanging out without supervision, he described how many girls and boys that he personally knows who came from good homes and are now not shomer negia, who are not following hilchos yichud, all because they feel like they “loooove” the other person and they will “for sure” marry that girl/boy one day!

though I cannot remember the exact numbers…but he said that out of 30 weddings where he was mesader kidushin, i think it was 27 of them where the couple were not shomer negia, and out of 27, only ONE COUPLE were not shomer with eachother. meaning, that the other couples had many girlfriends and boyfriends whom they have not been shomer with AND they did not marry those pp…they married other pp….so that rationalization that “it will lead to marriage” doesn’t stand.

Now I know I specifically discuss shomer negia and not the general subject of “fun get togethers” because just like Rabbi Walerstein, I can see as well that when boys and girls hang, they let their guards down and it can invitably reach not being shomer negia or being careful with hilchos yichud! This is coming from a Rabbi whose been there for these children, and can tell you how boys would go up to girls and ask rides to go “daven mincha”…just to manipulate the girls to let them into the car…or boy telling girl that tis okay not to be shomer negia cuz he heard a “rov” say that if you wear gloves its okay…bottom line, their yetzer hara is strong and they’ll do anything to satisfy taavos…lets not encourage that!

and if we’r talking about girls/boys hanging together for many years in hopes that it will lead to marriage, well i can think of at least 3 pp just off hand who dated their boyfriend for 3 YEARS…and relationship broke off! i asked one of them what lesson she took from whole experience and she said ” there’s no reason why we were hanging out in high school…waste of time, we were young, it was fun, though was clean, but when we got older and life started hitting us and we realized what getting married means, then we started having problems and realizing we’r not even suitable as a husband and wife”…..so ya, what was the point of being friends for 3years?!

and looking back to highschool( really only a few years ago) I can say that of the girls who had boyfriends….NONE of them dated them seriously at marriagable age, none of them got married to them….all it did was give many girls and boys heartache!!

now oomis1105, your gona blame the chinuch system, shidduch system, parents, mothers, bubbes, zeidies, neighbors, yentas….and you may be right…but u paint a very unrealistic world where everything needs to be readjusted and changed inorder to make these “get togethers” a kosher possiblity!!

u write “That may be true in an environment such as today when they feel like kids let loose in a candy store when they are around other genders”. well thats what im addressing, from a realistic point of view that in today’s world ( not last generation, not generation of the bais hamikdash….but today) this is the case and to say that a very realistic possible solution is to encourage “fun get togethers” is turning blindly to what you urself see as happening.

Now, if Chazal themselves quote how the yetzer Hara is soo strong, and I had rabbanim as seminary teachers telling us “girls u dont’ understand, a boys’ Yetzer Hara is incredible when they see a girl”….then it isn’t my humble opinion about boys at young age not having the self discipline…they are not physically, mentally, emotionally ready at a high school age!! u can teach them, coach them and refine them, but maturity comes with age and life experience, not necessarily by learning social protocols.

Also, I feel like I have to say this as well…oomis you also paint a world where girls and boys are soooo oblivious about eachother…but many boys and girls have siblings in opposite gender, they have boy cousins and relatives whom they bump into family chanuka parties and family simchas…pp are not as naive as you make them!

I myself attended chanuka parties where I had chassidishe boy cousins show up and espeically because it was a “supervised” party where e/body’s parents and grandparents were present that e/o felt comforable interacting with eachother. and yes, my boy cousins would make conversation with me as well…very normal, pleasant, non intrusive conversations! so if anything i would encourage supervision during such get together!

As someone who has brothers and boy cousins, I never felt like I didnt “get” how boys think or not think…and if there was s/t i was unclear about, my date would explain to me. I never pictured my dates showing up in white horses and who knows what, or expect them to read off shas for me before we begin talking…

I never had an issue speaking to a boy on a date because we had common things to discuss like “eretz yisroel, yeshiva, seminary, goals in life, hobbies ect” unlike in high school, ALL that girls discussed with boys was MOVIES and Goyshe music, I have never heard a girl say she discussed Shwekey with a boy!!

and I do not personally feel like I needed any boy interaction in my high school years, if anything as I have said before, I have seen only destructive things come out of that!

Listen to Rabbi Orlofsky’s tape on platonic relationships. Gives a straight forward, Torahdik, emesdik view on these topics.

Jewishandworking22, you got my point exactly! (though I do disagree on the point of a crisis – as I do think we have created it ourselves).

Rabbi Orlofsky is a fabulous speaker, charismatic, funny, intelligent, and extremely worth hearing.I have not heard his tapes on platonic relationships, so I cannot comment in a relevant fashion about this, at this time.

I REALLY must proofread before I hit “send post!” I am SO embarrassed by all those typos. I guess I was just a little excited… I do tend to get all soapbox-y on this topic, and get careless when I do.

(thanks, mybat)

“are going to proofread my whole post and make me rewrite it… “

Please write 1,000 times, “I WILL carefully proofread my posts.”

” but then I might seriously bore YW readers! “

And your point is…? (just kidding)