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DY, you completely misunderstood me. I was not looking to see whether the behavior of the signatories caused any change in statistics.
Their behavior when conducting shidduchim in their own families will indicate their actual belief as to whether-
a)they wish to give NASI their blessing
vs
b)they feel that it is incumbent upon them and the rest of the tzibbur to follow its directives.
I took Kapusta at her word
“I said I was finished with this conversation here and bli neder, after this post I will be.”
So figured no use explaining to her the facts.
I’m happy to continue step by step to establish the Age Gap idea, but Kapusta seems to have run off in the middle of step two.
Kaptusa, I’m happy to continue but not if you are “finished with this conversation here and bli neder, after this post I will be.”
GIR, kapusta indicated she’s done conversing here about five times already. Go ahead with your step by step explanation.
I think the real problem for people who don’t find shidduchim is that they aren’t amenable. I know many people who found rich, poor, good looking, not so good looking, healthy, not as healthy, etc. I also know some who didn’t find. Of the ones who didn’t find a lot of times they are not so open to the suggestions that people have and even if they agree to dates they are not seriously considering certain suggestions. I think that if people were more open to different suggestions and didn’t have a set idea in their mind that they need this specific type of guy/girl they would be much more successful in their goal. Where the boy and girl are holding when they marry is not as relevant as how they will develop together which will be different to either of the houses that they came from in many cases. People lose sight of this and reject many suggestions and thus never get married. By the time they agree to listen to those suggestions a lot of those people are already married.
indeed… but the cause is not that there are not enough guys for the girls or ages or anything like that rather its that people spend too long looking for what they think will be their ideal shidduch instead of settling for someone who is good enough. Everyone can point to a ton of unmarried girls but can anyone show me a girl in the parsha for a year who didn’t get one date? Guys (and girls) should be told that love and building a home comes after marriage and then maybe they would realize that it makes much less of a difference who you marry and everyone would just focus on finding someone who is flexible enough to make it work. that would make everything easier.
Hard to define things that don’t exist
The Shidduch Crisis is simple.
The Shidduch Crisis is the attitude that people have towards singles, dating, money, hashkafa, yichus, looks etc. Think of it this way. If people weren’t so worried about their status, getting a daughter in law with rich parents, what high school their potential DIL went to, having a perfect shidduch picture and what their mother wears to the shabbos table- I think we wouldn’t have this problem. But we have a problem with girls who don’t fit boxes.
Boxes include: Bais Yaakov, Heimishe, Modern ORthodox, Baal Teshuva, Sephardi. Yes its easy to set up people who grew up the same, but lets leave the word grew up out of this. People aren’t the same as they were when they grew up nesecarily. People are complicated and fluid and grow. I know no one would have set me and my husband up because we have different background, but BH we found each other by ourselves.You aren’t rich- you go to a whole different category. You didn’t go to a bais yaakov school- you can’t marry certain guys. You are a baal teshuva- you can’t marry an FFB. You are in secular university- you can’t marry a learning boy. You didn’t go to university but your parents aren’t wealthy- well many guys will overlook you.
Take away these boxy attitudes and what do you get? A focus on who the girl is in the point of time. I rarely see a blurb on a shidduch resume that describes who the girl and is and what she is looking for- rather her height, her summer camps and seminary and her siblings ages and jobs seem more relevant. Why? You aren’t marrying her summer camp, she could and probably is very different than she was in high school, so why does it even matter?
Lets get this straight. The shidduch crisis is an attitude problem and nothing else. If we started loving each other more instead of tearing girls down for not looking good enough in a shidduch resume picture (Rav Dovid Feinstein shlita, , “Why are we making things more difficult? There is a certain chein that young ladies have that often does not come across in a photograph, and can only be seen in person. We are making the shidduch crisis worse with these new requirements.” ) or if we thought maybe to ask why a girl is in university (maybe she wants to support her husband in kollel with a good paying job because she doesnt want to rely on her parents supporting her in this crazy expesnive world????) or maybe if we just stopped talking about 24 year old girls as “old” and threaten them that the 19 year olds are “coming home from seminary soon and if they don’t go out with this specific guy (who they shouldn’t be settling on) they will have missed the boat”.
I think its an attitude change and a little more love.
OURT: Setting up an Israeli Yeshivish Ashkenazic Brisker boy with an American traditional Sephardic Modern BT girl should be done as quickly as setting him up with an Ashkenazic Israeli Yeshivish girl since we should pay no heed to background?
SYAG: “Hard to define things that don’t exist”
+1
You are entitled to your opinion.
Believe it or not I am as well.
Novel concept 😮Are you entitled to disagree with Rav Dovid?
I’m entitled to disagree with your claim that someone heard he said it.
What’s your basis to assert that he did not say it?
what’s your basis to make up things about people and make false claims about things they say or don’t say?
Refuah Shelamo.
” but not to your own set of facts.”
which part of my opinion is a set of facts?
yes you did. I stated that I was giving my opinion and you responded:
“but not to your own set of facts.”which part of my opinion is a set of facts?
DY:
1. Nowhere in the above article does it say that the Roshei Yeshiva feel there is shidduch crisis. It says that the askanim feel that way.2. Regarding the quote from R’ Dovid Feinstein:
a) you can’t believe everything you read in the news.
b) He was simply using the commonly used term in passing while making another point. This does not prove that he thinks the term is accurate.
L’havdil, but I don’t think it should be called a crisis, and yet, I could see myself using the term in the same type of context.3. I wrote +1 because I thought it was a funny comment, not because I was trying to get into a debate about whether or not it should be called a “crisis”, but once you’ve brought up the topic… (to be continued)
4. L’maaseh, I don’t think it should be called a crisis. I don’t think it is healthy or hashkafically appropriate to consider it a crisis and to encourage singles to consider it a crisis.
In Chovos Halevavos, Shaar HaBitachon, he states that having bitachon entails realizing that whatever situation you are in is the situation that Hashem wants you to be in. I think that referring to it as a crisis makes it harder for people to realize that.
Being single is not a crisis. Our Tafkid in life is to serve Hashem, PERIOD. And someone who happens to be single can be an Eved Hashem just as much as someone who is married.
So, no, I don’t think there is a shidduch crisis. And I do think that the only crisis is thinking that the “shidduch crisis” is a crisis.
I have heard and read various ideas and suggestions on solutions of the “shidduch crisis”.I am convinced that this situation in self impossed.When kids are raised believing that girls should be married as early as 20 or so and boys can and should wait until they are in their mid 20’s is ptonlem.This is a problem because the mentality is wrong and changes have to be made.This is what I propose; kids need to be taught to start the dating game as soon as 19 for both boys and girls.Maybe idea could work out.It has worked out beautifully for the Chasidish community.You don’t find problems in Shidduchim in their community.When things break down and stop working a new attitude aneeds to be set in place.
@jospeh: I think you missed my point. Setting up a traditional person with a yeshivish person is out of a ball park. But we often overlook potential shidduch ideas just becuase they didn’t go to the same type of yeshivas or seminarys or because their families didn’t grow up the same way. It is these boxes that are problematic. Like I said, no one would have set up my husband and I because of this reason.
@ daasyochid: Yes There is only one problem. As a health care provider we are always digging for the problem while obviously focusing on the symptoms.
The problem/ crisis: Bad attitudes, selfishness, lack of ahavas yisroel
The symptoms: jewish mothers basing their sons shidduch options based on pictures, seminaries, money etc. Girls not getting many dates because they often don’t fit categories (BT, not rich, not pretty in a picture, job is too secular etc.), pressure to do things and not say certain things (about past, family, extended family etc.) just to get a shidduch. Or to go back to your first post on this thread: Girls not getting shidduch suggestions, The over all large number of singles who wish they were married (both boys and girls), The over all large number of singles who aren’t going out, Specific characteristics or circumstances of all singles who aren’t getting shidduch suggestions, The agmas nefesh felt by all singles because they aren’t married/aren’t getting shidduch suggestions/aren’t going outSolution: If the shidduch resume took out the high school, summer camp and sibling information and instead posted a solid blurb written by the single about their values, hashkafa, hobbies and what they are looking for in a soulmate. Take out the picture and let people decide in person if they are attracted. The rest usually irrelevant information can be found out on the dates to add to building a relationship through conversing with one another.
Solution: Stop calling girls who aren’t married by 23 old. Find love and respect for them as you would a 20 year old married girl. Don’t blame them for doing school during the past 4 years trying to pursue a career-
they dated and it didn’t work. Dating isn’t a skill, its a gift from Hashem. A girl who gets married at 19 isn’t more skilled than one who gets married at 26. We need to stop showing more respect for married young girls vs. their single counterparts, if we spread the love and repect it might help single girls feel more loved and accepted.Solution: Telling girls they should use the picture they look skinnier in (even if they aren’t happy with how they look), because boys like skinny. That is flat out body shaming and cause real emotional and physical issues for our future jewish mothers.
Solution: Normalizing being single because crisis or no crisis there will always be singles unfortunalty. And may I add a side point. Judaism rightfully is hyperfocused on marriage as a central tenet to our lives. The pressure that girls feel is insane to to reach “the finish line”. If they don’t ake that finish line by 22 they are left out from the conversations everyone is having- shetials, babies, rings, husbands. If we make it normal to invite them over for shabbos despite the fact that we are married and have married frineds now, shows them you still care about them.
DY – I thought about the issue some more. While I still agree with what I wrote above (1394920), I decided that there is another side to it, and that the other side is also correct.
While on the one hand, I do think that there are problems with calling it a crisis as stated earlier, I also think there is a positive aspect to referring to it as a crisis.
For one thing, it makes others (non-singles) more aware of the seriousness of the issue and therefore more aware of the need to see what they can do to help. It also makes them aware of how difficult being single can be, and therefore of the need to try to help singles in general (not just in terms of helping with shidduchim).
Additionally, while on the one hand, the singles need to work on having bitachon and being “sameach b’chelkam”, it is also good to have a reminder once in a while of the fact that they are missing something so that they will daven with more kavana.
So, both sides are correct: It is both wrong and right to call it a shidduch crisis.
That may be a paradox, but that is not a problem in Yiddishkeit.
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