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So I figure that you tell me mathematically that if everybody today marries women 4 years younger, then a certain amount of women won’t get married.
So I would like to know: Would you please build out your model to the individual level. If one 24 year old guy marries a 20 year old woman–how many women will not get married as a result? If a 24 year old guy marries a 26 year old woman–how many extra women get married as a result.
I’m sure anyone with a slight math background ought to be able to figure this out, relying on a few assumptions. I’ll let you stipulate the population growth and the approximate number of people in the population.
Suppose my father married my mother who is 10 years older, and then I married someone 10 years younger. Does that cancel out? Did 3 extra people get married 30 years ago, and then 3 less now? Do the ones from now have a tayna on me or a tayna on the ones 30 years ago?
An engineer, a mechanic, and an economist were stuck on an island and all they had was canned food, but no can opener. The engineer said to heat it up until it exploded. The mechanic said to find a rock and bash it. The economist said to assume a can opener. (Not really relevant, but a decent joke)
If I marry a new BT than I’m marrying someone who wasn’t in the shidduch pool to begin with. So technically,if I still haven’t found my bashert in the shidduch pool, am I still single?
Let’s say there are 10 boys and 15 girls in the shidduch pool, so now 33% of the girls will never get married. If one of those boys now goes and marries one of the girls there are now 9 and 14 left, so now 35% of the girls left will never get married, so anybody who gets married – no matter what their age – is making the crisis worse.
Unless of course, one of the boys goes and marries 2 of the girls. So there are now 13 girls left and 9 boys so now only 31% will never get married.
In conclusion, the only way to solve the crisis (assuming as we always do, that there are more girls than boys) is to rescind the Cherem D’Rabbeinu Gershom
The Torah613Torah Socioeconomic Model For Shidduch Crisis Recovery: (TTSMFSCR for short)
I propose the “simcha rating”. The more you fix the shidduch crisis, the more simcha. And this should have economic implications.
Suppose the difference in years exactly correlates to the number of marriages. This means we can assign a “simcha rating” to every successful shidduch.
E.g. A 24 year old man marries an 19 year old woman: Their simcha rating -5, since his getting married resulted in 5 other girls NOT getting married.
Suppose a 20 year old man marries a 24 year old woman: +4.
This provides an easy way to solve the shidduch crisis: Compel every person who marries someone younger has to pay $1000 for every year the woman is younger to NASI. And NASI pays out $1000 per year for every year that the woman is older.
Perhaps Mr. Rechnitz would be willing to jumpstart this initiative?
Is there any shorter versions of the above posts?
Yes, privileged.
Popa: How much does each individual shidduch contribute to the shidduch crisis. Joke.
Syag: Do BTs count in the shidduch crisis.
Mod 42: Nobody will ever get married.
T613: A modest proposal in the Swiftian model that uses arbitrary assumptions and ultimately infers that the cost of leaving an individual girl single is $1000.
My father would like explained how the age gap problem came about.
You can’t say that one year, all the boys decided to get married to girls younger than the previous norm had been, causing an instant gap to be created… So how exactly did this happen?
Something like that.
I will take my cue from the aharonim who oftentimes when they wish to solve one problem, they bring in another problem and then solve both in one fell swoop:
Problem #1: Shidduch Crisis/Catastrophe/whatever you want (This post should not be taken as an indication that I agree that there actually is a problem; this is leshitaschem.)
Problem #2: High school age boys have no permissible way to channel their feelings, which can cause a problem of (to borrow a line from the gemara) ?? ???? ?????? ?????.
Solution: Every boy will get married sometime around the beginning of high school with both parties knowing that it is not intended to be their real marriage. So right off the bat problem #2 is solved. Now after high school, or when they are ready to really get married, they will get rid of their high school wives and then get married for real. But wait! The girls won’t agree to this because then they will all be gerushos. So the trick is that you give her the get and then you are mevatel it not in her presence and like magic the Rabbanan are retroactively mevatel the kiddushin and thus no one is a gerusha. (A side benefit of this is that although halachically they were never married, in actuality they did get married, thus in terms of the gemara in Sotah 2a all the real marriages will be considered second marriages thus eliminating the issue of finding your predestined match.) Now you may ask how this helps the shidduch crisis if there are still more boys than girls. The answer to that is as as DaasYochid pointed out in the other thread, that 10% of girls will be taught gemara. (Contrary to what DaasYochid said there, everyone will want to marry them.) Now these girls who learn gemara will know that Tosafos says that the trick of being mevatel the get doesn’t work if you are doing it specifically to be able to undo marriages which is sort of licentious. (Maybe one could argue that here the underlying kavana is for a mitzvah so maybe it would work, but we’ll reject that option.) Therefore these girls will refuse to get married. Which they anyway deserve as punishment for learning gemara. With 10% of the female population out of the picture, there will now be enough boys for all the remaining girls. Two problems solved so simply.
.1157
Contrary to what DaasYochid said there, everyone will want to marry them
Well to make sure then, we’ll have them wear tzitzis (with techeiles) and tefillin.
PAA,
I think you are learning wrong pshat in Sotah 2a (the phrase “zivug sheini” as used in the Gemara doesn’t mean a second marriage). Just sayin’.
I think girls should stay in school for an extra year, either in high school or seminary. My daughter graduated high school at 17 and is talking about next year when she will be in shidduchim. I find that very scary. Of course this won’t help the tuition crisis.
How would a crisis be possible?
Are men suddenly less likely to marry than women (e.g. off the derech, decided to be lifelong bachelors, killed off in a war, etc.)? The answer is “no.”
Has the marriage age for men gone up? Probably, especially due to the economic conditions in recent years. Most men (and women) want a parnassah before they start raising a family. The “crisis” seems to be more among Baal ha-battim, than people planning on being impoverished kollel families, i.e. among those most likely to be affected by a strained economy (kollel families expect to be dirt poor, and the expectations are easy to meet).
Among most Americans, there is usually a significant gap in marriage age, with men often being five to ten years older – this is normal since men gain the ability to support a family much later than women are able to produce babies. In the old days, when most women could expect to eventually die in childbirth, and few babies survived to adulthood, a delay in starting a family was serious, but with modern medicine this isn’t a problem.
So relax, and the problem will go away as the men who were reaching adulthood when the economy crashed get established and get married.
edited
Randomex – please tell your father that it was a sudden change in the temperature of the atmosphere or possibly a comet.
GabbaiSheini,
I was thinking the same thing. Girls go to E”Y to young. It would be nice if the norm could be for Bais Yakov’s to have post-high school programs for two years and girls would only then got to Seminary in E”Y. Let them enter the shidduch market at the same age as boys.
I think it’s both unrealistic and somewhat ethically questionable to artificially hold back girls who are ready to get married.
Randomex, You can’t say that one year, all the boys decided to get married to girls younger than the previous norm had been, causing an instant gap to be created…
Right, but why can’t you say it happened gradually?
People should be allowed to marry the person they want to marry as long as the other person wants to marry them, regardless of age.
I think it’s also both unrealistic and somewhat ethically questionable to artificially push forward boys who are not ready to get married.
FTFY
benignuman:
What do you think it means?
“Well to make sure then, we’ll have them wear tzitzis (with techeiles) and tefillin.”
No can do. You see that would be “taking R’ Chaim out of the realm of hypothetical lomdus” which is “so outrageous”. And besides, only krumsters like Patur Aval Assur wear Techeiles so that would definitely cause people to not want to marry them.
“.1157”
Was that addressed to me? If yes, what does it mean? (Well actually even if the answer is no, I still want to know what it means.)
“.1157” is the number of girls who will be left out if ch”v a twenty four year old guy marries a twenty year old girl.
“Also, strong work PAA! Excellent!”
Why thank you Popa. A compliment from you on something of this nature means a lot. But alas, you probably think I was joking.
The Shidduch a person can earn by breaking out of his Mazal. So zivug rishon is the person that is announced 40 days before yetziras havlad. If a person manages to break their Mazal they can earn a zivug sheini which is based on merit. Because this requires a reworking of all of creation a zivug sheini is extremely difficult to accomplish.
And I agree with popa.
Except that it’s not only krumsters like you.
It’s all types of krumsters. 😉
benignuman:
I am going to have to disagree with you. According to your interpretation, Tosafos’s question wouldn’t make sense. Furthermore, it seems clear from the Tosafos HaRosh’s/Tosafos Shantz’s explanation of Rabba Bar Bar Chana’s derasha that it is talking about a second marriage. Also, I don’t know what you mean by “they can earn a zivug sheini which is based on merit”. I don’t think that that is pashut pshat in “lefi ma’asav”.The closest I have seen to what you are saying is the Be’er Sheva and the Chasam Sofer’s pshat that he heard in the name of the Arizal, but he says that the pshat is referring to your first wife.
What’s black and crispy, and hangs from a chandier? An amateur electrician. (Also a decent joke)
Re Torah’s solution: I think NASI should have to pay a knas of $1000 every time the phrase age gap is mentioned.
How about:
I think it’s both unrealistic and somewhat ethically questionable to artificially hold back boys who are ready to get married.
Hey, wait a second, we’re already trying to fix that.
PAA,
Fakert, Tosafos’s question is much better according to me. I think I might not have been clear enough. Zivug sheini does not mean Second Marriage. It means Second Match. A person has a predestined match that is set well before he or she is born. That is your first match. However, because Ain Mazal L’Yisrael, you can break that destiny and thereby warrant a new match. This new match is not predestined at all and requires Hashem to rework creation. I am happy that I was mechaven to the Beer Sheva and the Chasam Sofer b’shem the Arizal. I think this is pashut pshat.
Asks Tosafos, if that is the case what is the Gemara’s question on Shmuel in Moed Katan, because a person does not know if he has earned a second match, one that is not predestined, he should absolutely be permitted to be m’arus on Cholo Shel Moed because maybe this girl is his zivug sheini. That is a very good question.
Ma shein kein, if you learn that zivug sheini means a second marriage Tosafos’s question is very weak. The mashmaos of Shmuel’s statement in Moed Katan, and the halacha, is in no way limited to someone’s second marriage. It is therefore not surprising that the Gemara did not want to use this answer.
(I am maskim that the Tosafos Shantz is saying not like me, but I think that Rashi and Tosafos are like me)
beninguman:
Fakert, Tosafos’s question is much better according to me. Look at the lashon Tosafos uses. He says that the gemara should have answered that Shmuel’s statement in Moed Katan was referring to zivug sheini. Not that since there is always a possibility of a zivug sheini, everyone can get married on Chol Hamoed. Tosafos in Moed Katan is even clearer. There he says that the Gemara should have answered ?? ???? ????? ??
???? ??? i.e. the statement that everyone has a predestined match is talking specifically about a zivug rishon whereas Shmuel’s statement about Chol Hamoed is talking specifically about a zivug sheini. According to you, one wouldn’t know if it’s his zivug sheini so therefore Tosafos’s suggestion wouldn’t answer the Gemara’s question.
Whereas according to me, Tosafos is asking why the Gemara didn’t just answer that for your second marriage you can get married on chol hamoed but for your first marriage you can’t because that one is predestined. Aaaiii, you’ll ask “Tosafos’s question is very weak. The mashmaos of Shmuel’s statement in Moed Katan, and the halacha, is in no way limited to someone’s second marriage. It is therefore not surprising that the Gemara did not want to use this answer.” And you are mechavein to the Maharatz Chayes’s question on Tosafos. Which shows that the Maharatz Chayes was learning like me.
By the way, thank you for helping me turn a shidduch thread into a Talmudic debate.
PAA,
The phrase ???? ??? ???? ????? ???? ??? doesn’t mean that say the case over there was referring to a second marriage, it means that Shmuel is worried about a ??? ???, i.e. your second, earned, match. Shmuel was referring to a ??? ??? in terms of the how it would be possible that “yekadmenu acheir.”
The language in Tosafos in Moed Katan is just quoting the language in the Gemara in Sotah, meaning in terms of whether or not you have to fear someone else coming and taking your shidduch, this is something you should not have to fear if it your zivug rishon (predestined match) but you do have to fear if it is your zivug sheini (non-predestined match).
I am maskim that the Maharetz Chayes (mis)understood the Gemara like you and therefore has a question on Tosafos. But Tosafos understood the Gemara like me and therefore the Maharetz Chayes’ question falls away.
Furthermore, according to your reading of the Gemara, Tosafos should have asked a reverse question: Why doesn’t the Gemara in Sotah answer like the Gemara in Moed Katan? The answer in Moed Katan, that maybe someone will take her away with tefillah (i.e. break the mazal), which doesn’t require placing limits on statements that were made stam.
Most importantly, your way of reading the Gemara in Sotah doesn’t answer the Gemara’s question. The Gemara is medayek that Kinui is a bad thing and quotes Reish Lakish who would start Sotah by saying that a person only gets a wife who is a Sotah if he is/was a bad person himself. The Gemara then asks from Rav and the memra of 40 day prior to yetziras havlad. If the Gemara’s answer means that a person only get’s a wife he deserves by a second marriage that would imply according to Reish Lakish there are no Sotah’s from first marriages!?! Kenit zain a za zach.
Beninguman:
Yes Tosafos is quoting the lashon of the Gemara in Sotah – in the Gemara in Sotah it means that of the two seemingly contradictory statements, one was specifically referring to cases of a zivug rishon while the other one was specifically referring to cases of a zivug sheini. When transposed into Moed Katan the equivalent would be that Rav Yehuda Amar Shmuel’s statement was specifically referring to cases of zivug rishon while Shmuel’s statement was specifically referring to cases of a zivug sheini. Now you, can allege that I am reading too much into the words. But I think you have to grant that the words definitely don’t support your reading MORE than mine; at best it is inconclusive, which although I personally disagree with, I am willing to grant it.
As to your fourth paragraph, in fact according to your interpretation, the two answers are the same thing. Both are saying that there is a way to beat your mazal. So Tosafos’s question would not be particularly compelling. According to me, the two answers have nothing to do with each other.
Your final point, I don’t understand. All Reish Lakish said was that a person’s spouse is lefi ma’asav. According to me, the Gemara’s answer is that this is only true by your second spouse – your first spouse is predetermined and is not necessarily lefi ma’asav. I don’t see how it follows from that that you can’t have a sotah from a first marriage. If anything it makes it more possible to have a sotah from a first marriage because she can be bad regardless of whether her husband is good or bad.
PAA,
I am maskim that the loshon of Tosafos, especially in Moed Katan, is ambiguous and certainly not more in favor of my pshat. It is the content of Tosafos’s question that I think is better according to my pshat.
In regards to your second paragraph, you have not answered my question. My question is that the answer in the Gemara in Moed Katan doesn’t require an ukimta but according to you the Gemara in Sotah does require an ukimta. It would seem therefore that the answer in Moed Katan is better and Tosafos should ask his question in reverse.
According to me, while similar the two answers are different and the one in Moed Katan is significantly bigger chiddush and therefore Tosafos can reasonably ask that the Gemara in Moed Katan should say a smaller chiddush. Why is Sotah a smaller chiddush? Because from Sotah all you see is that you can change your mazal to your own gain or detriment, but you don’t see that you can change someone else’s mazal even if they don’t deserve it. In Moed Katan the Gemara is saying that through tefillah a person can change someone else’s mazal even if the other person doesn’t deserve it!!
On Reish Lakish, the mashmaos of the Gemara is that Reish Lakish statement was his introduction to the learning of Sotah, implying that a person would only have a wife who was a Sotah if he was a rasha himself. It would be a very odd introduction to Sotah if it only applied in a minority of marriages. I think the answer according to you, requiring a second marriage ukimta to Reish Lakish is very dochek and sort of defeats the purpose of what Reish Lakish was saying.
P.S. Thank you for brightening up my workday with a little learning!
And for turning a leitzanus thread into a real one! (sorry I haven’t had time to follow the learning part)
Benignuman:
I don’t see why Tosafos should ask his question in reverse. The answer about davening is a bigger ukimta than the answer about zivug sheini. There are two ways to learn the stirah in sotah. 1)Rav Yehuda Amar Shmuel’ statement is in stirah to Reish Lakish’s statement 2)Rav Yehuda Amar Shmuel’s statement is in stirah to Rabba Amar R’ Yochanan’s statement. (Rashi explains it the first way, but see the Maharsha who points out that in Sanhedrin the Gemara explicitly asks it the second way.) Now using the answer of davening would mean that Reish Lakish or Rabba Amar R’ Yochanan’s statement is only applicable in a case where a person changed his mazal through tefillah (which incidentally we would have no way of ever knowing if this happened). Whereas the answer of zivug sheini is just that they were discussing second marriages. It’s only according to your pshat that the answer of davening would be advantageous to use in Sotah. The only advantage that I see in your pshat is that you can answer the Maharatz Chayes’s question. But I would allege that the Maharatz Chayes was forced into his question because he read the lashon like me i.e. that Shmuel’s din only applies by a second marriage.
As for your point about Reish Lakish, I hear it somewhat, however according to the Maharsha’s understanding the ukimta would only be in Rabba Amar R’ Yochanan’s statement* but not in Reish Lakish’s statement. According to Rashi’s understanding the ukimta is in fact in Reish Lakish’s statement, in which case Reish Lakish was saying that only second marriages are lefi ma’asav. But I don’t think that means that you can only have a sotah from a second marriage. It’s just as possible if not more so to have a bad wife in your first marriage (as I explained in my last post). The only thing is that you’ll ask what Reish Lakish’s statement has to do with the parsha of Sotah. Good point. But I could suggest that perhaps Reish Lakish was pointing out that in a second marriage you would only have a sotah if the man was bad. I admit it’s not the best answer.
*Perhaps you can argue that the Maharsha agrees that the way Rashi explains the Gemara’s question is in fact a valid question for the Gemara to ask and his only point is that there was no need for Rashi to explain the question that way when he could have just explained it the way it is clearly meant in Sanhedrin.
P.S. You are welcome. It brightened up my day too.
Statistics Statistics Statistics: This many girls will never get married—how could we say such a thing? Where is our bitachon and emunah?
You want to talk statistics? Statistically the Jews shouldn’t be around anymore at all. Look at all the great nations who tried to wipe us out. Guess what? We are still here.
Daven, have emunah and bitachon, do chesed and mitzvos, have yiras shomayim.. and leave the rest up to HaKodosh Baruch Hu.
May all those looking for a shidduch find the right one in the right time.
BTW- I am not just saying this because my daughter just got engaged. I was saying this way before she met her bashert. I still have bli ayin hara two other children to find shidduchim for – in the right time.
Hatzlacha to everyone.
Kesiva V’Chasima Tova!
Gefen, you are correct, and certainly this should be every yochid’s mental approach to their own situation.
When it comes to helping others, though, emunah and bitachon (as it relates to action or inaction) are misplaced. The statistics we hear and read tell us of a problem al pi teva which, as a society, can’t simply be ignored.
So when askanim such as SY Rechnitz and the folks at NASI bring this communal issue to the forefront, people’s reactions and “responses” dealing with their own personal situations are really separate issues that happen to have the word “shidduchim” in common.
Mazel Tov, may you have much nachas, and may many more simchas follow.
“Daven, have emunah and bitachon, do chesed and mitzvos, have yiras shomayim.. and leave the rest up to HaKodosh Baruch Hu.Daven, have emunah and bitachon, do chesed and mitzvos, have yiras shomayim.. and leave the rest up to HaKodosh Baruch Hu.”
Would you say the same thing if you were looking for a job?
Gitte kasha, PAA.
I’ve noticed this phenomenon for a while now, and wonder what reasoning (if any) is behind it.
The same people who run to work and have no problem focusing on earning a living (while presumably admitting that this is just their hishtadlus and it’s all from Above), are the ones who say, with regard to shidduchim, that it’s not up to us!
Would you say the same thing if you were looking for a job?
without question.
Syag, would you say the same thing if you were asked to help someone else get a job?
benignuman:
I left out two points in my last post:
1)Reish Lakish is just as shver according to your explanation.
2)The Ben Yehoyada advances a similar explanation to yours, also based on the Arizal. However he prefaces it by saying ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ??????. In other words he (and the Chasam Sofer that I mentioned earlier) is saying that your pshat is not the pashtus. And the reasons for saying it are not hechrechim from the sugya, inasmuch as kabbalistic stuff.
“without question.”
You wouldn’t invest any physical effort in pursuing employment?
PAA,
I will admit that I was learning the Gemara according to Rashi (I even think the language of Rashi in contrast to Tosafos Shantz is mashma like my pshat), so I took it as a given that the Gemara’s question was on Reish Lakish as well. Hence I was bothered that according the Gemara’s teretz Reish Lakish was only talking about second marriages, this seemed dochek, and it led me to my current pshat that Zug Sheini, as used in the Gemara, doesn’t mean second marriage.
According to my understanding, Reish Lakish is saying that if a person’s wife becomes a Sotah it is siman that she became his wife not be because of predestination but because of his bad maasim. In other words she is his zug sheini (according to my reading). I don’t see why that is shver.
But it wouldn’t be true that it is a siman that she became his wife because of his bad maasim. Because if anything it’s more likely that it was his zivug rishon because by a zivug rishon his wife can be bad both if he has good maasim or if he has bad maasim since it’s predestined.
No. The whole point of Reish Lakish is that one’s predestined wife will never be so bad as to become a Sotah, in other words Hashem doesn’t saddle a person with such a rishanta as a wife as a matter of mazal. The only way to have such a woman as one’s wife, is to “earn it” through one’s own bad maasim.
This is all very interesting about the concept of Zivug and Sotah, I never realized they were connected.
I think there is a certain amount of hishtadlus, and it’s different for every person and every situation. Most of us are not on a level to sit in a cave and have fruit trees grow for us and a spring pop up near us.
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