Marriage?

you seemed to have missed more than just the point. I am not looking for a pc spouse, I’m looking for one that thinks before they speak. heavy concept i guess.

Let me explain where your explanation falls short. If you say you can’t stand people with glasses, that is not remotely the same as saying you have found that most people who wear glasses are boring and self centered.

And furthermore, lets say even the latter was indeed a fact outside of just your personal daled amos, does that mean it is appropriate to say so? Life isn’t about speaking every thought that crosses your mind just because it is “true” and you are anonymous. If someone can be hurt by it, take the high road.

if a girl wants to marry a boy who’s “into learning”, and you’ll ask her to give an example of what that might mean, she’ll probably answer something to the affect of “a bochur who learns deep gemora and halacha” (i would imagine the sems explain what real talmud torah is)
so, how disappointed will she be when she finds out her chosson is only capable of learning chumash/rashi & kitzur?
same thing (lehavdil) with working at a store vs. a higher level job

I fail to understand much of the dialogue here. The ingredients needed for a successful marriage include the following:

1. Full dedication, intellectual and emotional, to a Torah life.
2. The ability to provide a wholesome environment for the home, spiritually and physically.
3. Having a Rov, Moreh Derech.
4. Emotional and physical stability.
5. The ability to treat the marriage as an institution of kedusha, respecting one’s spouse, cherishing them, and living a life of harmony with them.

I purposely omitted from this list the number of hours and precise subject matter of the husband’s Torah learning – because it makes no difference. If someone is as serious and committed to learning Chumash/Rashi and Kitzur Shulchan Aruch as the proverbial Kollel yungerman is to learning Shas and Shulchan Aruch – b’iyun, we can have a fine family that provides nachas to HKB”H and to everyone else. It is artificial to provide standards that place a premium on the study of Shas and Poskim, as if that predicts the health and beauty of the family.

No, I do not generalize that the typical kollel couple is in trouble. I just proclaim that the extent of the learning is not the variable that matters most. I know plenty of couples who are far happier in the working world, with continuing kviyas ittim than they were when in kollel, dependent, and entitled. That’s why the “learning boy” is a myth when it becomes the ideal value, where the alternative is shunned unfairly.

Kitzur:

I agree a girl should seek what she wants. I doth protest the idea that a girl is capable of deciding who will make a good husband by a grade they would get on a bechinah on Bava Basra. The excellence in learning is a virtue, and that is not deniable. But it is not the criteria of who makes a good husband.

I had a chaver who was intellectually limited, and never got passing grades in yeshiva, both limudei kodesh and limudei chol. I recognized him as a gaon in midos. He married a wonderful girl, and they raised a beautiful family. No, he could not recite a pilpul from the Beis Halevi, neither at the Shabbos table on the parsha, nor the teshuvos of pilpulim on sugyos that are sheer genius. He was infused with stellar midos, and had many friends, even though he was useless as a chavrusa. He was able to get a job, and maintained a status of honesty, providing for his family. His family is as precious to HKB”H as that of the kollel yungerman who produces chidushei Torah, says a shiur, and is able to respond to halacha shailos. Each of them is doing for the klal and for their families as per their potential.

Quoted in the name of Albert Einstein: “Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid. ” Even objectively, the frum Torah true baal haboss is not worse or less than a career talmid chochom. The value we need to teach our girls is to seek that true ehrlicher Yid. Torah knowledge is an asset, but it does not carry its deserved value if the character is not refined. Just how would one expect a girl, graduate of our high school and seminary systems to be that judge? By the touted myth of the “learning boy”? I fear it is the wrong yardstick, and completely useless to the average girl graduating from our schools.

little i know: 100% agreed, brains isn’t everything. BUT, if she’s very smart, and he’s not, they’re gonna run into difficulties in day to day conversations, and general family mgmt

joseph: that’s how this whole thread started, by the “label” of a store worker being looked down at. (i don’t think it was a salesman, but rather a stock boy, or something like that)

then they should get some Oxidant to whiten up their shirts 🙂

Litvishechossid

I think it’s an irresponsible idea to get married to Someone without knowing “what they do”! The same way that every man will speak to a girl about what they do. Asking what you do isn’t cuz they’re trying to get your money, they just want to make sure that your a man that has the capabilities of actually being matzliach.

edited