The process of asking for money for a wedding

Mentsch, are you familiar with nidunyos?

Mentsch1: In America the Kallah’s side is expected to fund the bulk of the wedding costs and the engaged couple’s startup costs for housing needs, etc. In Eretz Yisroel not; so it more or less is about the same.

In the Chareidi world in Israel, a girls parents are supposed to provide all the couple need to start (housewares, bedding, kitchen utensils etc.), pay half rent for the first year, pay half wedding expenses, make the engagement, either the whole Shabbos sheva brachos or the other side sometimes splits with them, and put down a substantial amount of money, though nothing near the price of an apartment. This is when the kallah’s family are living simply, trying to live on a kollel budget.

Ujm
I’ve got relatives in EY marrying off daughters.
I can tell you that they turn down shidduchim all the time because of the question “will you buy the couple an apartment “
The answer is no and that is that. It’s not “more or less the same” as here. I’ve never heard of anyone having the chutzpah to demand that here

And OP
Where do you live that it is only once every two weeks?
Here in Flatbush it’s a daily occurrence

Mentsch1: You misunderstood me. I know that outside Israel the Kallah’s family buying the Choson an apartment isn’t a thing. But outside Israel the Kallah’s family has many other expenses they’re responsible for, much more so than the Choson’s family — and it is widely accepted practice.

And that’s all part and parcel of traditional Yiddishkeit. The Kallah’s family has always, from time immemorial throughout Jewish history, provided the Choson a dowry. As is proper.

Somewhere out there is the line between highly judgemental and painfully clueless

Having married off 4 children BH without the need to beg or borrow, I cant think of anything more humiliating then the need to leave home for weeks and go from house to house and beg for a dollar, I always try to give them as much as I can.
That being said the habit of buying a dirah for the couple needs to stop.

“That being said the habit of buying a dirah for the couple needs to stop.”

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and try to make a point. I am NOT disagreeing with what you are saying but I realllllly would like to give a perspective shift. Working with the needs of community for decades has taught me a lot and I think lack of perspective is so much huger (is that a word?) than people realize.

Purely as a response to that point above and NOT to go off on a rant, yes, so many people agree with you on that. But the same can be said for gowns for anyone other than the bride. For professional makeup for the families, for the basic expectations of the chuppah, flowers/centerpieces, music etc. These things are strangulatingly expensive and it’s always nice when big talkers (usually with money) say “oh, just have what you can afford”. Um, none of it is affordable. AND it’s nice to tell a family to have a simple meal served in a shul with 150 people and rented flowers but really?
I have been to many weddings in E”Y where they DO do that. They have “family style” seating and serving. Chicken on the bone, 150-200 people. They do their own hair and makeup except the kallah. and guess what, the money goes to a dira. And they think you are the crazy one for wasting a dira’s worth of cash on stupid materialism.

So the point is that it is very very hard to decide what other people should stop doing based on what your consider important. But it is even harder to look at what you consider important and wonder if perhaps you are mistaken.

Those of us who believe that a modicum of financial independence is a condition precedent to kiddushin are clearly in a minority. However, as others have noted, forcing the parents to wander around the beis medrash or going door-to-door begging strangers for funds to purchase housing for their kids or pay the caterer would appear to be a self-inflicted form of humiliation for parents who should “just say no”. Definitely assist within your means but don’t jeopardize your own economic well being.

@amil, how many children did you marry off?

To Mentsh1 (and a few others writing about buying apartments): The situation in EY is such that this is de rigeur, as you probably well know. Actually, it was not started by frum Yiddn – or by Yiddn at all.
A bit of history: up until 1948, most of the frum community – which still comprised the Old Yishuv + dropouts therefrom – lived in apartments under a system called ‘key-money’ whereby you paid a lump sum up front, followed by a very low rent for the rest of your life. Upon the death of both partners, subject to few conditions, the property reverted back to the original owner. In the new frum centres of Bene Beraq and parts of Tel Aviv, the situation may have been different; I don’t know. At all events, come the day in 1948 when one of the first decrees of the new regime was to declare that anyone living under the ‘key-money’ system had an automatic right-to-buy for a modest payment. Many of course took advantage of this. The logic of this new law was simple: to get as many as possible to buy and own their homes. Benevolence? No way! They knew a war was coming, maybe more than one, and people who don’t own their homes tend to flee wars. The new state was in danger of depopulating. Since then, this policy has been followed assiduously.
Let me divulge a little secret (told by a member of the family concerned): A certain extremely wealthy frum Yid managed to make a deal with those who believe they own the Land of Israel, to build a city for frum Yidn. Everything was going perfectly to plan, until he innocently let slip that he intended renting the properties, rather than selling them. The deal collapsed on the spot. He was told the reason in no uncertain terms. We do not rent. I know well there are rental properties available, but they are a small minority. The official line is, from the top down: you must buy. Even most Israelis don’t know that it’s state policy. They take it as a fact of life. And for them it is. But since they are trapped in a situation over which they have no control, don’t they deserve our help rather than our condemnation?

CTLAWYER,

“We paid all the wedding expenses for our daughters … We paid for orchestra, liquor, personal flowers and officiant … Three started married lives in apartments we owned … many work in the CTL Law firm … Our first tow married grandchildren are living in apartments we own as they finish graduate schools … finance the home purchase so the children did not have to pay interest on a bank mortgage”

But at least you didn’t outright buy them houses, so they can experience what true grit and self-reliance are! B”H you have the means to support your children and grandchildren. Your financial support of them far exceeds these parents who are getting newlyweds apartments, so maybe the negative judgement is unwarranted.

Using Imamother as a source for anything other than a recipe is like using alex jones as a news source. Frankly I’m shocked someone of your education and intellectual level is able to read anything on there at all without retching.

absolutely not left handed. totally honest and sincere wonderment.

The mishna in Pirkei Avos sets forth the principle of Shemoneh Esrei L’Chuppah which is generally understood to mean that one should begin searching for their kallah as soon as he is physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially able to do so. At the time of the mishna, its quite possible that those criteria were frequently met by many bochurim around the age of 18 (or presumably, that was the Tana’s recollection of when HE felt prepared for marriage. Nowhere does the mishna make shidduchim contingent upon a W-2 showing sufficient earning to support his wife and family because in those days, the majority of bochurim reaching the age of 18 did work and earned a parnassah. As society evolved, the age at which most young men were emotionally and financially prepared to support a family has also risen to their early 20s so application of the principle can be understood to have evolved as well. However, nowhere does the Mishnah mandate that the parents of the prospective choson impoverish themselves in the process, whatever his age.

Those who criticize apartment buyers do not understand the difficult and different situation those parents are, as Syag is saying. If children do not have immediate prospects for high earnings, how are they expected to live? Parents can’t really complain as they put the kids into this position by not giving them work skills. Beh, kids will eventually find a way to get some parnosah and then will do the same for their own kids, midah kneged midah..

It is a really hard question how to respond to the requests: on one hand, one wants to help a person in need, on another – you are enabling a multigenerational problem … Maybe provide funds to chatans apprenticeship or help them buy a business instead of an apartment

Hadorah: The mishna in Pirkei Avos says that 18 years of age should be the ceiling of when to get married, not the floor. It wants us to be married no later than that age. The absolute Halachic deadline one must get married by is age 20. After that the Halacha is (content warning: readers with liberal tendencies are recommended to stop reading this comment) that if he isn’t trying to get married once he is 20, Beis Din should force him to get married.

“content warning: readers with liberal tendencies are recommended to stop reading this comment”

@ujm, I think this should be your screen name!!!

You gave me a good laugh!!!
You might have to do teshuva for providing such comic relief in the 9 days 🤣

where are takanah weddings? I understand that several popular Jewish towns in US limit how much people spend on weddings to a degree that, B’H, weddings halls are full (presumably not just by growing population but also by OOTners coming for cheap weddings and reduced supply of providers due to lower prices). Is this working? Is it also done in Israel?

Gee, let’s try that again. Please focus instead of making up your own conversation.

This line, ” Parents can’t really complain as they put the kids into this position by not giving them work skills. ”
Stating that parents actively refrain from giving their kids work skills in the act of having them stay in learning.
It is such a disgusting accusation, displaying such ignorance of their lifestyle. And it rolls off your tongue with zero thought behind it because your ignorance is so ingrained in you that you don’t even know what’s wrong with it.

You complain very often about your daughter’s school saying MO as if it was a pejorative . Please understand that that is EXACTLY what you are doing here (and constantly). If you can come to understand that you are exactly what you accuse them of, perhaps you will finally stop doing it.

AAQ: The standard of livelihood required is bare minimum. “Kach hi darkah shel torah – pas b’melach tochal etc.” — Bread salt and water – if you have that, you have parnasah.

ujm, I fully agree and fully respect people who live like that … It would seem that if we were to optimize life according to Torah principles, a man should first learn Torah and basics of math and English, then spend 2 years acquiring a profession (4 year college, including CLEPs and yeshiva credits), and maybe another two to get MS by age 25, and then continue working or doing business, say, 2 days a week, or 3 hours a day, whatever is better for his learning schedule. In this way, he can spend most of his life learning and maybe doing chesed using his professional skills (heal, teach ..). Unfortunately, seeing everyone else’s standard of living makes it almost impossible to limit your quest for gashmiyus.