Tu B�Av – Put the Girls in the Freezer

AZ: there may not be as many (as girls), but there are some single guys over age 29. According to your theory, they can’t exist, but they unfortunately do.

AZ, frankly I cannot take you seriously anymore, if I ever did.

Rule number one of doing any kind of chessed for others: vehechezakta bo. Let your “clients” feel on par with you, built up, and not patronized. Calling the girls leftovers doesn’t paint you as incredibly sincerely passionate for your cause; it makes me hope that if you do have the ears of the gedolim they will ask others to carry out their plans. My apologies for being so shtark but sounds like you’re starving, for a tell it like it is sandwich.

There is no need to unplug a freezer, stuff more people into a freezer, pull some out of a freezer or purchase a new freezer. There are an equal number of girls and boys that are ready, willing and able to get married. The only thing holding them back is that they are looking to marry someone who their parents, friends and seminary Moros will approve of, not someone who they are resonably certain (can anyone be 100% certain?) that they can grow with and build a home with. If there is any crisis, it is one of no self confidence and the inability to break away from the pack mentality.

Tzipi. As a punishment you are hereby sentenced to 3 months in the freezer 🙂

Dr Pepper:

Since you are the resident mathemitician. please explain how “eaier to be a good girl vs. a good guy” tranlates into over the period of the firslt 3 yrs of dating almost all the guys are married and yet many many girls are still single?

let assume 100 boys and 100 girls enter the dating pool each year for 3 years is it possible after 3 years for there to be more unmarried girls form this 3 year segment than unmarried boys??????

Please Keep it mathematical

I’d like to make a footnote contribution to this interesting discussion. From all the posts,the following can be inferred:

1. It’s good to know math

2. Multifactorial math problems are difficult to solve

3. Unknown or unmeasurable sociological influences confound the solution

4. Scientific (measurable and verifiable) research here would be helpful

5. Sociological research is valuable

6. A high-level secular education is the only way to understand and achieve notes 1 through 5.

7. Leaving this research to the goyim would be unproductive.

Estherh, you ask, what’s wrong with a girl setting the bar at middos and commitment to regular learning (traditionally called koveia b’ittim, good enough for our fathers, right? ;-). The problem is, the way our boys have been conditioned, these boys are no longer considered top sechora to many, including themselves. if they can’t handle the long term lamdan bit they may have a chip on their shoulders.

Tzipi: I dont disagree with your premise, however, I dont lay the blame squarely on the boys. Remeber, the boys have to attract interest from girls. If girls wke up tomorrow morning and decided that only boys who wore purple straw hats were eligible candidates for a shidduch, the purple straw hat seller would do a (pardon the pun) brisk business. The girls apparantly dont want a boy who is koveia ittim, they want a long term lamdan, as you phrased it. The boys are positionsing themselves to be considered “top sechora”.

So if there is any crisis, it is one of self identity (or lack thereof).

The girls’ freezer won’t work.

– While the boys are in the freezer they are getting satisfaction from fulfilling a, if not the, major part of their missions on earth, limud Torah. That the girls can sock money away (MAYBE) for their future husbands and do chessed in their free time will not be as satisfying unless it is a PERSONAL, individual choice between them, their parents, mentors, etc.

– I urge people to track down Jewish periodicals from the 80s, like the JO, Jewish Women’s Outlook,etc. when there was so much written about women’s lib and finding true fulfillment in home. We are now living in a post feminist world, where even the outside world understands the fulfillment that can come from the home. (The conflict surrounding this is called the Mommy Wars.) We are giving our girls so many conflicting messages. I said this once before, there was this commercial then for a woman’s perfume (Enjoli, for anyone with an equally misspent youth) with the message that women CAN have it all. It’s one thing for women to work because they have to in this economy, and there is no reason our girls shouldn’t work in fields they find satisfying on all scores. And for many, if not most girls, not getting married the second sem is over is not a bad idea. But please, let’s make sure it’s coming from the best of motivations, and that our kids aren’t getting raw deals. The longer OUR society will FORCE our girls to wait, they will get MORE into their professions and cynical. It’s happening. Older young women do NOT have to get cynical, they can grow and blossom, but in this climate they will.

Because you can go on and on about numbers, freezer, but these girls won’t feel anyone’s acting in THEIR best interests, and restoring the dignity of the bas Yisrael they’ve been taught about all these years. Not until we get the boys, their mothers, the girls’ mothers and the whole messed up system shaped up.

– How would we implement it? I wouldn’t take any kind of social engineering takanos seriously unless it had UNIVERSAL, ACROSS THE BOARD participation from ALL rabbanim. This is as serious a step as occasions in the navi when there were such draconian steps taken. Why doesn’t anyone see the long term effects of this besides the possible change in the demographics that’s the cornerstone of the New Age philosophy?

The trouble is the girls are looking for a Rebbi Akiva but they dont realise the sacrifices Rochel went through to have a Rebbi Akiva. The dreams of these girls don’t last very long. Before my son got married more than one Shadchan told me to say he would learn for 5 years. I refused to say something I knew was untrue, The Shadchan retorted saying the girls want this till the day after the chasene when they begin to get itchy feet and really want their husbands to go and make money.

estherh, great point.

I really don’t understand this freezer business. Haven’t we been getting married at young ages and with an age gap for 3000+ years? What suddenly changed? In the past Jewish history, our nation has generally gotten married younger than us today and had larger families.

Havesomeseichel, by that logic, since we’ve already delayed when boys get married, why not delay THAT more too? Why is no one talking about how better to prepare our boys for life, mature, get the education etc. they’ll need?

Moderators, sorry if I’m going in circles again but I’m still waiting for some answers.

Sure we must better prepare our girls for marriage (we should always strive to improve in any area), but delaying them from marriage is NOT the solution. It is always best to stick with Chazal. Ideally a wife should not need a job outside the home, but that is not always practical.

Rav Avigdor Miller was niftar before the concept of age gap was known. You have NO way of knowing what his position would be be under the present situation. I notice MM that you like to qoute R”Y gedolim who are no longer with us.

Hard to set policy for the community based on Gedolim who are no longer here.

From Hagoen HaRav Avigdor Miller ZT’L’s Sefer Awake My Glory:

Paragraph 1095- (There cannot be two kings. The marriage-relationship is twofold. 1) The wife is submissive. This is not only Jewish but natural. There can be no harmony when there are two commanders. Without this indispensable condition the home is disordered. “Arrogance is unbecoming to a woman” – Megillah 14B. For a man it is not an ornament, but for a woman it is as if she wore a mustache. 2) The second, but equally essential foundation: a man must always demonstrate respect for his wife. This is “the way of Jewish men that…honor and support their wives in truth” as stated in the Jewish marriage contract. “He honors her more than his own body” – Yevamos 62B, and “A man must always be careful with his wife’s honor”- Bava Metzia 59A. He is the captain, but she is the First Mate whose counsel is respected. She cannot be made a doormat, she need not beg for money, she deserves some assistance in the house chores, and the husband sides with her against his kin. He must express frequent appreciation and give words of encouragement, and he should remember his wife from time to time with gifts, big or little. Husband and wife should always say “Please” and “Thank you” and never forget to be always polite to one another.) – pages 339-340

Paragraph 1105. Before marriage it is imperative to ascertain the young woman’s attitude toward feminism and “women’s rights” and careerism. It is out of the question to build a Jewish home, or any home whatsoever, if the prospective wife has been tainted with these anti-natural and anti-social preachings. The woman’s career and happiness are in her home: absolutely and entirely. Her husband, her children and her home are the expressions of her personality and her Free Will, and they are her chief forms of serving G-d. The modern orthodox “Rebbetzin” with a college degree and a job in secular professions is a misfit even in a non-Jewish home. The ideas of revolt against a husband’s authority and the unrealistic dream of equal leadership in the family, lead only to unhappiness and failure, and very frequently to divorce. A Beth Jacob girl should be wed soon after or before graduation. Every day after she leaves the Beth Jacob marks another step away from idealism, for the street and the office and the secular school have an unfailing effect which increases from day to day. It is never a simple matter to achieve harmony in the home; effort and wisdom and fear of G-d are required. But with the additional burden of feminism, all problems become aggravated; and like all the unnatural and anti-social affectations of the libertarians (342) this leads only to failure and unhappiness.

Thanks Joseph (aka Mezonos Maven).

Always a pleasure to see you quoting from Rabbi Avigdor Miller as you always did under your old name which you stopped using 2 weeks ago.

Get help for your Internet addiction.

I think we should put the older girls in a real freezer, and put the younger boys in the bmg freezer, say for about 6 years, then we take out the older girls & presto no more age gap. (I realize that’s kinda corny, but i’m that sorta mood now.)

Wow, I’ll have to read the M-Maven’s posts more carefully if that’s true.

But AZ, got to call you on the carpet for this terrible, terrible bizayon to such a gadol (who’s to say that Rabbi Miller wouldn’t reconsider, to paraphrase you). Rav Hirsch, on “Aseh Torascha keva” explains that the Torah is the keva. It is everything else that we see through the prism of Torah; we don’t subject Torah to the times.

Reading the Rav Miller quote I am inclined to say that he considered that unchanging Torah.

But hey, let me know how the seance goes.

Ok, I’m going to try not to overthink and stop with this.

I’ve maintained that while age is a primary contributing factor, it is far from the only one, and the others should be tended to as well. My hunch is that Rabbi Miller might be addressing the societal ills etc. rather than the age issue solely. AZ might differ.

But my having this hunch and speaking for Rabbi Miller may make me as presumptuous if not more so, so I should be asking mechilla too.

shadchansicles?

Well said estherh!

Another School

’98 (29 yrs old) 1 single -12 Graduates 8.3%

’99 (28 yrs old) 4-23 17.4%

’00 (27 yrs old) 5-30 16.66%

’01 (26 yrs old) 6-25 24%

’02 (25 yrs old) 3-19 15.78%

’03 (24 yrs old) 11-34 32.35%

Total 30-143=21%