Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Cheer up, there’s always 14 Sivan.
Ah, pi, not PI. I thought I missed “Thank a private investigator” Day.
This is an excellent question. The answer, IMO should be general knowledge and taught at the appropriate age. Check out Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s Handbook of Jewish Thought, vol. I.
AZ, if you’re a girl I am impressed that you have such ready access to the ears of so many gedolim and askanim.
Oomis, Haifagirl, let the terminology go. AZ’s going in a whole new direction and I think that this is what we should encourage. Don’t know about you all but my inquiring mind wants to see Act II unfold.
Check out cheese stratas and bread casseroles. You’ll find some savory stuff there.
(And if you end up feeding the birds a little that’s ok too.)
AZ, this is taking this to an entirely different level. Can’t wait to see future developments. (How long do you think they’ll take?) I don’t know what else there is to say.
(Though would you mind telling us if Rav Shmuel shlita used the word akara?)
Now I’m really confused (this time I made sure not to read too fast and transpose words): I thought the age gap was the issue. Or is the (a) major factor that the girls blamed themselves? How did this manifest itself?
My sincere apologies. I misread that line about the girls at fault, and would appreciate if the moderators delete my most recent post.
AZ, thank you for stressing that the girls are not at fault. I really mean it. I’m not the only one here who feels you are sincerely motivated and caring, even if we disagree on a lot and are pursuing other approaches also.
AZ, could you clarify? Are they or are they not at fault?
AZ, I don’t spend time in the beis medrash (thought I facillitate things so the men in my family can). How widespread was the use of the word aguna in this context before the kol koreih? Does Rav Shteinman shlit”a want that word to now become widespread in this context so as to highlight the plight of single girls? If yes, even if many people will find it onaas devarim?
Oh, and I don’t think I ever answered the original question: $750 from each side.
I’ll feel better with the use of the word akara once Rav Shteinman or someome of his caliber does publicly.
“Stop with all the false hope.” I don’t get that. By avoiding using terms that could be hurtful, and that I don’t feel I have the shoulders for, I’m promoting false hope?
If a friend’s child gets engaged and there is an age gap of more than 24 months (in the wrong direction) is my rejoicing in this shidduch perpetuating false hope?
Oomis, re agunos: I’ve said before that as Rav Shteinman shlita uses this term in the kol koreis I have no quarrel with anyone else using it (though I do think it’s a reshus, not chov, and I am not comfortable with it myself). Akaros is over the top.
Back to the original question, folks, get a clue. When we B”H had a successful shidduch in the family we asked around to find out what the going rate is (a layperson was the shadchan, who had no shingle and preassigned rates), and guess what, we found out pretty easily. I can’t believe that people don’t do the same. Why is the answer to this so elusive for so many?
Back to our regularly scheduled program, before this locks or disappears, thanks sm29. I think people know where I’m coming from but it is close to Yom Kipur(im) so if there’s anyone I upset, please be mochel me, and may Hashem be memalei kol mishalos libchem l’tova (and halevai is should be obviously so).
allaboutme, I didn’t mean to belittle your pain or anyone else’s. (Though you did say you manage to have a smile on your face. Good for you, and I hope it impacts your inner life too.) Nor did I say that you are fomenting hysteria.
allaboutme: we happy long marrieds aren’t spending every second of our lives on cloud nine. I just meant that we can all, no matter where we are, try to find some joie de vivre. Think of Rabbi Miller and the story of the full sink as a starting point. I just don’t like the hysteria being promoted. I don’t believe that every older single is crying so hard – every night, not occasionally – that the downstairs neighbors are being flooded, nor that they should be; as an older single male I wouldn’t find that exactly appealing.
allaboutme (and OP): BINGO!
Hashem put us in this world to grow, and give. Marriage is the shortcut to develop ourselves in this way, but until (and after) we get there, we have to joyously embrace the wonderful opportunities life presents us with.
And if you’re going to marry off your son at 18:
Send him to a Zilberman cheder.
Note that the mishna doesn’t refer to how old your daughter in law has to be when she looks for parnasa.
Ir: the word agunos has been used by a gadol atzum in the kol koreih. To me it sounds strange but obviously since he used it it is a legitimate use of the word, even though I’m still not comfortable with it.
Nachas, you say people found out she’s quiet. Please let your references know (and this is a PSA to anyone who may be called for a reference to anyone) NOT to call her quiet. Maybe we can brainstorm to come up with good adjectives that won’t nix a shidduch.
AZ, at the risk of going in circles, which is what the OP wanted to avoid, I have to take issue with encouraging boys to start dating earlier if it will be at the expense of their learning (e.g. artificial cut off dates for learning in E”Y) and without a concurrent, concerted effort to better prepare our boys for marriage.
The question is, is the drinking being done al pi mesorah. There’s a beautiful story in The Heavenly City about a nistar named Baruch Mordechai. We have come (down) a long, long way from that, and some of the other inspiring Purim lore.
Without reading all the posts, ditto to most. I think things are constantly improving here.
If this were the menahel of my daughters’ school, then when I fill out my tuition assistance form I would be sure to let the committee know of this legitimate expense, endorsed by their school. Because then it should taken into consideration too.
I am not for encouraging people to act out of desperation, nor for fomenting desperation, especially if they don’t pay anywhere near full tuition, or will have to rely on tzedaka to do something that may, if some people would have their way, become SOP, r”l.
Oomis, I was playing devil’s advocate. It is accepted not to pay or tip a realtor, especially since the money comes out of the realtor’s successful sale. I was simply saying that heartfelt thanks, a note to his/her superior, maybe even a box of chocolates are all appropriate nice gestures. You’re enough of a mensch that I’m sure you would be appropriately courteous. I’m with you – extravagant, or even less extravagant but still costly gestures are not necessary, and should not be necessary to
a) be considered a mentsch
b) be given future service.
To Lavdavka: how old were you when you started learning chumash, mishna, gemara?
Ah, but Oomis, if you show appreciation to the realtor s/he will be willing to go to bat for you again. The question is, what is reasonable appreciation? I live in a slow enough paced world (not to mention a poor one) that there are simpler and equally meaningful ways to do it.
and a P.S. How about supporting organizations that reach out to kids early (not a plug for Oorah, NCSY, Project YES, etc. but if the shoe fits…) so that no one has to go down this path again.
And I just sent a letter to the governor thanking him for his public service, regretful that this was his decision, but with my sincere hope that it was not made lightly, and best wishes for the future.
Having kids in the parsha, I’ll say that your kid making a good impression on the shadchan goes far, as does courtesy and menschlichkeit, and sincere verbal (and/or written) expression of appreciation for the efforts.
Isn’t the minhag Yisrael that it has to do with the mishloach manos and costume themes?
Unless you’re kofer b’ikar, in which case you can just use whatever your kids made in school.
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to downplay the fun and creativity, as long as IT is fun for you, inexpensive, and not at all stressful.
Tip to anyone wanting to dress up as a munk: A great accessory would be The World of Prayer.
Nathan, I’ll take what you say seriously, but having got to know Oomis from her comments, she doesn’t seem to fit the profile of the unhealthily protective sheltering parent.
This isn’t Mardi Gras. This is very focused drinking. Unfortunately, there seem to be fewer examples of how to drink in the Purim spirit for the next generation to learn from.
And I would like to apologize for prolonging the agony myself.
There are two things that frost me:
– when people are mevazeh the gedolim
– when the proposed solutions seem profoundly counterproductive to producing a healthy generation ready to create healthy homes.
Mod, good point. Though my rich Chassidishe blood has been diluted, and marrying a thoroughbred Litvak has really buried it.
Over the last few generations, as many of us have become, to a degree more Americanized (though B”H with an unbroken chain of shemiras Shabbos in particular), certain things, like excessive nadan (I’m not talking about parents making a chasuna and providing dishes, pots and pans, and maybe the most minimal of furniture) are so far out of my frame of reference that I have a visceral reaction.
And if I knew a given shadchan was of the caliber of the rebbe I would go to were I to go to a rebbe, I might see things differently as well 😉
This is the same argument about “tipping” rebbeim: if people give what they can, from their warmest appreciation, maybe a token gift, and always treating the shadchan or rebbe courteously and speaking well of them, they aren’t entitled to the same full attention as the one who can smear the palms?
And putting myself in a shadchan’s shoes, I might well get more sipuk hanefesh from some of the have-nots and the shidduchim I’d be able to pull off for them.
“Instituting” (note the quotes, I know you haven’t said here it should be required) additional expenses beyond one’s capabilities may cross the lines into achzariyus.
Ok, one may use the shochad argument re any time a shadchan completes a shidduch and the couple gets engaged, but it’s a lot easier to finagle a third date, even when it is clear that it shouldn’t happen. I still stand by it.
And MOST PEOPLE CAN’T AFFORD IT. I can’t see my tuition committee saying, oh, we need more assistance since we have to cheshbon a possible thousand dollars or more in miscellaneous shadchan fees.
Hachnasas kalla is a different story.
And please don’t accuse me, or like-minded people of being chazirim.
Re AZ’s suggestion #2:
Hashochad yeaveir einei pikchim.
Is this the place to rehash the problem with boys leaving Eretz Yisrael at an arbitrary cut off date and dating earlier (i.e. requiring even more support)?
Can you imagine if the tuition crisis were to be attacked with such a dry by the numbers approach?
AZ, could you clarify that Arizal reference? I’m not conversant in the Ari. Does that mean that the maximum age difference is 18 years?
And I’m not interested in getting my kids married at any price. I want them to build happy, batei neeman b’Yisrael. I don’t believe that if my daughter marries someone more than 2.2 years older than she that she’s ruining it for the rest of the world and committing some sort of avlah.
AZ, that line about age gap marriages not being basherte: what age gap would you say puts people in this category?
AZ, a friend’s 20 y.o. daughter just got engaged to a 24 y.o. Seems like a beautiful shidduch to me. But are they perpetuating the problem? How many in range shidduchim will it take for the age gap to narrow? What do the number crunchers have to say about this? And back to our regularly scheduled thread here, older singles: do they have to marry within the range too to not be perpetuating the problem?
(And I will leave aside your breathtaking underestimation of the middos we can and should aspire to, and that a nisayon should be bringing out. You might be stating a reality, people will behave poorly if they can get away with it, but we ignore that at our peril too. Talk about straightening the deck chairs…)
I may have been too shtark in saying, we’ve failed if etc. I don’t mean to judge anyone whose kids have had rocky periods in their lives. I’ve meant, that such a scenario is one that requires introspection. But my apologies if this hit anyone the wrong way.
I think a lot of kids don’t realize it’s not an either or proposition, it’s a now and later one. That is, now he’s in kollel, later he may well work. We don’t do anyone a service by debating it because it’s inevitable that in making the positive argument for one side, negatives will come out about the other. Why not consider them both viable options? As much as we rejoice in the rebuilding of Torah after the churban, we have not failed in our chinuch if a boy chooses not to go into full time learning, and if a girl finds such a boy appealing. We’ve only failed if the boy doesn’t have some positive and consistent serious learning in his life.
Volvie, you’re making a different point than AZ. AZ says that we can talk menschlichkeit once the age gap has improved, irrespective of the historical realities of nadan, etc. I’m still waiting for an answer from that angle, and to a few other questions too.
I do want to apologize for shlepping age into this. I do think that some of the issues that dovetail with it also dovetail with the overall thread.
To Volvie: yes, the dowry was practiced through the doros and you know what? Girls didn’t get married in Europe. It also skipped a generation or two in America. We are encouraging girls to do something radical and that is be the primary support of the family, go out from the penima to an unprecedented degree. Maybe we have to rethink dowries. And I’m not a numbers cruncher, but I do have to wonder, was the dowry demanded 100 or more years ago equal to the five year plan (minimum 1k a month = $60k) or apartments in E”Y that are nearly standard now? Should people support kids – not help out here or there but a hefty chunk of the budget – if they can’t pay full tuition for their minor children or anywhere close to it?
And AZ, the way I follow the reasoning is we have to close the gap, right? Then if there are shidduchim not within the range, is the gap being perpetuated? Do you see mandating marrying within the range as something desirable? If it takes a generation to even the demographics then will this poor behavior continue till then?
Again, I refer people to the Rabbi Reisman shiur referring to the dignity of the bas Yisrael, specifically re shidduchim.
AZ, sometime this year (sorry, don’t remember which parsha) Rabbi Reisman devoted a great deal of one of his motzei Shabbos shiurim to the historical imperative of treating bnos Yisroel with dignity. I don’t buy that the girls aren’t in the drivers’ seat. If they’re not, we are dealing with major cracks in the system – how can we expect the next dor to build batei neeman if they’re built on anything less than 100% ehrlichkeit from all sides?
Leaving all this aside, do you think we are doing our boys a service by sending them into marriage unprepared to deal with the realities of life, including but not limited to parnasa? I think you mentioned you have younger kids. Try to project yourself ten years from now and the kind of hadracha you plan on giving your daughters AND sons (if you don’t have both yet,iy”H, and may you have a happy full home and menucha, seriously).
Why are the slightly older girls – and people don’t just mean 20, they mean older than the boys are – objectively better matches for the boys? Please spell it out.
Then explain why younger boys are objectively better matches for the girls.
Please understand, I’m not at all against helping the slightly older. I do want to know what the GIRLS should be looking for, and why they should be finding it in boys their age (or younger).
Yes, sems are available. You usually have to go through a US program, i.e the school is an Israeli branch of an American program. Totally above board and legit. The schools takes a processing fee.
Two schools I know of are TI (Skokie girls’ program) and Touro. You have to check about how well the credits will tranfer though, and some schools don’t like you using their program if you have no real plan to continue once back in the states.
Is anyone in your school willing to help guide you?
And don’t forget MASA, your local Federation’s grants, etc.