It’s Tu B’Av – Put the Girls in the Freezer

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freezerBy Elisha Ferber, Matzav.com

We’ve heard it over and over again: there are too many girls in the parsha of shidduchim, and too few boys to match them up with. There is a disparity in the numbers of boys and girls.

Some have disputed or distorted the depth of the problem, attributing the crisis to insufficient community involvement in shadchanus, picky parents of boys, and “dollar-seeking.” While all of these may be true, we must realize that these are a results of the shortage problem, not the causes of it.

Consider the following. The same parents who are picky when their sons are in shidduchim, suddenly become very easygoing when their daughters are in shidduchim. While support makes all the difference for their son, money, to a certain extent, is of no importance for their daughter.

While it is difficult to come up with hard numbers to support any percentages, claims, or representations being made, by simply analyzing the situation, certain facts become glaringly obvious.

If a boy in the parsha is going out on a steady basis and a girl in a similar situation does not go on a date for months on end, then there are obviously a lot more girls available than boys.

If shadchanim can get a “yes” from girls within hours of the shidduch being redd, while they have to wait weeks before getting an answer from a boy, then we all have to admit that there is a problem.

The recent surge of interest by the klal in alleviating this disastrous situation is heartening. But the sad truth is that as long as we don’t seriously address the vast “supply” problem, all that will result is a lot of wasted time, energy and sincere effort.  

No matter how many community shidduch groups we organize and convene, and no matter how many housewives turn into full-time shadchanim, not much would change.

If there are, say, 70 boys for every 100 girls, then only 70 of those girls will find a shidduch. While you may be successful in getting “your” shidduch to work, simple mathematics tells us that it will be at the expense of another girl’s engagement. While you may dismiss this as callous, this is painfully true.

What we first learned as 5-year olds playing the game of musical chairs is just as true today. If there aren’t enough chairs, then no matter how many times you play the game, and no matter how you continue to shuffle the chairs, at the end of the day, the same number of people will remain unseated. The only thing that may change is who was lucky enough to get a seat. The analogy to shidduchim is obvious.

What we have accomplished recently with these discussions is nothing more than the equivalent of turning up the music, picking up the pace, and making the eventually unsuccessful game of musical chairs a little more frantic.

The most encouraging solution suggested so far has been for boys to start dating at a younger age and with girls closer to their age.

This is an encouraging idea, but also not the answer. This solution relies on the unlikely premise that difficult decisions will be made by those most unaffected by the problem: the boys and their parents. This is painful to say, but it is probably true.    

The same mother who is having problems marrying off her own daughter sees no reason to “burden her son with marital responsibilities at such an early age.” The boy who is learning seriously in yeshiva at age 21 sees no reason why not to continue learning undisturbed until 23. “What’s the rush?” is the common refrain.

Even if boys would begin dating at age 21 or even 20, this will still leave a 2-year disparity between the boys and the girls, who generally begin dating at 18.

While the above suggestion may slightly alleviate the problem, it is not a complete solution.

If anyone has the power to solve the problem, it is in the hands of those we would think most unlikely: the parents of the girls…

The solution? Put the girls in a “freezer” until the age of 20. Very simply, girls would not begin to go out on dates until they turn 20-years-old. Yes, this may sound laughable at first, but think about it:

– Taking the 18- and 19 year-old girls off the “available” lists would drastically narrow the market. The number of available girls would be cut by thousands.

– Parents who don’t think their 18-year old is really ready to get married wouldn’t have to bend unwillingly to the pressure from those pushing to “marry her off anyway.” She would be protected from that dreaded “ticking time clock.”

– Coupling this with the suggestion that boys begin to date younger, boys would automatically begin meeting girls closer to their age, eventually bringing the age-disparity-gap to a close.

– The stigma of the single 24-year old girl would be gone. After all, she was only allowed to begin dating at 20!

If this would become accepted – and perhaps mandatory – in the community, then shadchanim would no longer redd shidduchim to those girls younger than the age limit. All people would focus their efforts on these, more aptly-matched, girls.

Girls coming out of seminary would have a year or two “without pressure,” during which they could put away some money for after marriage.

We would no longer have the sad spectacle of girls watching their friends get engaged while they are left behind.

When the boys’ “freezer” was first introduced, people said it was “impossible,” “far out,” and “could not be implemented.” That idea is now widely accepted, and has been successful.

The girls’ freezer it is not an ideal or even mildly conventional solution. But we are faced with a severe, and certainly unconventional, crisis.

There are those who would rather take a wait-and-see attitude and simply encourage people to become shadchanim. Some people are uneasy about implementing any kind of new approach, especially one of this magnitude. This is a sad mistake. Sticking our heads in the sand in the hope that this problem goes away is drastically unfair to all the eligible girls out there.

It is widely known that the DeBeers Diamond Conglomerate constantly, actively, and tightly controls the world’s supply of precious diamonds, never letting the supply outnumber demand. They rightfully know that if too many diamonds were to be available to their seekers, people wouldn’t consider them to be worth such immense amounts and their value would diminish.

It is time we begin to show that we treat our daughters like the diamonds they are.

{Matzav.com Newscenter}


59 COMMENTS

  1. agree with the idea-now just get people to do it (not me, my oldest is two!)
    P.S. I married a girl three weeks younger than me!

  2. Your daughters are not diamonds. They are picky narcissistic snobs and that is why your “perfect” daughter is not married.

    Also, freezer or no freezer, everyone will get married when hakadosh baruch hu decides they are ready, no earlier or later. stop trying to play God.

  3. Maybe we could make all girls schools have a grade 13, with college level credits. Then every girl could get a degree by the time she finishes seminary. This would make the girls a year older and help solve the problem.

  4. Are you serious?? Get this straight: THERE IS NO SHIDDUCH CRISIS!!! The “crisis” is how stupidly formal we have gone which is killing communication and choking the entire community! Just a few short years ago people wouldn’t judge every person they saw! This has put pressure on everyone to change who they are externally to portray a certain image to conform and fit in to the community. All this has done has made people live fake lives since they can’t be who they really are due to the pressure society has caused. Why is it ok to have singles events for people to meet, and you can’t seat (in a responsible public place) them at a wedding together?? Why all of a sudden in a close community is a mixed kiddush not appropriate?? These are just a few examples of perfectly good places for singles to meet in a respectful and responsible manner without the pressures of being judged, and guess what, if they don’t feel like it’s “matim” then they don’t need to go out. This alleaviates a lot of pressure, and they don’t need to spend all the time and money a formal date takes. I’m sorry to say but this whole “system” is warped!!! We all keep talking about the issues with the Jewish people and fact is we are the ones causing it all!! Lets start being honest with ourselves here!!

  5. Like the Ferris Wheel.

    No matter how you spin the wheel, the horse behind you will never catch the horse in front of it.

    Every person can date at whatever age they choose, can be as picky or easy going as they want, can marry someone as young or old as they want. Regulating the system won’t solve the problem of unrealistic expectations.

  6. In the time of Chazal, when people were Makdid on all types of Tumah, having more than one wife (with different ‘times’) was almost a neccesity. The Cherem of Rabenu Gershom is an overlooked variable in this equation. No, I’m not advocating its repeal (as if we could -anyway, who could AFFORD it), but just another idea to toss around.

  7. #5 cant understand why we shouldn’t encourage singles to mingle at weddings! hmmmmmm
    Besides that point, are you arguing on the issue, that there are more boys than girls?
    If this is true, then I don’t understand why a two year age gap helps. You are still left with a large amount of single girls.
    As I said in #3 above, my wife is three weeks younger than me. Thats the best I could do!

  8. This solution wont work for one simple reason.

    Parents are so “traumatized” that their daughter will experience problems and pain that as soon as they have a good opportunity they will marry off their 18 yr old daughters!

    What happened to praying to hakodosh baruch hu. Matching zivougim is an extremely difficult job, hazal say as difficult as kiryat yamsouf. Let hashem do his work.

  9. how come we have weddings each & every night ??

    how come our parents did not have these problems. ??

    How about trusting G-D & let him run the show.

    how about scratching that Purchase order.

    I only know of 2 criteria that is a must when it comes to a shidduch.

    Yiras Shomaim is number one & Middos is number two. the rest is all irrelevant.

    Money, Looks, Learning, Family, College Degree. or even Seminary, are all a bunch of Nonsesne.
    so maybe if you cut down that special list ,it will make life a bit easier.

    our parents all come after the war & had no Money & they all started out POOR & somehow they managed & G-D gave them what they needed.

    My children got married young as i had no special criteria. G-D bless they are extremely Happy & non of them went to Seminary & non of them has a college degree. neither did they go to Kollel ,they learn at night, which is fine with me & my children.

    one of my daughters married into a big family needless, to say the had no money & somehow G-D bless they own thier own house, yes they bought it on thier own with a bit help from me.

    so all of you outhere, i dont feel sorry the least bit for you, just try to be normal, or civilized, if you know what that means & everything will fall into place.

  10. In our Yeshiva, it is encouraged that the girls have “a plan” to support their husbands (that usually means getting a degree) that does not really on their parents. As such, many girls wait to get some schooling under their belts, so they will have a headstart before life gets too busy. Similarly, boys view it as a maalah if the girl has more schooling behind her and less ahead and as a result, will opt for the 21/22 year old girl lechatchila over the 19 year old fresh from seminary!

  11. DO YOU KNOW THE GEMARA THAT SAYS BAS PLONI LIPLONI IT DOESN’T SAY TO PLONI,PLONI,PLONI AND PLONI. THE RIBONA SHEL OLOM KNOWS MATH IT MUST BE WE HAVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF BOYS NAD GIRLS OUT THERE PLEASE STOP THE DUMB ARTICLES WITH BAD MATH EQUATIONS. HAVE A LITTLE BITACHON THAT HASHEM KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING AND PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS ON THE CHINUCH SYSTEM THAT ALLOWS BAD MIDDOS TO TAKE ROOT IN OUR KIDS WHILE TEACHING NOTHING IMPORTANT ABOUT SHIDDUCHIM OTHER THAN TO TRY AND GET THE BEST POSSIBLE DEAL.

  12. Nice article and you are right in many ways However, I and many others are so sick of hearing people suggesting “”new rules that HAVE to be implemented or the world is coming to an end!” Yes unfortunately there are way too many single girls out there. Something must be done. However, I don’t think that whoever wrote this article has any daughters finishing high school with two older sisters still in shidduchim. I don’t think he has a wife who is waiting in vain for the phone to ring every night. Don’t tell me that my daughter has to wait now for two years so she can then feel the indignity of having her friends get married while she is sitting at home and waiting with her older sisters for a shadchan to call.If someone calls me for a shidduch for her now I am taking the call and I am definitely going to consider it. Yes it is all in Hakodosh Baruch Hu’s hands, hishtadlus is needed and I dot think waiting two years is considered Hishtadlus.

  13. this article makes no sense. We were put on this world to get married and have children so why prolong that? B”H the boys are getting pushed to date younger lets not ruin this by making the girls wait.

  14. To Yes: what about the boys having a plan?
    All these solutions talk about the girls. What about raising our boys to be men? The next step in this conversation is usually about boys going to E”Y earlier, starting to date earlier, etc. How are we preparing our boys to be mature enough to take on all the responsibilities of life?

    Oh, would I have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the famous pre-dating shmooze…

  15. Somehow in Iran up to several decades ago, boys got married at 18, girls at 13 (a five year difference), and guess what? THERE WAS NO SHIDDUCH CRISIS!!!! This crisis is more the result of expectations on boys (who must be a perfect masmid), and less than demanding ones on girls (all 18 year olds look good, and want a learning husband, without knowing what it entails). GROW UP!

  16. I thought the “age gap theory” was laid to rest. During the past few years while it was being shouted from the rooftops (every rooftop, with 10000W amplifiers, I might add), the quiet but intelligent voices in the masses below denounced the “theory” as a specious, unlikely – and therefore dismissable claim. It seemed for a while that the calm voices of reason had triumphed, and that the public was spared another manipulative duping, and we were happy. But now the noisy ones have reared their heads again.

    The age gap theory is a product of sham mathematics and double-talk. By overcomplicating the issue they try to confuse people to the point where they cannot think it through for themselves and then purport that “experts” back their words. I am here once again to assert that real experts do not back this theory and that the public should not allow itself to be duped and manipulated by the snake-oil salesmen.

  17. Who needs the “extra” girls to go off the derech? Jewish heritage goes after the mother, so they can marry whomever they choose and still raise a Jewish family. Let them go marry grubbe shgutzim from out of the faith – by which I mean they can marry nice Jewish boys from nice Jewish homes who for one reason or another do not plan on learning full-time after marriage.

  18. Don’t know whether you can force the issue, but this works in Eretz Yisroel where the girls generally start dating after 2 years of seminary – no crisis.

  19. The bottom line is that our system is a hybrid one (and somewhat uncomfortable one at that). Basically, families look at shidduchim as a market, and they want to game the system and hold out for the wealthiest, most “statusy” (whatever they value, prominence, yeshivishkeit, heimishkeit, succesful) families, and the most succesful/ambitious boys for their daughters. I am sure that parents of boys do the same thing. This sense of gaming the market and looking for “the best match” is a remnant of the old way of doing things, and as a mindset is still common in very waspy circles too. The actual meeting between the boys and girls is “nor a heichi timtza” to see if it works. A system (with shadchanim primarily to facilitate tzniusdik dating)that emphasizes the choices of the actual boys and girls would produce much more openness. I have friends whose mothers choose who they go out with! If you can’t even decide that, then you are too immature to get married

  20. In practical terms, this is terrible advice.

    The number of eligible boys for a girl drops dramatically for each year that she gets older. Making the girls older when they start, is putting an unbearable burden on them.

    When a girl is 22, she is old and it is MUCH harder to get a shidduch for her.

    May Hashem yisborach have rachamim on us and provide shidduchim for as at the proper time.

  21. I am talking about boys (and girls who want to marry such boys) who plan on learning a good few years (5-7) after marriage. Of course the boy should have a long term plan, but during those kollel years the responsibility of Parnassah generally falls on the girl (as opposed to many circles where it falls to her parents). By us, support is not usually demanded of parents (although some may help out on either side), rather it is the responsibility of the couple (by default – the wife). If you want the husband to “have the plan” and be the breadwinner, than a kollel guy will not fit the bill.

  22. The author of this article is SO right and so on target. Most of the posters here know little or nothing about math, and all of their reasoning is totally flawed. By the numbers, if there are 90 girls and 90 boys born in year A, since we are not at 0 population growth, in year B there will be 100 girls and 100 boys born. If each age group marries within itself, everything works out just fine. But if the boys must marry someone younger, the 90 boys from year A will marry 90 of the girls from year B, leaving 10 single girls from year B without partners. Go to year C, and you have another 10 girls left without partners. It just keeps getting worse and worse as time progresses. The logical, obvious answer is for boys and girls to marry within their own age bracket. The Chasidishe community actually already does this, and they do not have a shidduch crisis. By the way, have you ever paid attention to the meaning of ‘bas ploni l’ploni’? It does not say ‘ben ploni l’plonis’! That means that there is a bas kol only for the male fetuses, decreeing their zivug, and not for the females. That is totally in keeping with the reality of the extremely large number of older single women w2ho are already in their 40’s and 50’s (r”l). The crisis is real, and anyone who does not see it is BLIND!! Author, you are right on target!! Yasher Koach!

  23. “If there are, say, 70 boys for every 100 girls…”

    Sorry – it doesn’t add up (pun intended).
    Statistics say that boys are born just slightly more than girls (52% I heard). So either all the guys didn’t come back from some war that I didn’t hear of, or they went off the derech (lotta drugs to buy).
    30%? Thousands of girls? How?
    So can some mathematical genius please explain the numbers that are missing.
    No explaination = NO CRISES!

  24. nice to see people are almost getting it….. This idea althought if implemented would work…. It has zero chance of being implemented because the parents of girls will not say no to a wonderful idea for their own daughter because of a community problem.

    There are ways to bring about this result without requiring the girls parents to willingly hold back their datughters.

    The effective solutions to the shidduch are on the table in front of the people who are capabled of implementing them

    The community awaits their action

    AZ

    P.S did anyone see the data recently released by the NASI Project of a study fro 22 girls HS across the country of girls (24-29) who are still single despite dating more than 5-10 years

  25. #8 Firstly No I don’t understand why it is an issue having singles mingle at weddings. This is a perfect place for people to introduce others to friends/family etc. It is a public and responsible place. The whole “shidduch system” is so physically, mentally and emotionally draining, there is no reason people cant meet without committment assuming they are respectiful and responsible people. Why should people have to sit for weeks and often months at home waiting for a phone call??? And often once they are recommended someone it take often 3 weeks or more till they actually meet and go out. There is absolutely no reason singles cant sit together at wedding other that that people will worry what otehr people think of them that they made a mixed wedding omg!!! Such a bad thing a mixed wedding!! Get real, the reason there are so many people single is because they dont have a chance to meet people.
    ADDITIONALLY, PEOPLE OPEN YOUR EYES!! ITS NOT LIKE THERE ARE 100% OF GUYS MARRIES AND THE REST OF THE GIRLS IN THE WORLD SINGLE, THERE ARE PLENTY OF BOTH AND THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE AGE DISCREPENCY THAT HAS TO DO WITH US JEWS SHOOTING OUTSELVES IN THE FOOT TRYING TO BE ALL RELIGEOUS WHEN ITS ALL FAKE. BE HONEST, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MIXED SEATING AT WEDDINGS (OF COURSE DANCING IS SEPAPRATE). GET YOUT PRIORITIES STRAIGHT!! IF YOU WANT TO SEE LESS PEOPLE NOT MARRIED THEN HELP THEM OUT DONT MAKE IT HARDER TO MEET GOOD SINGLES!!

  26. 1. Nice to see people are starting to get it.

    2. your math is inaccurate. if boys start dating at 22 and are encourgaged to date girls 20.5 the problem is almost wholl alleviated.

    3. you idea althoug it would work will not be implelmented in out lifetime becasue no parent will willingly say no to a wonderful boys for his 19 year old daugther simplly because there is a communal problem.

    my other post was deleted (i’m not sure why) but I don’t have getult to re-write it.

    suffice it to say that the real solutions are in on the table in front of those who can implement them. The thousands of girls await their action.

    AZ

  27. The person who wrote this article knows exactly what he is talking about. Because of the percentage of population growth if boys keep marrying younger girls there will be a worse and worse problem. It is simple math. Anyone that can’t understand it should have someone explain it to them. Either boys need to start younger or girls need to start older.
    The reason that there was not such a problem in our parents time is that people married closer in age and also there was less people so less growth that exponentially creates this problem. Just to call him names and make fum of him is ridiculous.

  28. this is so not true there are plenty of single boys out there to and boys who are not marketed well dont either get dates the girls are spreading propaganda its equal footing only soulution is to pray

  29. Im not sure what the comparison is between the boys freezer and the girls freezer.

    The boys “freezer” was a rule enacted by BMG-Lakewood about 20 years ago which said that a boy needs to wait 4 months from his arrival time in yeshiva before beginging to date.

    The reason for this was , so that boy becomes aclimated to the new yeshiva enviroment and gains some serious traction in his learning as well before becoming occupied with dating 24-7.

    I myself appreicated the quite “freezer period” before begining the tough rigors of dating.

    How is that in any way comparable to making a girl wait for two years before begining to date?

    If she wants to date at age 18-19 and theres a boy she wants and he wants her, then who has the right to stop them?

  30. I’d like to amend the proposal:

    Put boys into the Freezer until age 23 or 24

    Put girls into the Freezer until age 22 or 23

    Put both boys and girls into the Freezer until they have:

    (1) laid out a collective Plan that is realistic (which will include industry-standard credentialing) as to how they will eventually be able to live financially responsible and independent lives

    (2) passed basic diagnostic tests on both common sense and parenting skills

  31. # 38: You want them to have a realistic, financially responsible plan, common sense AND parenting skills??! With those requirements you are going to run out of freezer space very quickly! THEN WE WILL REALLY HAVE A SHIDDUCH CRISIS, the likes of which we have never seen before.

  32. The problem were having with shiduchim has nothing to do with age. The real problem are the boys who rely upon other for suppport.
    The next reason why there is a shidduch problem is because the girls are MORE educated than the guys. That’s why we have shidduch problem!!

  33. The freezer only works in Lakewood because there is a penalty if a boy disregards the rules. He is thrown out. There is no such authority in place for the girls. Do you think Touro or Brooklyn College is going to throw out a girl if they date before they are done with their ‘freeze’ time?
    If a boy really wants to learn – he should be smart enough to marry a girl a little older who has a degree (that she didn’t have to obtain while pregnant and running a house).
    Take if from someone who got their degree and got married at 22 and supported a Kollel husband for 15 years – it is a huge advantage.

  34. as a 25 yr old bas yisroel, i think that to alleviate the terrible shidduch crisis, marriages should be on a rotational system, sort of like shmitah, where every 7 years the single girls should get a turn.

  35. you know when i was in school, some kids were always picked first in everything. i think it would be only fair to put the obvious first choices (rich, yichusdik, pretty, smart,etc.) in the freezer, thereby giving the “rest of the crop”) first dibs.

  36. i think it would only be fair if there would be a rotational system, where every 7 or so years the single girls would be first on line to date.

  37. To use a famous quote, “There are lies, there are d— lies, and then there are the statistics.”

    Do you know this statement is so true? Since statistics are 100% accurate – only about the narrow slice of the pie they represent. It’s like someone who shows you a stat that most New Yorkers like apples, but then you find out that he’s visiting from LA, and has been to 3 NY homes, and on that he bases his “stats”.

    Musical Chairs is such a stat. In MC you play the song for 20 seconds, then everyone rushes to try to get their seat. In Shidduchim on the other hand, not everyone’s ready to get married after an X amount of dates.

  38. Whatever you suggest, if the numbers are not right, than they still will be the same. There are far more girls than boys, no matter in which way you put them together.

  39. I think news sites write provocative articles to get more people to come to the site.

    And you should realize that helps them sell adds. so your all helping a yid make a parnasa.

    Tizku Limitzvot

  40. I DONT NO WHAT PEOPLE ARE THINKING, BY THINKING THAT HAVING MIXED SEATING IN A WEDDING WILL ELIVIATE THE CRISIS!!
    IT IS TOTALLY OSSUR TO MIX GIRLS AND BOYS TOGETHER TO GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER…
    IN A WEDDING WHERE THE GIRLS (AND BOYS) ARE ALL DRESSED UP IS DATING ONLY FOR THE FUN OF IT.THE GIRL WILL PUT ON A SHOW TO TRY AND ATTRACT A BOY TO HER AND THIS IS ALL FAKE..
    THE GIRL WILL KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE BOY BESIDES FOR WHAT HE DOES AND SAYS IN THE WEDDING!!
    WHY DON’T WE HAVE A MIXED HIGH SCHOOL SO THAT THEY CAN CHOOSE THEIR ZIVUG ASWELL??
    SORRY, U HAVE IT ALL WRONG!!

  41. One person has commented with an actual full name. That’s one more than I expect. I’ll settle for being the second.

    The age gap nonsense is taken to a new level of insanity here. First of all, we have the obligatory absence of substantiation when presenting “The Problem”:

    “If there are, say, 70 boys for every 100 girls, then only 70 of those girls will find a shidduch.”

    That pesky word “if”. Sure, and if there are 70 girls for every 100 boys then only 70 boys will find a shidduch. This doesn’t prove that there is a problem worth addressing. It only presents a hypothetical scenario. The proponents of the age gap nonsense NEVER say definitively “There are “x” boys for every “y” girls” because they really have no idea, only “if there are…” or “suppose there are…” and then they build their straw house from there.

    So not only is their “solution” completely insane, they take for granted that a problem exists that they can only state in hypothetical terms!

    But this person takes the “solution” to a whole new level. Rather than merely manipulating men to go out with women their own age or older (as opposed to going out with the most suitable potential matches, which is what we would suggest if our goal was to create happy and stable Jewish homes) this writer urges PREVENTING the girls from going out until they reach a certain age. This would further force men to date older women.

    In other words, to help women marry, it is suggested that they refrain from dating for several years once they become marriageable. Wrap your Gemara Kup around that.

    What’s most ironic is that the title of the piece is “It’s Tu B-Av – Put the Girls in the Freezer”. In other words, we should honor a Yom Tov that commemorates EXPANDING the options open to singles (encouraging the tribes to intermarry with one another and having dances where the singles met on their own) by PREVENTING girls from dating! I thought the Da’as Torahniks were supposed to fight tooth and nail to preserve tradition, right? What baloney. They make it up as they go along as well as the “apikorsim” they scorn.

    The writer concludes by supporting his argument with the business practices of a diamond monopoly which has a stranglehold on the industry, arguing that controlling the supply of eligible females is a good idea. Yes, that’s exactly what we need in the shidduch world — even more control of singles, tighter rules about who may date whom, and lessons learned from large companies, which of course always engage in ethical practices with the needs of the public at heart.

    Amazing.

    The educational and value-oriented approach of ETM? Sorry, too unconventional for the “frum” population. Because they are obviously a very conventional people.

    I have even better ideas for them, taking their impressive logic to an even higher level:

    1. Once men reach the age of 35 they should be banned from dating anyone younger than them. They had their chance, and probably had lists and lists of young women desperate to marry them, and they blew it. So now they have to marry someone older or never get married. Gedolim should be made to sign this (we have ways of getting them to sign things).

    2. Women over the age of 30 cannot reject any man suggested to them by a shadchan, or they are banned from dating for a full year. This will ease pressure on the younger women in the freezer or just out of the freezer who are hurt by the affirmative action of favoring older women.

    These are only introductory measures. In a few years we will institute rabbinic decrees that no one can reject anyone else without the approval of the shadchan, or they will be banned from dating for one year. The shadchanim will not only decide who dates whom, they will also decide who marries whom. By further tightening control over the singles we will see all the pressures of dating dissipate, people will get married, and if they ever don’t like something we’ll just further tighten our control over them.

    Because, obviously, we know better.

    [Also posted on the EndTheMadness web site.]

  42. in agreement with #10, and in complement to my post on Rav Lau’s article. It would behoove us to ponder how the system portrayed in the Mishna ( girls in white dresses dancing in the vineyards) works. We have just mourned the tragedy of that generation ( and ours) but we really don’t understand them at all. Could we perhaps, abandoning our egos and expectations stage a “workable marriage on sight” marathon as they die, and why not?

  43. Chavi- Even if your name wasn’t chavi, i would have known you are a girl simply due to your math skills. Even with the population growth, there are still an equal number of boys and girls, meaning that for every unmarried girl, there is an unmarried boy looking for her.
    The “solution” (all negative connotations unintended and not at all a comparable crisis) is not dictating what age is supposed to marry what age. The single girls remaining may be a year older than the single boys, but oh well, people will have to get over the “stigma” of dating in that manner. And for everyone who is going to say that it’s only the boys who have a problem dating girls older than them, in my experience that’s not completely true. Girls are just as picky and small minded as guys, if not more so.

  44. just wondering, does anybody beleive in G-D ??

    now if you do, why do you want to take charge ??

    if G-D is running the universe for 5770 yrs. and it was okay , why should it be any different,

    Please dont try to give any advice either & maybe you should do some praying & i am sure they will be answered.

  45. #49 Gateshead Sem Girl, you are so brainwashed its insane!! Rav Moshe Tendler who married Rav Moshe Feinstein’s daughter had a mixed wedding. If there was a problem with mixed weddings then I am sure the POSEK HADOR wouldn’t have let HIS OWN DAUGHTER have a mixed wedding. The proof is in the pudding. Just a few short years ago EVERYONE had mixed weddings. What’s changed??? Nothing other than societal influences that is making us be fake on the outside!! Get your priorities straight! Don’t be holier than the Torah!

  46. #49 Gateshead Sem Girl, you are so brainwashed its unbelievable!! Rabbi Moshe Tendler who is married to Rav Moshe Feinstein’s ZT”L daughter had a mixed wedding! If it was so Assur to have a mixed wedding then I am sure that the POSEK HADOR wouldn’t have let HIS OWN DAUGHTER have a mixed wedding!! The proof is in the pudding. Just a few short years ago ALL WEDDINGS where mixed!! Get your priorities and your facts straight!! You obviously have no clue about Halacha!! Don’t be holier than the Torah!!

  47. Yes, AZ, I saw the NASI numbers printed in a newspaper ad.

    The first thing I noticed is that the numbers shown do not add up to the totals shown. I guess the actuaries didn’t think anyone would notice?

    Second, I assume that the numbers you are showing are the worst cases of all the schools out there (and I am very generously assuming here that you didn’t just make the numbers up). In that case it strikes me as perfectly normal situation – the schools that cater to girls who are not inclined towards early marriage will surely have single girls as much as 10 years after high school.

    Your ‘data’ deserves as much credence as Bernie Madoff’s books, and your claims are as wild as Kupat Hair. You’ve stooped to a new low here with this suggestion for even more manipulation. I don’t doubt your intentions are good, but good intentions are but paving stones.

  48. to #56

    1. Please clarify which numbers don’t add up

    2. The schools represented are a borad spectrum across the states of Yeshiva Style HS. By means is it a representation of the “worst schools” out there. it is simply the 22 HS that were contacted. Specific scool names couldn’t be published for obvious reasons. Feel free to call all the schools yourself and do the same resereach, then contact the NASI Project and compare notes.

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