Sending Girls to Seminaries and the Shidduch Crisis

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7th in a Matzav.com series, By Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin MA

All actions have reactions and nothing happens in a vacuum.

When a girl and her parents in America make the choice for the girl to be sent overseas to Israel after she graduates high school to study at a seminary in Yerushalayim, it affects both the girl and her future shidduch options. It also impacts the yeshiva boys she may want to marry.

The accepted idea is that attending a good seminary will enhance her shidduch prospects. So from around the time the girl is in eleventh and twelfth grade in high school at a great Bais Yaakov, her head is already in the seminary subject that goes with dreams of travel, touring, having fun, inspired lectures about all sorts of subjects, etc. She spends a year and sometimes two years in this dizzying seminary environment, and when she gets back, it takes at least another year for her to re-land and readjust to life back to normal at home.

Question: How is all that a “preparation” for the hard job of marriage, running a household, often with a full time job to cope with, as well as motherhood and child-rearing?

This means that from about age 17 to age 20 or 21, many girls are thinking about seminaries in Israel and are not actively going out yet. Those non-dating years for those girls are the equivalent of being “in the freezer,” meaning they are out of circulation from active shidduch dating.

What are the consequences of this for the yeshiva boys?

It is assumed that “good learning boys” will also spend some of their post-high school years in a yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel. That usually happens after the boys spend at least two or three years in post-high school bais medrash in America, and then they go to Eretz Yisroel for a year or two or more. When they return, they start dating seriously. That means that from the ages of about 18 to 22 or 23, the boys are not dating and they’re in an extended “freezer.”

We also know that there is a so-called “shidduch crisis” for all age groups. So one may ask, is there any connection between the way girls and boys put off getting married in favor of going to seminaries and yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel and the resulting shidduch crisis, since all actions have reactions and nothing happens in a vacuum?

Recently, there were again full page ads in the major English language charedi papers calling on bochurim to marry at a younger age, meaning not waiting longer than about age 21.

I agree 100% with the call for boys to marry at a younger age, especially in our times, when by 21, a good full-time learning boy is already a strong lamdan, having received the finest chinuch in the world’s best yeshivos.

But I look at things like this as a big “sugya” [subject], and as with any regular sugya, we all have our own kushyos and tirutzim [questions and answers] – at least we think we do until we get shlogged up [refuted].

So this is my big kasha on this very big sugya, and I will be glad if I can get shlogged up: Who are the American boys supposed to marry at 21 if all the good American 18, 19, and 20-year-old girls are away in seminary in Israel? And how can the American boys get married if they are all in Israel at that age far away from home, since they will not marry frum Israeli girls either?

The above kasha is for the American English-speaking yeshiva olam, because the Chassidishe velt does not have this problem. No Chassidic groups anywhere send their daughters far away to any seminaries. They keep them close to home through high school, and by the end of high school, the 17- and 18-year-old girls become kallahs, because they go from graduating from their various high schools to the chupah with little real delay.

Likewise for the Chassidishe boys. They have little or no secular studies and they learn in yeshiva continuously until they get married, but they start with the parsha of shidduchim from the age of 18 or 19, and by 20 or 21 most are married. Their parents are actively guiding and helping them in all this, making shidduchim for their children from the get-go.

Same for all charedim in Eretz Yisroel, even among the Litvishe. They do not send their daughters overseas to seminaries, and the boys are all learning in Eretz Yisroel, so making shidduchim is not interrupted by delays due to travels to far-off yeshivos or seminaries, and they therefore can indeed get married between the ages of 18 to 21. After all, it does say in Pirkei Avos, “At 18 to the chupah.”

At one time, there were great social and political upheavals going on, so marriage was sometimes delayed, like during the years of the two World Wars in the 20th century. But in our own times, frum society has all the freedoms in America and Israel to function as dynamic fully operative Torah societies, with all the benefits of the modern world to help them.

Yet, the American yeshiva world does not do it that way. We have developed a counter-intuitive trend of sending boys and girls away from home at the most crucial time when the boys and girls are at the most desirable age for marriage.

You don’t have to be a great sociologist or chochom to know that a girl is most ideal for marriage at the ages of 17, 18 and 19. When a girl turns 20, she is already in a different category. This is not rocket science.

So why are we sending our daughters away and taking them off the shidduch market when they are most ideal? Would one delay picking a crop of the most wondrous foods for a year or two for such reasons? The crop will just grow old and “wither on the vine.”

Some people will say that a girl is not mature enough to marry at 18 or 19. So let me ask you: How does sending her away from home for a year or two to a strange country where you are not sure who is supervising her all the time, and letting her go on tours and have fun, fun, fun, and have a great one-year vacation etc, lead to her becoming mature? Mature from that?

Others may say she needs the extra chinuch. And my question to that is, what has she been doing the 12 years she was in Bais Yaakov and all those summers she went to the best day camps and sleep-away camps, and what about her home? Has that not all taught her more than enough to start her own family?

Anyhow, coming back to my kasha: Why are people calling on American bochurim to get married at a young age, which I agree is 100% correct, when those same bochurim do not really have anyone to marry because all the good American 18- and 19-year-old girls are away in seminaries in Israel?

And the follow-up to that: Why are people not calling on American girls not to go to seminaries if it takes the good girls out of circulation for shidduchim? At age 18 or 19, let them be ready to marry those 21-year-old good bochurim who would probably love to marry them but they are not around.

Houston, we have a problem!

To be continued…

Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin lives in Flatbush and is the Director of the Jewish Professionals Institute www.jpi.org and his wife Zahava, although they are not Shadchanim, have counseled many in the area of Shidduchim and dating. He can be reached at [email protected] or 718 382 5610 and 718 382 8058.

Prior articles in this series on Matzav.com:

1) The “Shidduch Crisis” Was Created by Humans

http://matzav.com/opinion-the-shidduch-crisis-was-created-by-humans/

2) Shidduch Resumes & Shidduch Crisis

http://matzav.com/shidduch-resumes-shidduch-crisis/

3) Shidduch Resumes and Bottlenecks

http://matzav.com/shidduch-resumes-and-bottlenecks/

4) Shidduch Resumes and Reality

http://matzav.com/shidduch-resumes-and-reality-part-iv/

5) Shidduch Resumes and Geography

http://matzav.com/shidduch-resumes-and-geography-part-v/

6) It’s Not a “Shidduch Crisis,” It’s a “Chesed Crisis”

http://matzav.com/its-not-a-shidduch-crisis-its-a-chesed-crisis-part-vi/

{By Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin MA for Matzav.com, (c) 2016}

 


301 COMMENTS

  1. Please don’t say that a 20 or 21 year old girl has “withered on the vine.”
    It is these fallacious, exaggerated terminologies that cause hysteria among both parents and their children. This causes many improper reactions. People no longer deal with shidduchim with mentshlichkeit, kindness and consideration to others, patience, calmness, and Tefillah. This creates the crisis!

    • Sorry about that and I apologize to anyone whose feelings are hurt.

      My aim is to write analytically and to use language to illustrate my points. In English writing good writings depends on the use of effective “images” that are words or phrases that convey a point. The point you are referring to is that it is safe to assume that your average, normal, American English-speaking Yeshiva boy, like all normal American boys that age, if he is going to date, he will want to go out with someone younger than him by a couple of years.

      Therefore, if we know there is a positive trend to encourage Bochurim to marry younger, by 21 say, then we must also free up that cohort of girls who are desirable in their eyes, and that means younger girls need to be available to them to go out. If most of the good 18 and 19 year old girls are in Seminaries in Israel it’s a problem, meaning it adds to the “Shidduch Crisis” for that group of people.

      Some people feel it is good to lock up girls in far off countries and keep them off the market because there are “too many girls” already, while others say “let the boys marry older girls or girls their age” — but from own experience as a father having married off five children from 2005 to 2015 through the Yeshivish dating system, and from speaking with and counseling many other, most American English-speaking Yeshiva boys turn up their noses and say “she’s too old” when someone suggests an older girl to them, even by a year or two. These Bochurim are NOT as accepting as the Chasidisha Bochurim are of their parents guiding them to marry girls who are a year or two older than the boys. That’s a different Oilem and mindset.

      So there is no real “polite” way of saying that as long as a girl is 18 or 19 she is suitable for a 21 year old boy, and then when she reaches 20 or 21 she’s already the same age as the boy and then you have that reaction from the American English-speaking Yeshiva boys that they do not feel comfortable with a girl their own age or an “older” girl.

      If you feel I am “off” with this scenario, feel free to disagree and good luck trying to force those 21 year old boys to go out with girls their age or older than them!

      Sincerely,
      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin.

      • You’re right. We, of course, should cater to the absolute lowest denominator – nay, encourage it! Instead of teaching young men – and their parents – that age and looks are not the primary consideration, we should cater to that demographic exclusively and emphasize that the only value a young woman has is in her looks. Sir, people like you are the PROBLEM, not the solution. It’s your attitude towards young women that is the issue here. If someone (or the community) is displaying bad middos like shallowness, it behooves us to try and CHANGE that. The attitude you espouse is misogynistic at BEST. Encouraging young ladies to NOT further their own personal growth to satisfy some fetish about teenagers being more attractive or to perpetuate this absolutely bizarre notion that a young woman must be younger than a young man, is doing the entire community a disservice. Those young women, those young men, the marriages you are encouraging based on superficiality alone. I suggest, rather than defending what was obviously insulting and denigrating language and opinions of female worth in the article, you write a NEW article encouraging young people in the community and their parents to look at the long-term picture that is marriage. Spouses should be chosen for compatibility in life, not presented as product nearing expiration.

        I think you should consider, as an author, your impact on others. Your comment about young ladies (and 21 is very much a young lady) is needlessly hurtful, and yet you defend it as your ‘writing style’. “I’m sorry people were hurt, but you’re wrong and this was okay” is not an apology. Dedicating an article to saying that a woman’s value is her physical attractiveness damages the self esteem of those girls, and it’s frankly bullshit. You’re married, sir – is your wife’s only value in her looks? Of course not; being an empathetic, loving, generous person with whom you share hashkafa and general life values has likely gone far further in sustaining your marriage than the height of ‘ripeness’ at which you picked her. Consider that, and consider the growing number of divorced women with children who are in their early twenties, married off before they were ready and based on arbitrary factors like age. The yiddishe velt would do far better for themselves and for those growing up within if we emphasized that marriage lasts beyond those first few ‘ripe’ years, and helped our young people choose spouses accordingly.

        • Could not have said better!!! I was appalled by the author’s article. Thank you for your response as it speaks volumes on many readers behalfs.

        • Do you even know what is going on the Frum English-speaking Yeshiva Velt, the ones with the Shidduch Crisis? You gave a nice speech, minus the profanity of course, but you are not getting down to brass tacks.

          Bottom line, there is no escaping, that if as the Yeshiva Rabbis are now B”H doing and calling on Yeshiva Bochurim to marry by age 21, then it is not “extreme” to call out to girls that they too are being called up to be ready at a younger age, from 18 for sure to START going out. It does not mean that every girl will marry at 18, but she has to be ready to start.

          This is in fact just another NORMALIZATION of Torah society that has already happened and it’s a set fact in the Chasidisha and Israeli Charedi worlds, and now the American Yeshiva world is playing catch up.

          Yes, it does mean that girls may have to change their study plans and think about the importance and immediacy of the MORE IMPORTANT attention required to get married.

          Yitschak Rudomin.

          • You got it all wrong.

            Additionally, Rabbi, tell me this. The internet was made assur way before anyone suggested boys date younger. Do us all a favor and get off the internet …

          • Sir, you maybe know something about the “English-speaking charedi world”, but probably have got no faintest idea about the Israeli one. So many divorces, so many horrific family situations, just because of that. People just get married whenever they feel like. If there was any attempt in the near past to really comply with what you so delusionally describe as “now B.H…. calling… to marry by age 21”, which of course took its toll until it became unbearable, there is no such effort anymore whatsoever, except maybe in your dreams. How about you do your research, your homework.

          • i’ll stay anonymous on this, but the following is self-explanatory.

            kawshin zivucheihem ke-krias yam suf. it all boils down to tefilah.
            we unfortunately live in galus. and we must put extra effort into our tefilos.
            like it says in Aichah:”sawsam tefilaw-si”
            sidduchim is just one example of the many personal struggles of every yid in galus.
            (do not forget the segula of learning Zera Shimshon!)
            bracha vi-hatzlocha

        • Absolutely amazing! So incredibly well-put.
          Thank you for verbalizing exactly what I was thinking as well, and so concisely, too!

        • i’ll stay anonymous on this, but the following is self-explanatory.

          kawshin zivucheihem ke-krias yam suf. it all boils down to tefilah.
          we unfortunately live in galus. and we must put extra effort into our tefilos.
          like it says in Aichah:”sawsam tefilaw-si”
          sidduchim is just one example of the many personal struggles of every yid in galus.
          (do not forget the segula of learning Zera Shimshon!)
          bracha vi-hatzlocha

        • Yes Sara, the Jew is always “the problem” that’s why the Nazis called it the “Jewish problem” and then they set about killing off all the Jews, hope you do not plan on doing it to me CH”V, just look at the what happened to the Nazis after they tried to solve their “problem” — they lost big time!

          Yitschak.

      • The problem is that america has a bleak future for jews. Instead of trying to perpetuate communities that are already starting to fail, you should be concentrating on how to make aliyah and live full jewish lives in israel. America is only going to get worse. There is no shidduch crisis here in eretz yisroel.

        • Thank you. Given his interpretation it was if American Jewish Families are the goal, NOT! The future of the Jewish people has, is, and will be the real golden medina, Eretz Yisrael.

        • You have a better plan? Let’s hear it. The current system is broken all around. The more modern crowd has a terrible singles problem and the Frum yeshiva crowd has a “Shidduch Crisis” I am sure many people would welcome some constructive suggestions instead of bellyaching about me.

          Thanks,
          Yitschak Rudomin

          • How about this:
            Give boys and girls the time and resources to develop into thoughtful, mature and deeply rooted ohavei torah v’mitzvot. The kind of people who look deeper than a year’s difference in age to whether they are, as a unit, capable of building a strong family that will have a deep connection to our faith and tradition.

            Just a thought.

          • “Rabbi” it’s your thinking of the old system that was the problem. Forcing kids to marry before their ready, pushing girls to appear as an aesthetic object in the yeshiva world. No wonder eating disorders have run rampant in those same communities.

            This is absurd. The shidduch crisis is a made up thing. People have just become smarter and more educated and are now not jumping into an extremely crucial decision as much as they used to.

            You also falsely cast the years in Israel as ‘fun, fun, fun’ alluding to them being wasted years. Every Yid should have the opportunity to spend time in eretz hakodesh and live on their own there. You gain a tremendous amount of maturity and perspective from that year.

            I agree with others who note that your type of thinking is the problem. By labeling it such a crisis and making young Yids worry about their marriage process as the days go by, who would want to partake in such a shameful exercise. This rhetoric has caused Yids who are unwilling to abide by the cruel constraints with age and aesthetic neurishkeit to give up and be OTD.

        • The longer the post, the less is said.
          Let’s keep this simple. If people felt like the ought to, Gemara wouldn’t spend so much time discouraging behavior that will encourage evil talk
          Boys all shallow- deal with it!

      • Have you ever met a young women who has been to seminary? In a different comment you call them spoilt, entitled, brattish, rich girls who are treated like princesses (I could go on but it’s just so stupid I can’t even bring myself to write it). This is so totally incorrect it’s unbelievable; As one of these ‘princesses’ that you write about, I can tell you that you’re wrong, that most seminaries don’t cost a ‘king’s ransom’, that girls go to Israel to learn and grow, to learn about their religion, and to have a stronger relationship with Hashem. But clearly you think that this is only for boys, and the girls should wait for them, longingly, until they are saved from a lifetime of non-existence by the chupah!

        • Good for you. He doesn’t mention the value of learning Torah once! I was so puzzled by how ridiculous the article was I was sure it was Purim Torah!

          • B”H there is more Torah being learned in our times by more Bnai Torah than ever before. That is no longer the challenge because everyone is now B”H educated and learning.

            Now we have a more serious problem, how to live as NORMAL Frum Jews, and as long as more and more very learned scholarly Jewish singles are piling up, both males and females sitting around learning, studying being wise people but not getting past the first step in life of getting married, we have a huge problem. Please stay focused.

            Imagine tens of thousands of Frum people who never had Bar or Bat Mitzvas, or boys sitting and learning in Yeshivos by the thousands who never managed to get a Bris, would we even allow that for one day?

            So why is not getting married something we can “take in stride” when it is a worse emergency since lives are going down the drains?

            This is what we are discussing and analyzing and doing some brain-storming and see if we can people to be shaken up a bit and get going and not sit around all day learning and studying when they have a more important Mitzva to do that does not contradict either their desire to learn or sitting and learning and become wise, yet still remaining communities of bachelors (Alta Bochurs) and spinsters (Alta Meidlach) in the tens of thousands and getting more not less, there is something very wrong with such a scenario don’t you think?

            Something is badly broken, and it needs to be fixed, give suggestions please not personal attacks on me that solves nothing.

            Yitschak Rudomin

      • The way you write makes me feel like you think girls are like cattle. Or perhaps very expensive Arabian horses. There are lots of reasons to want to go to Israel. And trust me – everything that a girl learns in the yeshiva system already is priming her for nothing but marriage and children. Be skinny so you find a shidduch. Get good grades so you can help your children with their homework. Dress like this and go to this school so you can get a good husband. From the moment a girl is born her every action is meant to shape her into a wife. Gnug!!!!!!! It’s enough to drive a person crazy. Fich to your bochrim and fich to your whole primitively system. The maidels of your towns will all be back soon to be your wives and cleaning ladies and child carers while you go learn and hock around about diamonds or real estate or whatever. Can’t we please just get a year or two before we give over our minds bodies and souls and just…. be? Does seminary have to also be a tool to further prepare us for marriage? Can’t we just… be curious? Learn? Have new friends? See new sights? Not as future wives and mothers of klal Yisroel but as… you know. People. With likes and dislikes. And interests.

        And if your precious bochrim want to marry at 21… maybe they should learn to date 21 year old. Or even, heaven forbid, 22 and 23 and 24 year olds.

        I’m 26 (Hashem yishmor) and I look great. I have a lot of energy and make very interesting conversation. And since we are encouraged to try to have a kid every year or so, starting a few years later will still give you plenty of time to make your bakers dozen.

        Stop putting so much pressure on us women and start worrying about yourselves. On average we are in better shape, physically and mentally, we don’t smoke cigarettes and we don’t have yeshiva bellies/guts. Not everything needs to be fire and brimstone in this religion and really wish the yeshiva world would lighten up a bit and stop pressurizing our youth to behave in exactly the way they think is best.

        Thanks!

      • Or we can instead teach these bochurim that a woman his age or a year or two his senior isn’t “too old” and that there is no reason for them to turn up their noses instead of telling young women not to pursue their own education in seminaries.

  2. “Who are the American boys supposed to marry at 21 if all the good American 18, 19, and 20 year old girls are away in seminary in Israel?”

    How about the 21 year old American girls? Maybe the reason we have a shidduch crisis is because of people like the author of this article, who calls 20-year olds “fruit who have withered on the vine”.

    Completely appalling.

    • See my response above to “nisht”!

      And yes, I agree it is the actual Shiduch Crisis that is “appalling” and not any rational discussion and exchange of views about it.

      And always remember, do not kill the messenger because you hate the message!

      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin

      • “Kill the messenger”? You’re not just a messenger, you’re exactly what creates the problem.

        Your logic is that 21 yr old Yeshiva boys won’t want to date someone their age or older, THEREFORE we have to keep the younger girls available for them.
        I don’t understand how you can’t see the irony. That logic is absolutely backwards.

        You’re saying that if Group X has an immature stigma, then we need to make Group Y fit that agenda, instead of simply fixing Group X. Imagine the following:

        “In my house, we have a crisis. My 3 year old likes to hit my 5 year old when I’m not looking. We can solve this by making sure my 5 year old is alone with my 3 year old as much as possible. Hey, the 3 yr old is going to hit anyway, so we need to entertain that.”

      • I’m sorry, the only way you can claim to be the messenger is if you prefaced everything in your article as “some backwards misogynists believe that…..”

      • A messenger not wishing to get killed should think his message out carefully first, especially if he is in the role of supposed advisor to his ‘flock’, which a Rabbi generally is, and which you assume by virtue of this article. The bottom line question you refuse to ask yourself is this: Why aren’t you all encouraging these young people to marry IN ISRAEL, AND STAY IN ISRAEL – what’s the point of saying ותחזנה עינינו בשובך ליציון three times a day and then, like those in Sura and Pumpedita, turning your backs on what Hashem has gifted us all – the ability to LIVE HERE AND MARRY HERE AND RAISE OUR FAMILIES HERE IN ISRAEL!!!! Has it ever occurred to any of you that it is not “normal” to go back to the US in order to raise Jewish families? (Supposedly frum ones, who supposedly keep saying ותחזנה three times a day?)

        • Funny how the same MOs and RZ’s and Bnai Akivaniks who scream and shout that their daughters must show up to serve in the secular male-dominated IDF at 17 or 18, and be stuck there with all the problems for 2 or more years, while they think that showing up at 18 to get married in a Kosher way under the Chupa to a nice Yeshiva boy is something from Mars? Just shows how off they are!

          • Rabbi, you have not addressed at all a very valid question. What do you really mean davenning 3 times a day asking Hashem to go to Zion and then doing everything possible to stay and raise a family in America? Have you no legs?

          • Most MO and RZ rabbis and communities discourage (quite successfully) girls from joining the army. That’s why they developed Sherut Leumi instead.

  3. I guess I must be ancient – this shidduch ‘crisis’ as I have said previously is NATO No Action Talk Only.

    I am a Baby Boomer, and in the old days – girls went to ‘college’ (Chillul hashem #1) boys went to college (Chillul Hashem #2) would meet and not look at reumes etc but look at the person.

    My wife was 19 going on 20 when we got married I was 22 going on 23 – and basically that’s the way it was in those days – now we created a ‘check list’ of requirements both monetary and yichus etc – everyone if ‘checking’ out the prospects ‘dancing’ around and not getting anywhere.

    Someone has to have the initiative to review the whole process – and until that time all the articles and messages go on deaf ears.

    Thanks you for allowing me to share my view – note I have several young ladies who are looking for shidduchim, but want working men – where have they gone ??????

  4. I have a few questions on this idea:

    1. Why can’t the bochurim who would get married at 21 marry the girls who just came back from seminary?

    2. Why oh why are girls who are 20+ considered less desirable than a girl who is under 20? What changed in a girl’s life from 19 to 20 that suddenly makes her less of an eligible prospect for shidduchim? Does the probability that a 20-year old girl has more of an idea of what she wants in life than her 19-year old peer does make that 20-year old girl less capable of being a great wife and mother?

    • Think of its as trying to level the playing field for EVERYONE.

      That we undertake to go by one guideline as Torah and Orthodox and Charedi and Chasidic and Halachic Mitzva -observant Jews, and we do as the Mishna advises us, it’s in the Halacha and Shulchan Aruch as well but I have tried to avoid “reading you that riot act” that the ideal age to marry is 18 and that one can delay to 20, but not longer, and no one today is like the holy Ben Azai who found completion in life through Torah learning.

      After the Holocaust there was an emergency situation, everyone had to contribute a bit of their life and be like a Ben Azai and delay marriage a while to rebuild Torah in the world after the terrible loss of the 6 million Kedoshim martyrs and the destruction of the Torah bastions of Europe by Nazis Y”SH.

      But now, by the Jewish year 5776 in 2016 we are in a different place. B”H Torah has been rebuilt and is flourishing in Eretz Yisrael and the USA, and it is now time to get back to the business of being NORMAL Torah Jews and that means we start getting our young people to think and act like they know that around the age of 18 they will be expected to go to the Chupa. For some it may be 17, and for others it may 19 or 20, and this is already being done in the Chasidic world in the USA and Israel and by almost all Charedim including the Litvish Yeshiva people in Israel, so now it is the American Yeshiva Oilem that is being called upon to fall into line.

      That is the real message of the constant Kol Korehs and full page letters signed by so many Litvish Gedolim and Roshei Yeshiva, that the time is now ready for this. The Roshei Yeshiva would not be telling Bochurim to marry by 21 if they felt there was a danger to the Torah world. Until now it was the Roshei Yeshiva who Paskened that it was Muttar for a Bochur to delay marriage to a later age in order to be Marbeh and Marbitz Torah, but the Roshei Yeshiva are now saying to us, Rabbosai, the Torah learning emergency is now over, you can stand down, we do not need you because we have many tens of thousands of higher quality younger Talmidim now streaming into our Yeshivos, and therefore PLEASE go get yourselves married ASAP and by all means keep on learning for as long as you can BUT do NOT neglect the INDISPENSABLE Mitzva of Marriage!!!

      That means, the eligible boys and girls are now freed up by an earlier age to get married, and the same now applies to the girls, they do not have to sit around in seminaries to “TALK” and “PHILOSOPHIZE” about the importance of marriage but they need TO DO IT ASAP meaning start earlier in life, and for everyone there is one starting date when coming into the field, at 18 is the best time for this. Do what you want, it is not a contradiction, you can be in seminaries at 18 and still get ready to go to the Chupa, or you can turn 11th and 12th grades in the high quality Bais Yaakovs into “seminary programs” without all the hassles and expenses of flying off to Israel and making your parents and the world crazy and bankrupt.

      Hope this message is starting to sink in!

      Yitschak Rudomin

  5. Well said, but I would add to that. At a time when parents will need what ever extra money they have to help their children set up a new home not even counting the money a wedding costs they are spending fortunes to send their daughters off to seminary. A major waste of money. But as parents we are trapped in this crazy scheme. I have been told by shadchanim that girls that do not do the year in Israel are considered class B girls. I go to Eretz Yisroel every year and I see what goes on. I am not saying these girls are in any way misbehaving but if they are home they would never be out roaming the streets at night because they need to get out of their dorms or begging people to give them meals on Shabbos or espcially for Yom Tov. It is so unbecoming but we have managed to put a spin on it that it’s part of the Israel experience. I appreciate the fact that Israeli seminaries are supporting many families in Eretz Yisroel but at whose cost?

    • If the Shadchanim think that spending a year in Israel is “required” let them pay for trips, and then let’s see what they say!

      I have three young married daughters who got married through the Yeshivisha Shidduch system and none of them went to Seminary in Israel. They went to local good Seminaries in Brooklyn, yes they do exist!!! They married great Bochurim from good Frum families. Come to think of it, after 10 years of working to marry off all our kids between 2005 and 2015, at the end of it all, our kids did not meet their Basherts through formal Shadchanim. It was our close friends and friends of our children who came up with the winning ideas!

      This reminds of years ago, when the American yeshivos were put under pressure to organize as a group in order to have a “body” to represent them to the USA government to be eligible for student loans for students, that the Gedolim had a discussion about this. Some Gedolim held that there was a danger in creating even a weak organization because once you do it, then you have people working in the organization and like any bureaucracy they will take over and act like they are “in charge” and they will then tell the Roshei Yeshiva what do do!

      Same thing with Shadchanim, we have created this new autocratic “institution” that is now telling us if our daughters are “A” or “B” grade and judging us! Who gave them the right to judge us or to order us around? They “work” for us and we do not “work” for them! They should be helping us solve the problems and not reinforce prejudices, and that is also part of this mess known as the “Shidduch Crisis”.

      That is why I have been saying in my prior articles that we ALL need to become Shadchanim. Fine, if you want to work with Shadchanim go for it, always remember to always be very polite and follow what they say, but at the same time do not imagine that they “control” your child’s destiny, because that is your job, to protect your child and not take insults from Shadchanim.

      In the Chasidisha Velt no girls go overseas to expensive seminaries and guaranteed that their Shadchanim do not therefore “judge” girls as “As” or “Bs” based on going to seminaries in far-off Israel because they skip stage “A” and “B” and go right to “C” and talk Tachlis to help people find Shidduchim for the kids and not give the parents hurtful unsolicited judgments about their precious Yiddisha Tochters.

      • How about noone should be judged? Not the girls who stay home or the girls who go to seminary? How about spreading ahavas yisroel instead of more prejudices and boxes in which we have to ‘fit’ in. We are Jews , we are all simple Jews who r trying to serve God on our own path and if our path isn’t leading our 18 yr old girl to marriege then have more emunah in Hashem. I think the shidduch crises is that there should be more education in the girls schools about emotional abuse and how to steer away from it and that boys should be more educated about abuse situations as well and how to let out their anger and frustration. I think that the problem is that we are not allowing our kids to be ‘ready’ to get married. Marriege as u said nicely in your article is a huge responsibility and some kids are not ready for it. Most kids are not at 18 in my opinion. Divorce is prevelent and people are scared so their holding their kids tighter and not allowing them to not date the ‘perfect’ girl. Lower this fear, give kids the confidence and knowledge to know when they see their chattan and allow them to know themselves enough to find their soulmate. We need more emunah, we need more ahavas chinam and we need more awareness. These three ingredients will only lead to good things.

  6. This theory is not accurate AT ALL. The main reason for the Shidduch crisis in the Yeshivishe circles is because the Bais Yaakov’s are breeding super women, where they know much more that the boys, who only know Gemara, Rashi and Tosfos. The girls know Chumach, Navi, Halacha, Dikduk, Yedios Klaliyos, History, as well as being proficient in al lthe English subjects. This being said, the quality of the boys does not match the girls. The Bais Yaakovs are not doing a service to the girls with this ideology. This is NOT what Sarah Schenirer had in mind when she founded the Bais Yaakov movement. Today, the girls schools B’shita overwork the girls just so they have no time to “do anything wrong”. Once out on the market, these girls can’t find someone they can look up to.

  7. Why cant people do what they want – Both Girls and Boys can go to EY when they want. What are these ridiculous calculations ? People can get married when they want to whomever they choose older/younger .
    Why are you forcing anyone to do anything ? Are you a Bais Din ? Where is this in the Thorah ?
    This is all made up.

    • I agree with you.

      But there have been huge ads lately in the English Charedi papers like the Yated etc signed by dozens of prominent rabbis calling on Yeshiva boys to marry younger at 21. That is not coming from me, and no I am not a Bais Din, and even if I was no one would listen!

      My latest article is in response of the Rabbanim and Gedolim calling for Yeshiva Bochurim to marry by 21. I am saying that if that is so, and I happen to agree that in the Yeshiva Velt there is no reason to delay marriage, if the Rabbanim are calling on boys to marry younger, then there should be a cohort of younger girls for them to marry. As I have stated a few times above, the average normal American-type English-speaking Yeshiva Bochur will not feel comfortable going out with a girl his age or older than him. They would be looking for potential partners who are a year or a couple of years younger than them that means girls who are 18 or 19 or 20.

      Some people disagree with me about this assessment. I had a very long conversation on the phone with someone in reaction to this article who told me that “statistically” there are already “more girls than boys” on the market and that by letting 18 and 19 year old girls go on Shidduchim it would make things worse, meaning the so-called “Shidduch Crisis” worse, and not better! Furthermore that person insisted that with the Gedolim asking boys to marry younger they are trying to help the “older” girls meaning those who are 21 or older. If you agree with that fine, but I stand by my position that in the USA the mentality among the American Yeshiva boys is that they will want to go out with 18 and 19 year old girls, and of course in the very Yeshivish circles that goes with the parents supporting them in Kollel.

      I say HaShem should bless all the parents that want to help support their children in Kollel. I am 100% for the Kollel idea! It is one of the greatest victories for Torah in modern times, that young people want to be Makdish their lives for Torah Lishma! Baruch HaShem a million, a billion, a trillion times!!!

      Now tell me, if you have such parents already that are ready and willing and able to support their children in Kollel, what difference does it make if their daughters get married at 18 or 20? None! The same parents who support the 20 year old girl when she gets married in Kollel with her learning husband, can and will and do just as easily support their daughter when she gets married at 18!!

      In fact, such parents would be saving themselves lots of money. They could spend the same $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000 that they spend per year for “the flying girls” on air travel, lodgings, trips, tuitions, tips, clothes, food, fun, etc for a year or two, and instead use that hard earned Yiddisha Gelt to support their daughters and sons in law in Kollel!

      If a girl does not want to get married young, meaning by 18 or 19, then fine, let her wait and let her study something practical, there are many good programs in the Frum communities nowadays.

      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin

      • Maybe what you should do is work on ridding young men of the idea that a woman who is his age or older is undesirable.

        Your message is being shot down, not you as the messenger. It is a poor idea and the real problem with the shidduchim is not the age of the women but the idea that the man must be:
        1. older
        2. wiser.
        Stop the narishkeit and stop treating women as if they were an object or a product and not a human being. People aren’t things.
        Perhaps when shidduchim are set up with the idea that people are people, and lets see help two people who are compatible meet with each other the shiddach crisis will be averted.

  8. This is Houston :
    Mamash not shver at all.
    The entire premise of the problem is the disparity between the ages of boys and girls . The solution is to close that gap and instead of having the girls wait until they are 22 (which I grada hold to be the best solution and yes there are Roshei Yeshiva who agree with that as well) have the boys go out at a younger age . If the girls start going out at a younger ( and more immature age) then we have the same problem. The closer the gap the better it will get .
    Ask an accountant if you are still confused.
    Proceed with mission.
    Over and out, – copy-

    • A girl at 21 is not “more mature” just because she spent a great super luxurious vacation, all expenses paid by “PHD” (Papa Has Dough”) in Israel for a year or two than a girl of 18 who remains in Brooklyn or Lakewood or Monsey or the Five Towns or Chicago or Toronto etc and gets on with real life, study and everything else normal people do.

      In fact, the girl who is “supported” in Israel like a princess Mamash for a year with her parents spending fortunes on her, in fact during her year “away” her royal highness has to come back to the USA to take care of “very important things” like Lemoshul, getting her tooth braces readjusted, seeing the dermatologist for a rash, attending cousin Rivkie’s wedding as well as brother Shloimie’s Bar Mitzva, and “has to be home” for Pesach as well as Sukkos (even though she has hardly settled in Eretz HaKoidesh since arriving), and she needs frequent changes of her clothes from her “Fall” to her “Winter” and then “Spring” wardrobe, not to mention constant airlifts to her of shampoos, rinses, creams and all sorts of Vaibisha Zachen, and much else, and one would think we are raising a nation of celebrities and people who will want to live in luxury and be treated like this for the rest of their lives.

      Imagine, these darling Sheifalach come home and then they quickly get engaged and married and they find out that marriage is about cooking dinners, washing dishes, doing the laundry that includes doing your new husband’s socks etc, caring for a husband who is a complicated human being, respecting Ameilus BaTorah Yomam VaLaila, mopping floors, taking out the garbage every night, even going to work and hosting guests, not to mention having babies and changing diapers and running to the pediatrician, so tell me, how does any seminary program in Israel “prepare” them for that?

      Teach your daughter how to get and hold down a responsible job, that will help her support a husband in learning, or how to be a happy, smart, supportive spouse and partner with her husband when he has to work and encourage this sense of Es Kumt Mir known as entitlement in English!

      And then, how is any 18 or 19 year old girl who is not exposed to this fake life “inferior” or “less mature” than her 20 or 21 year old counterpart who has lived like Mamash a “Cleopatra on the Nile”?

      You see, we have adopted messed up priorities, and that is why we have things like this ridiculous “Shidduch Crisis” — and we are very far from “Houston: ‘The Eagle Has Landed’!”

      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin

      • Nowhere in my comment did I mention that E”Y is a good or bad thing. I mentioned one thing , maturity .Girls who are older are more mature. Boys who are older are more mature. If both boys and girls would start going out at 22 (i think 23 is even better ) there would be no crisis . However by lowering the age that girls go out earlier we still have the age disparity and hence have not helped out the crisis one iota.
        So both from a mathematical standpoint and a maturity standpoint we lose if we were to follow your suggestion

      • You need to stop writing because you are digging a hole. your rhetoric about girls has gone from oversimplified hogwash to the most demeaning and disparaging dialogue, I have seen in a long time, from someone who calls himself a Rabbi. How dare you make retorts that refer to girls who choose to garner varied experience in life, who display a desire to delve into the richness and beauty of another country replete with in depth study and immersion among other Jews of a myriad of colors outside your brooklyncentric world, as “princesses” supported by their rich daddies, who will come home demanding to be treated as some queen only concerned with materialism and beauty. And you do this while excluding the boys in yeshiva who are taught that a girl is the sum of her age, her looks and whether her daddy can support him in kollel. And you ignore your own perpetuation of the infantilizing of boys. Your condescending verbiage determining what girls are AND what they should be in marriage is repulsive. You want to know why women are fighting for things that are yet unheard of and unseen in the Orthodox communities, it is because of this pejorative layout. It is people like you and those “Gedolim” you hold to high esteem simply beacuse they decided FOR WOMEN, when one should date and marry, who reduce women to housekeepers and breeders that propels these women to seek out other interests and experiences so that they can seek their autonomy and their individuality once more. Why don’t you, instead of accepting the Yeshiva boys nonsense, teach that boy what it means to be a man. Teach those boys to uphold intrisic factors above age. Teach them that we do not live in a world of future Stepford wives. Teach them what the KETUBA says … they must support their wives, not visa versa. Teach them respect for the beuty that is individualism, to think outside the box, to appreciate a woman for her many facets. You, dear Rabbi, are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. You want to help the shidduch crisis .. don’t ever compare a woman to a withering vine, ever. Don’t ever imply she is some spoiled brat because she did not sit around and twiddle her thumbs to make herself available for a man who can’t see anything above his own needs and desires.

        • Girls are not choosing they are pressured by society, friends, principals and most of the time their parents can’t afford this. It puts parents in debt and then they have to make a wedding. The only people benefitting from seminaries are the rabbis who own these seminaries earning 300 or 400 just for an application. They could live for years just off the application fees. It does not make a girl a better person or wife because she we t to seminary. It’s selfish and wrong. It’s only the last 30 years that this came up. It’s disgusting and I do hope these se.jnaries close down. There is nothing wrong with getting on with life after high school. Go to israel with your husband after you get married and experience eretz yisroel together please. If you think this seminary this g duznt cause strife in marriages monetarily oh but we do it so our daughters could get married. Totally messed up.

          • You sound plain Rabid. You forgot your rabies shots. Stop frothing at the mouth. Over 193 comments here and you still don’t get the point It is obvious you will not get the point.

      • Luckily for me, I met my husband in the bungalow colony twenty-five years ago. Whereas the above certainly takes place in a family, it is most certainly NOT what marriage is “about”. Marriage is about sharing and caring; laughing and loving; patience and forgiveness; and above all, a good sense of humor.

      • But is that truly what marriage is about? Is it truly the role of the woman to cook, clean, sew, host guests, have babies, take care of the children and that husband etc. while also holding on to a responsible job and support the entire husband while their husbands sit and learn all day. But isn’t it actually the role of the husband to provide for and take care of the family?

      • Okay I’m not sure what girls you are around but if I would have even dared asked my father to ‘airlift’ shampoo from me I would have heard a clicking sound of the phone slamming shut soon after. I got to Israel because I collected and I worked there to pay for my expenses. It taught me a sense of responsibility and knowledge of how it is to be on my own and it gave me immense spiritual growth in which helped me through bad times and good, motherhood and housekeeping and work and all of that. You don’t know all girls who have been to seminary, please don’t generalize the Jewish ppl, we are so much greater then that.

  9. What about the Kriah for boys to marry girls their age and not younger. 21 year old boys can marry 20 or 21 year old girls who have returned from seminary and help solve the other cause of the shidduch crisis, the disparity in age

    • Hi, see my comments above.

      You are assuming that Americanized English-speaking Yeshiva Bochurim will “do as they are told” like the Chasidisha Bucheerim, and “take orders” to marry girls their age or older than them. Good luck with trying to enforce that on them. It is not going to happen because normal American boys, and most of these Bochurim are normal Jewish Frum American Yeshiva boys, in their minds and outlook will want to go out with girls younger than them. A 20 or 21 year old boy, if he can even be convinced to date and go out to look for a wife at such a young age, and that will not happen so easily, will not salute and say “yes sir/maam” and just marry a girl his age or older just because you told him to, Halevai they were so compliant!

      Seminaries have just become “holding pens” to keep younger girls off the Shidduch market, at least that is the way it has been explained by some people. If that is so then this may even be a “crime against humanity” because it is cruel to do that to people who have their lives to live and need to get on with reality.

      Since when did it become a “mitzva” to send girls to seminaries 6,000 miles away to Israel? How come no Chasidim do it? How come not a single Charedi group in Israel sends their daughters overseas for a year after they have already graduated high school? How come the Chasidisha Velt and the Charedi world in Israel that includes all the Litvish Yeshiva people in Israel, do not send their daughters away anywhere but rather they aim to get their daughters as well as their sons married from 18 onwards like it says in the Mishna of Pirkei Avos, Ben Shemone Esser LuChupa? What has gone wrong with Americans that they think they must first send masses of girls to Israel and that that is a “requirement” for marriage? Does that make any sense to anyone, except for the people who are running this whole Seminary industry to make money off it? Just because Frum Israelis need Parnasa and want to keep their husbands in learning over there we here in the USA must send them our daughters and they must charge us around $50,000 per daughter per year a king’s ransom so that they must have Parnosa from that while we have no clue who is minding the store and what is going on with our daughters 6,000 miles away?

      Who created this absurd, draining and unhelpful “system”, how was it created and why? Hopefully I will write about this in future posts IY”H.

      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin

      • My daughter recently spent a year and a half at a fine, very well-regarded seminary in J’lem which cost us less than half of 50,000/year. She spent zero time roaming the streets and took many different classes: some in practical halacha and some in topics which allowed her to amass over half the credits needed for a bachelor’s degree. She is now back in the US and completing that degree. Methinks you exaggerate.

      • Normal American boys in normal America certainly do NOT feel any need to only date girls and women who are younger than them.

        That’s the biggest idiocy I’ve read. Totally false. Most boys and men meet and date girls and women they know, and they tend to be their own age. Some may be slightly younger, some slightly older. A boy of 21 might meet a girl of 20 at college, whether at a football game or Hillel dinner, at a party or in class. And a girl of 21 may meet a boy of 20.

        You are projecting you idea of what a normal American boy is based on the yeshiva boys you know. Pfee.

        • Maybe with all these girls in seminaries the 21 year old boys will start dating women their own age because that’s what is available, and subsequently realize that women their own age/a little older are not old hags.

          Why are you asking society to punish girls because boys have become spoiled and expect their wives to be younger than they are?

  10. To solve the shidduch crisis, there needs to be an equilibrium, whereby the numbers of boys entering shiddcuhim yearly should equal the number of girls entering shidduchim yearly. Without going into the math of why it is so, it turns out that if boys on average start one year later than the girls there is equilibrium. So to fully solve the shidduch crisis we need a one year age-gap.

    The current four year age-gap is because the boys start at 23, and the girls start at 19. It would be just as bad if the boys started at 21 and the girls started at 17, because the age-gap will still be four years. So we definitely do not want that.

    You also state that girls come back from Seminary at age 20. For the overwhelming majority, the age at which the girls come back from Seminary is 19. So if you are wondering who will the 21 year old boys marry? The answer is very simple. They will marry the 19 and 20 year old girls back from Seminary. If this were actually to become the norm, (and halevei it does), the shidduch crisis would be well on its way to extinction. Hopefully that day comes sooner rather than later.

    • Why do Bochurim today need to spend so much time in Israel? Is there something wrong with our great Yeshivos in America?

      Once upon a time, and not so long ago, only the Metzuyonim were sent to Israel, today everyone who goes there is a “metzuyan”???!!!

      The majority of boys who go to learn in Eretz Yisroel do not belong there. Baruch HaShem we have magnificent Mosdos HaTorah right here in the USA. In fact it is in the American Yeshivos that the Bochurim are taught how to learn by the best Rebbeim, Maggidei Shiur and Roshei Yeshiva, good American Bochurim are prized everywhere, and given all the learning skills and when they get to Erezt Yisrael they are just applying what they learned in American Yeshivos.

      Honestly, in my opinion Israel does not have greater Talmidei Chachomim than America Bazman Hazeh. Yes, they are better at Bekius, but ask around and you will see that in American Yeshivos today the standard of learning is very high and plenty of people have started to learn beBekius in America as well. “Toras Bavel” is still very much alive and well!!!

      Again, just see what the Chasidisha groups and the Israel Charedim are doing, none of them sends Bochurim overseas to learn no matter how great overseas Yeshivos may be, they keep them at home! And being closer to home and parents the Bochurim can then be guided to going out sooner.

      But we here in America give up control of our sons and we send off to Israel to learn over there. We lose them, so why are surprised they don’t want to listen to us?

      Therefore we have an over-all problem that American Yeshiva people have bought into the myth that they “must” send their sons to Israel like all the Modern Orthodox do to send their kids to programs over there. All of a sudden everyone has become a Zionist!!!

      Just think about it, an American Bochur graduates from Mesivta-high school at around 17 or 18. Then he spends the next 2, 3, 4 years learning BeHasmada Rabba, at the most he is 21, why isn’t he ready to get married? Why does he need another year or two or three living it up like a king in Israel at yeshiva there? Does it make him into a bigger Lamden? Does it make him into a bigger Mentsch? For Yechidm it may be important, but how can we ship of every last American Bochur to Israel and then expect that they should be connected to us as American parents and listen to us about anything?

      If he was a plainer person, less pampered, more basic, able to be Mistapek BeMuat and not have an Es Kumt Mir attitude of entitlement that he is owed trips and year long jaunts and adventures in Israel, and far too many guys are goofing off over their, we would all be in a much better place than we are right now. But what do we do? Parents want to fake it and send their sons to Israel so that it will look good on the Shidduch Resumes for the very demanding ever more difficult Shadchanim who are also fueling this absurd situation.

      A more basic Bochur, less spoiled, would probably be happy to go out with a more basic girl his age or younger. And a more basic girl not spoiled with year long trips to foreign countries all on first class accommodations and amenities, will be less fussy about who she should go out with and when she should get married.

      We have only ourselves to blame for messing up our own situations and we ourselves are responsible for the ensuing Shidduch Crisis and unless we fix ourselves first the various crises afflicting us will only get worse not better! Halevai I was wrong!!!

  11. “”No Chasidic groups anywhere send their daughters away far away to any seminaries.”

    Not true. One of the largest Chasidic groups, Lubavitch, sends girls away to seminaries far away as well.

    • Lubavitch is Lechatchila a global community, they exist all over the world equally really, so they are not sending anyone “away” when they do so, they are just shuffling them from one classroom to another and those classrooms just so happen to be in different geographic locations or countries and they never lose control over the girls or boys, ever! It’s all one Chinuch system wherever they go, the best of them are all being educated to become Shluchim and Shluchos. And I say God bless them Mamash they are doing great work that no one else is doing! They then serve as rabbanim and rebbetzins in far flung places and in unusual settings where they are needed. It’s a different world in Chabad and it works for them, but it’s not a model for others to follow, they can’t and they don’t.

      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin

      • Lubavitch boys start at 23-24. Lubavitch girls start at 19-20. They have a huge problem with girls. The math does not change just because you are Chasidish or Litvish. If the age-gap is 4 like by the Litvish and by the Lubavitsh, you are going to have a huge problem for the girls.

  12. I am a shadchan for over 20 yrs.
    We don’t have an age problem, although some people are picky about that.
    We have a CHECKLIST problem..A BANK ACCOUNT PROBLEM…a Yichus problem…a, I’M MORE BALABATISH THAN THE NEXT PERSON problem, I DON’T like the grandmother,grandfather, uncles family problem.She didn’t go to Seminary, you kidding, why not, what’s the problem, problem. . she didn’t go to camp, why not problem…She’s not the proper height problem, I wanna make this kind of wedding, furniture …problem.I wanna buy my kids a house, I want them to contribute as well, problem…shes not anorexic enough problem. .size 8…what?…she’s too heavy…He’s in Brisk? Which one…oh that one, naaa that’s not the good one ,problem
    And I can go on and on….the last thing people look at is”,THE KEREN” ..the quality of the girl and boy are TOTALLY OVERLOOKED and SECONDARY.
    Trust me, I deal with people all day …nobody checks anything out unless they GET THAT “GUT” FEELING that” es shmekt” and “ales shtimt”..before they even know anything about the boy/girl…its a NO..NOT FOR ME…THEY TELL ME IT’S NOT FOR ME! WHO IS THE THEY????
    P.s Seminary has become a deterrent and not an advantage to the shidduch process
    Overeducated…smarter than thou…young girls .The basic principles of a true yiddisha wife and mother are associated with what? With Seminary? Since when? If u cant afford it(G-d forbid, for that alone, u will be ruled out)or you want your child to earn a dollar or two b4 u settle down…NO GOOD…GOTTA BE SEMINARY.
    Oh, I forgot, ANY GIRL TODAY NOT GETTING A DEGREE IN SOMETHING. ..dont bother…you’re not in the running for anything…you are second class citizens. ..No degree, nothing, just plain high school..A BRUCH…
    The world has changed in more way than one and not for the better…
    Being a shadchan today is painstaking crazy draining work…
    PPS.please say :THANK YOU FOR THINKING OF ME TODAY when we call ..We could have called hundreds of others l. A nice card of appreciation would be nice as well…
    And remember, we also have rent and mortgages to pay..Please dont forget about us when you’re making your fancy weddings and spending thousands on jewelry and buying your children cars and homes.Remember, some of us live off what you give us…and there is no price on the time and effort we extend until a shidduch comes to fruition.
    Thank you..and Simchas and nachas by all..

    • I’m not sure what Shadchan you are but all I can say is your right on par, the parents and the focus is messed up I don’t feel bad for these people at all they are fake disgusting and embarrassment to what yiddishkeit should be
      All about what the others will say and the peer pressure

    • You said it best!! Excellent, Yasher Koach!! You are great!! You must be a great Shadchan too!! May HKB”H Bentsch you with Hatzlocha and Brocha and Kol Tuv Sela and with only Gezunt, Nachas from all your family, and Arichas Yomim!!

      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin
      P.S.
      I loved what you had to say!! It saved me so many words!! Be well!!

      • Thank you, I can use all the Brochos I can get.
        I wish I tape recorded 20 yrs of phone calls..Most people would hide behind a rock if they heard themselves.
        P.s.
        What I said is just the tip of the iceberg.

  13. The prices of these Seminaries in Israel is outrageous and its time for the Rabbanim to put an end to this

  14. This article made me so angry! Why in heaven’s name would a 20 year old be “less desirable” than a 17, 18, or 19 year old? Forget about how insensitive it is to say something like that- it just isn’t true. I’m very confused.

    • Please read my responses above.

      No offense was meant, it’s just an analytical exploratory article trying to figure out the situation and how people think.

      Hope you’re not too shocked to hear that the natural Teva (human nature) of a male is to want to marry someone younger than them. So it makes sense that girls should start dating at a younger age to give them a bigger better shot and wider range of opportunities. When a girl is 17, 18, 19 she has many strengths and pluses on her side just by virtue of her her younger age. As I used to tell my own daughters “youth is at a premium when you are younger, it’s worth billions in the bank, so don’t waste it”! After 20 she is viewed as “older” that is not something I just made up yesterday, it is the way people think, it is not an accusation or insult we are just trying to DESCRIBE and EXPLAIN human nature and how to navigate it and deal with that phenomenon.

      Again, please forgive me if I have hurt your feelings, as that was not my intent in any way, Chas VeSholom!

      Thank you!
      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin

      • That may be your personal preference, but it is not universal by any means.

        Some men may prefer women who are younger and some may prefer girls who are 17-19. Most normal men prefer to have a life partner who is their true ezer kenegdo and not younger, less mature, or not fully developed as a human being. Beyind the numbers game you seem to miss regarding the need for people of the same age to marry each other (it’s a math problem you seem to not understand fully) perhaps being the same age would help young people click better.

      • The joke is not on you. Don’t blame the rabbonim for writing that boys should be married by 21. Blame no one but yourself for continuing to perpetuate their poorly thought out message. You wrote that even if you were in a beis din, no one would listen to you. Good. Then don’t write these hateful articles either.

  15. What shtussim! 99 percent of girls are back in america and ready for shidduchum by the time their 19!
    The whole article is a made up rant!
    Rabbi chaim epstein said by the famous meeting in r’ shmuel birnbaum’s house in 2005 that since many bochurim have such an aliya in eretz yisroel, it cannot be taken away from them.
    All the rabbonim said in the kol korei was that if bochurim want, they can get married younger, not that they have to!
    Its laughable to say that bochurim are good lamdonim at 21 – even Rabbi ….MA who i assume is older than 21 is still learning krum, by what he wrote – maybe he should go to learn in eretz yisroel for a few years to set him straight!
    There was a gadol who said “kol yeser kinotul domi” when it comes to rabbonnim – there is a halacha that if an animal has 5 legs, its treif – an extra leg means it is like it only has 3 legs. The same is with “Rabbi Doctors” or rabbi……MA – rabbis that pride themselves with their MA are not rabbis and have no place advertising their hashkofos!

    • Thanks for the Mussar!

      If you would only talk about the subject of the “Shidduch Crisis” and not spend all your time attacking me, maybe we would get somewhere.

      I am who I am, and I am proud of it. You didn’t have my life and I didn’t have yours!

      That’s the way the world works!

      What’s your point in any case, how would you go about solving the Shidduch Crisis or at least coming up with some ideas that will work.?

      Are you even able to write in clear correct English that people could read and not sound like you are angry at me for what exactly?

      Zai Gezunt!

      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin.

  16. Im no fan of pressuring boys to marry at 21. I see it backfiring in the long run. Big time.

    But that aside. This article makes no sense. Most girls are trying to date at 19 + , so what’s the problem with 19 to 21?

    strange!

  17. HA HA! the only way to end the shidduch crisis is to have boys and girls start dating the same ages. This is accomplished by having the boys and girls both start at age 22.

    All the organazations are for one thing : to make sure the girls score theyr esired younger boys and to reward a 26 year old girl for being picky for the last five years by now giving her more guys to reject , the younger ones.

    HA HA

  18. Anonymous, #6, makes a lot of sense!
    If I may weigh in, what is – oy, is this blasphemous or אפיקורסות, I hope not – what is the religiosity of boy being 2,3,4 years older than the girls? Who says that’s Torah m’Sinai?
    And if they’re the same age? Or – blasphemous again – shes older than he???
    Oy, they’re stoning me already!

  19. Disregarding, for a minute, the sheer ludicrousy of calling a 20 year old girl ‘withering on the vine,’ let’s look at this argument that seminary is unnecessary and harmful because it delays marriage.
    Let me introduce a concept that may be hard for the author to understand. Women are PEOPLE. Living, thinking, breathing people. They are not housekeeping baby making machines. Why should they go to seminary? To learn, to experience new things, not least of which is living on their own, learning to do things for themselves (which I’d say plays a very large role in ‘maturing’ a person).
    According to the author, it would be better if girls went from the carefree high school life where their biggest concern was studying for finals and what to wear on rosh chodesh, to running a household, popping out babies and probably trying to support a husband in kollel at the same time. If the author is concerned about girls being prepared for that lifestyle, one would think that some actual experience living life, not to mention getting just a little time to actually enjoy it, would be warranted. But again, that all assumes you classify women as human beings. That, apparently, cannot be assumed from this article.

    • Yup. Take the logic further — why send the girls to high school at all? We should just keep them at home and train them to cook, clean, sew, take care of the children, etc. This way, they will be ready for marriage in no time, no need to delay the process any further.

    • No..it would be ideal that they stayed home, like yiddishe woman have done forever, observe their own parents, not someone else’s household somewhere far away, learn how to be a housekeeper ( because whether u like it or not, that is her PRIMARY ROLE) and yes, she will be popping babies ( b”h- with Hashems help..don’t u hope she will) and earning a dollar or two before she sets up house, TO UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF A DOLLAR, not Daddys dollar, HER OWN…there’s plenty life lessons to be learned in your own backyard, while helping pay the expenses that a wedding entails.(Not all parents can be cash cows, some have to beg borrow and steal to live up to today’s ideal, or the prospect of their child being wanted, or noticed)
      And if woman are takeh valued for who they are, regardless of age, then whether or not they go to Seminary SHOULD NOT COUNT, should NOT BE A DECIDING FACTOR, whether u want to date her or not.., BUT IT IS…
      How do I know? Because I’m a shadchan f over 20 yrs, and G- d forbid u did not go to Israel or earned a degree, you are mince meat… Please dont tell me it’s not true, because I work with people every day.And the same goes for the boys. Status yeshivas…status seminaries…its the all important question. ..which yeshiva, which Seminary. ..etcetera etcetera. ..
      Its all out of hand..
      SEMINARY and getting a degree, has changed the FACE OF SHIDDUCHIM IN A MAJOR WAY.
      To all you people out there : you are only dealing with your child.I am dealing with ALL SIDES…You can only see your face in the shidduch..I see BOTH FACES..and what goes on behind the scenes..AND IT AINT PRETTY.

      • In my marriege both me and my husband maintain the house , mostly him. I cook and do laundry and when I’m not able to we have learnt to communicate good enough to express that. Yeddishe women r not housewives anymore. They are expected to be in the working world and therefore both the husband’s and women’s roles are collapsing. We need to teach our boys and girls to deal with marriege and express themselves. Women shouldn’t stay home to learn to be housekeepers, they should do what is best to move them forward both physically and mentally go marriege and that may be seminary, that may be a college or a psychologist or wtvr. We should be giving our kids tools to make.healthy marrieges with realistic expectations.

  20. “You don’t have to be a great sociologist or Chochem to know that a girl is most desirable and in the prime of her youth from the ages of 17, 18, 19. When a girl turns 20 she is already in a different category.” YOU THE AUTHOR is contributing to the so-called shidduch crisis, by writing an article as if it is the truth that 20 year old girls “are in a different category”. What category are they in???? Please explain!! YOu are saying that the boys who are 23 think that 17 18 and 19 year old girls are in a different category!! I disagreed with many of your previous articles as well. YO do not have the pulse of what the olam is thinking at all!!!! YOU are just putting your own thoughts into how others are thinking!!! I guess you married your firsrt cousing as soon as she turned bas mitzvah. right? After all, many of our great grand parents in Europe did that!! I guess this generation just thinks that 17 year olds are in a different category. I guess 23 year old boys are in a separate category completely!

    signed, disgusted with these articles!

  21. As I was reading this series on shiduchim I kept thinking this guy is SO wrong but this time he’s outdone himself.
    I have seen people ask but no answer on your part; I am really curious as to which Rabbi is giving haskama to all the junk you are posting. It’s so unfortunate as I rely on you for the news, the relevant news for the “orthodox” Jews and these days I seriously debate if I should keep doing so as you add such inappropriate things. We don’t need to see the faces of reshaim or hear all the slander in the world or read an opinion from some random person with no daas Thora on major issues in our communities…

    • So what would you suggest?!

      At least I brought up the tough subjects.

      Who else is discussing this topic seriously?

      I would love to read your version of things!!

      With so many having different ideas, please somebody, anybody, write up your versions of these subjects, I would love to hear what you have to say on the issues, not attacks on me which do not bother me in the least.

      The idea of a presenter is not to tell people what they want to hear, but to challenge them in new ways and wake them up and make them think, which it seems I am doing. Give me some credit for that!

      Now, please let us have a coherent alternate response on the subject, forget about me, Baruch HaShem I have married off all my kids the Frum way in the Frum Yeshiva Shidduch system right here in Brooklyn and now I am free and willing to share my experiences and ideas LeTovas HaKlal, as you see there is no “reward” in this only Bizyones, but I don’t care, because the subject is too important for all of us, and I don’t see too many people willing to do that, you do not have to like them or agree with them. I am not saying “Torah Misinai”, I am just talking about tough subjects and I am not sure if there is a pleasant way to do that, what do you say?

      Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin

      • Basically, you’re using the argument of ‘it’s what people say, not my fault’ to spread your own outdated, misogynistic, awful views. Please please don’t write anymore, I truly hope that b’Ezrat Hashem no one reads this degrading article, and that it doesn’t spread around, and that you’re not allowed to write anymore; it’s truly one of the most damaging and hurtful things I’ve ever had the misfortune to read in my life.

  22. You are a seriously disgusting man. A girl becomes less desirable because she hit 20+? And you have the audacity to wonder why there’s a “crisis”? There’s a crisis because sick people like you lead people into thinking that they must get married immediately. I’ll bet if you had your way, we’d all be married as soon as we show shtei sa’aros.

  23. I never posted my opinion on an article, bring that I just got married recently and in my 20″s I think I can narrow it down to the real issue.

    For starters there’s nothing wrong going to Israel or college or even an age being a factor of why there is a crisis, the issue is what they are being taught, they don’t teach the girls to look at the right things but they ingrave their mind what they should think is the most important when it’s not.
    How many girls out there are over 26 and single,
    How many single event are made week to week
    I’m focusing on the women because I’ve seen what the problem becomes too, he is correct regarding the check list from what the parents want and not always what is right for the girl.
    Further more, many girls have their minds setup that they can only marry a guy that is learning or that wears a certain type of clothing, so for those girls out there that are very picky as much as you think your not I don’t feel bad for you in anyway, you end up marrying guys that weren’t for you but you had to settle because your minds were so ingraved because you were to stubborn to look at the bigger picture and only focus on stupidity.
    Girls when they first start dating some not all dress a certain way more modest and religious, after sometime they start changing the way they dress but yet still
    Expect a the same guy in their mind
    So no it’s the age that matters when they go out its what their mind sets are and what the focus of life and marriage is
    Hope the ones that need and want find their Bashert the ones that are fake and confused may you
    Get some clarity before it’s too late

  24. Wow! As a single 30 year old girl this was unbearably painful to read. If a 20 year old is withered on the vine, I must be already rotten on the ground. And I didn’t take the year off to go to seminary in Israel. Imagine that

  25. The author is a severely mentally ill individual who needs to do teshuva for the way he puts our Jewish women and daughters.

    • Is that my fault too, that people, meaning many men who are dating for marriage by 21, think that way? You think a 21 year old male, no matter how Frum or Yeshivish he is thinks that it’s great to marry a 25 year old or 30 year old woman?

      What planet are you on?

      • It’s your fault for implying that we can’t teach these bochurim to grow up. We teach them gemara, mishna berurah, and maybe a little mussar, but “Hey, they want younger girls, who are we to tell them otherwise. We just have to change the girls instead!”

        You’re a Rabbi. It’s your job to teach, not to embarrass bnos yisrael because the bochurim are “unteachable”. A 21 year old guy doesn’t want to marry a 24 year old girl, even if she fits every other qualification that he’s looking for? The guy has a serious problem, not her. I’m still looking for my wife at the old age of 24. If I find the perfect girl, and she’s 25, I wouldn’t be doing a chessed by marrying her. I’d be acting like a normal civilized Jew.

        Rewarding young guys who marry older girls is a band aid, but you need to start teaching everyone that age is not an indicator of marriagability (within reason, of course)

  26. Life is tough and no one is doing any favors to these “children” by pushing them into such a grown up responsibilty without the grown up tools to deal with life, hope people come to their senses soon.

  27. I left a comment but don’t see it now.

    Women are people. Think of women as people, and teach men and women to view each other as people and there will be less of a shiddach problem. Encourage people to marry other people. Not a thing that can wash your clothes (and by the way my husband does the wash, men can actually do the laundry and cook and clean you know).

    Two mindsets men need to rid themselves of (and MEN not boys, and WOMEN not girls because men and women should marry, not boys and girls. Marriage is an adult enterprise).

    1. Stop teaching that husbands need to be older than their wives. Start teaching that to boys and girls when they are still boys and girls so they’ll grow into adulthood realizing that an option.
    2. Stop teaching that husbands need to be wiser than their wives. See above.
    3. Stop teaching that husbands are more valuable than their wives, or that a wife’s occupation is taking care of her husband. See above explanation that a man who marries is an adult.
    4. Teach that the couple are responsible, together for their household, for the income, for the welfare of the children, for the upkeep of the house. How any two decide to take care of these responsibilities is up to them, and must be mutually agreeable. That neither party is a slave or subservient to the other.

    ie, point above. Be an adult.

  28. It sounds like the author disrespects women and girls very much, viewing us basically as possessions, chattel, and baby machines.

    • I want to know: if he is faced with two choices, one is a girl who is eighteen but a size ten, and the other is twenty-three but a size two, whom should he pick?

    • Yes! According to this author, the less educated the male, the better. Go find him a hard working 17 year old so he doesn’t have to work and she can start popping out babies and working 20 hour days to support him.

      With attitudes like these, it’s a wonder the Jewish community has any wealth at all.

      I wonder… Did the author even ever hold down a meaningful job to support the children his wife birthed and raised? Or was that her job too?

      The reasons for the shidduch crisis are picky attitudes and people like this who so clearly hold women in such low esteem.

  29. Forget withered on the vine, ever heard the expression sour grapes? I think this author is just resentful that he couldn’t afford to send his girls to seminary in Israel so he doesn’t want anybody else to be able to send their children either

  30. Next thing you know he’ll be calling for the desirable 14,15,16 year olds to be getting married off.
    The real “cream of the crop” this guy.

  31. I am saddened to see that this “rabbi” thinks so lowly of the fine yeshiva boys he is discussing. So embarrassing that this is going viral and now people will think this is how frum jews think. Whatever decent points he may have about the seminary concept are totally lost because of his disgusting opinions.

    And by the way, rabbi, your responses are incredibly juvenile. Either defend your position or don’t bother responding. Saying “I’m just the messenger” doesn’t fly.

  32. Im a 21 year old Yeshiva Bochur learning in BMG of lakewood and will GLADLY date a post seminary girl. This article made me want to throw out my kugel and writing it was truly Bital Zman.

  33. Please stay away from my children. IY”H, they will marry when they are ready and they find the right person to marry. Your views on marriage and the role of women have nothing to do with Torah–they have to do with your interpretation of what you think one segment of the Torah community should be doing that you attempt to pass off as wisdom to all for all to follow.

    Further, please don’t quote Pirkei Avot–your oversimplification and distortion of their words (anybody can quote anything in a vacuum) make you unworthy of quoting the learned sages. Look at the various commentary on the Mishna and ask Poskim about when and if a girl should ever be forced to marry (and from this, I exclude the so-called Poskim who say that women’s education is Trief). I also suggest that you ask some girls how THEY feel about this as a general pronouncement.

    I hope this will be your last piece on any subject. You are a sexist and a dangerous man who has the potential of doing real damage. Go away.

  34. Girls shouldn’t go to seminary, because chas v’chalilla, they become entitled little brats and forget that their life is only about cooking, cleaning and raising children. You sir, should be castrated.

  35. Don’t send girls to seminary because chas v’chalila, they will become self-entitled brats and forget that their life is only to serve their husband, cook, clean and rear children. #sarcasm

    You, sir, should be castrated. We don’t need more people like you in this community.

  36. “Rabbi” Yitschak Rudomin, Rabbis such as yourself with the mindset which you project is the root cause for this “Crisis”. The male/female ratio is close to 1:1. There is NO crisis. The “Crisis” in the Rabbonim eyes is that 20+ is more rounded than a 17-19 year old “baby”. Case in point, this week a Masores Bais Yaakov student who still is in high school and is ONLY 18 became engaged. What of the world does she know? Life is more complex than giving birth and feeding the baby. Granted this isn’t common “yet”. But its the “Crisis” attitude which fuels it.

    This topic is multifaceted and complex; but the attitude must change.

    • I agree with your basic premise of the male/female ratio being 1:1 and the fact that there probably is no shidduch crisis.

      More importantly, I do believe that the REAL crisis we have going on here is what you allude to with your “the “Crisis” is that 20+ is more rounded than a 17-19 year old “baby” comment. As a 22 year old withered old prune, I can say that I have an easier time saying NO, standing up for myself, and much more independence than I did as a young plum of 18.

  37. This article (and subsequent comments by the author) is pure hypocrisy. Rabbi, you say you can’t force bochurim to marry girls their age or older because they’ll object, but somehow it’s they’ll listen to the orders to start marrying while their younger? You seem to be SELECTIVE about which behaviors you’d like to change. Tell the bochurim to marry girls their age and older and there won’t be such a so-called “crisis.”

    • I am not telling anyone to do anything. Make up your mind. You can be a Reform Jews, a Feminist, anything you like.

      While in the serious Frum world, 18 year old girls getting married is the norm now in Chasidic communities in the USA and Israel, and among all Charedi Jews in Israel. Only in the American Yeshiva world is it lagging that have zero to do with Torah Yiddishkeit, as is being displayed by many opposing commenters right here, and that is due to people being influenced by Left-wing ideologies,

      But now B”H the American Yeshiva world is mercifully beginning to wake up as we see from the Gedolim calling on Yeshiva Bochurim to be married by 21, that will require girls to get married at younger ages too!If you don’t like this outlook, maybe you are better off being Modern Orthodox or Centrist Orthodox or Conservadox etc, really you do have choices and no one is forcing, or can force, anyone to do anything!

      Yitschak Rudomin

      • WHAT TORAH ARE YOU LEARNING FROM

        Torah yiddishkeit very clearly states that a man must build a house, plant a vineyard and THEN marry a swoman. The only thing withering from a vine should be in that vineyard he planted.

  38. I feel terrible for this man’s daughters. Imagine being raised in an environment and mentality that you “must” be married by 19 or else you failed as an individual and missed your deadline for success in life (as perceived by their father – the most influential male in their life). The author defends his comments by claiming his analogy was used to illustrate his point as necessitated in the “English language”‘. He is deluding himself and is just positioning himself as incapable of writing a well-written article without needing to resort to childish and unsubstantiated analogies. Perhaps it was his sub-par English education at his Yeshiva. I don’t know. What I do know unequivocally is that this type of mentality and point of view put forth by educators (whether hinted out or expressed outright) under the guise of “just telling it as it is” is akin to emotional abuse to their female students. He mentions in his retort that a girl needs to recognize that her husband is “a complicated human being”. It is a pity he doesn’t acknowledge the same about the girls and women in his community….but instead makes comments related to then as a group “peaking” at 19, about anyone going to seminary being a spoiled brat etc. Over and over he consistently groups all girls into stereotypical characters devoid of any individuality, dreams, thoughts and hopes. Yet he demand we view the young bochur as an individual. If you’re painting negative broad strokes, best to keep it consistent.

  39. My husband, age 27, married me, a withered, rotten fruit, also at age 27, out of sheer chesed, like Chur marrying the 80-year-old Miriam. I am lucky to have got such a mentch.

    By the time we got married we both had college degrees and plump savings accounts. We both had experience doing laundry and cooking meals. We had lived life, made mistakes, and learned from them. We were better able to approach marriage with a mature perspective because of it.

    Obviously, none of this matters. Obviously, the fine lines around my eyes negate all the positive that living a little did for both of us.

    • You are probably also better able to pay school tuition thanks to which “ra-bonim” llike this one earn their living. More power to people like you!

  40. I have a friend who wound up in the psychologist’s office because her parents had the same attitude.

    She was chattel to be disposed of before her expiration date (they held by 21), and she was obligated to primp and preen and remain a size zero until the right guy agreed to take her off their hands.

  41. Thanks to Matzav for finally allowing the responses to be posted. Its about time Matzav stops censoring any responses on peoples opinion on the shidduch crisis.

  42. It’s important for our kids to be pressured into marrying younger after few dates so they can get divorced younger, and then spend some time focusing on school and learning how to be a mature partner, without people telling them they are withering on the vine, because they’re already spoiled goods. Ashreichem!

  43. Rabbi Rudomin, what about out of town girls who want to further their education? They have to go somewhere and for some people E”Y is actually not that much more expensive than some chu”l places.
    But more than that, I’m with everyone who says that we have a middos crisis, and a crisis in parents not being chanoch l’naar al pi darko.

  44. Rabbi Rudomin;
    Thank you for bringing this tragedy to public awareness.
    1- There is a terrible crisis. There aren’t enough boys in Shidduchim to marry Bais Yaakov girls.
    Chasidishe girls do not have this problem.
    Therefore this is not an issue of Bashert. The American Yeshivishe system, is causing 10-15% of
    the Bais Yaakov girls NEVER to marry.
    It must be stated publicly.
    People are just not aware of the enormity of the problem, and the reason behind it.

    My wife and daughter used to say that I am a radical for talking this way.
    So, I stopped mentioning this topic at home.
    However, since a half year ago, my wife and daughter keep coming home from a Simcha and
    saying, “I feel so bad for so and so ( girl ) whose brother just got engaged, and she is still single at the age of 26”. Or, “Mrs. So and So just told me that she can’t take it that her daughter of 27 does not have any Shidduch prospects”.
    2- In addition to the shortage of boys, there is an additional issue that exacerbates the problem.
    Girls, boys, and their parents, are fussy about what they are looking for in a Shidduch.
    One point in your article which I disagree with you is your statement that a 21 year old boy has no-one to marry.
    The answer is simple. Marry the girls who come home from seminary 19-20.

    The age gap is the cause of the shortage of boys.
    In order to close the gap, the age differential on average should be just about one year.

    In conclusion;
    There needs to be a greater effort to educate the public to understand the root of the crisis, the age-gap.

    Thank you again.
    Michael Ellenbogen

    Or,

  45. Shulchan Aruch says we are obligated Al Pi Halacha to be married, at latest, by age 20. The S”A even says beis din should beat someone who refuses to marry before age 20, though the Rema disagrees on the beating part. The Rambam also paskens that we must marry before age 20.

    There are some shittos that if a boy is learning Torah full-time then he can wait as long as he gets married before age 24.

    But why are so many not fulfilling their halachic obligation on this matter?

  46. You, sir, are right. Twenty year olds are in a different category, it’s called “woman” versus “girl.” God forbid men should marry women, not children who know nothing about the world!

    There are spoiled seminary girls, true. But most seminary girls learn about living independently, caring for oneself, and creating a support system out of strangers. Seminary girls learn how to live without Tatty and Ima on their shoulders. So unless your daughter will be moving into the house next door, it’s s pretty good skillset to have.

    I pray all these negative comments have taught you how wrong you are!

  47. If Rabbi Rudomin wants to offer an objective perspective, which is at least part of what he purports to do, he should have conducted a disciplined study surveying young men and then published the results–detailing what young men ACTUALLY say and his methodology. This would at least support his infantile claim that he is merely telling things as they are.

    Instead, he projects his OWN view of women (as young as 17 year old!) onto young men almost a third his age and claims (bizarrely, for a number of obvious reasons) that is what the “normal” young man thinks.

  48. Perhaps this man should have a look into himself considering that the vast majority here are against him. Gee, I wonder why….

  49. Dear Rabbi,

    I am 20 years old now and would like to explain to you the effect your article had on me and my friends.

    We are all frum, thinking, growing girls who strive to be the best we can. We have aspirations to build a bayis neeman bYisroel. We went to Israel, some of us for two years. Please note that the three sentences I just wrote are NOT mutually exclusive, contradictions or a paradox.

    Yet somehow, in the shidduch ‘market’, we feel like we are not being treated like Hashem intended for people to be treated. Instead of being valued as people with neshamos, we are viewed as money making machines, candidates in a beauty pageant and future baby generators.

    We have gotten comments from shadchanim that have humiliated us and made us cry. We wondered why, if our schools kept instilling within us the values of tznius and dignity because we were bnos melachim and created with a tzelem Elokim, we were treated like we were breeding machines and like dogs whose value depended on ‘pedigree’, body and age.

    We wondered why, if we were the ones that would be bringing in the money, having the children, and taking care of the household, we were being treated so badly.

    Why shadchanim would coerce us to go out with boys we weren’t compatible with, because our needs and desires didn’t matter, we just had to ‘get married already’ before we ‘withered on the vine.’

    Why everyone agrees that boys have the right to and should grow as an eved Hashem, learn Torah and how to be a better Jew, but somehow find reason to criticize girls for wanting to learn how to live more meaningful lives and have a deeper connection with Hashem too. And aren’t we the ones transmitting the mesorah to the next generation? Shouldn’t we have the most tools and knowledge possible to impart that?

    But with all these humiliating and degrading experiences, we still believed they were effects of the shidduch crisis, of boys’ parents knowing they had lists of girls, of a boys world market…

    Now however, you have opened our eyes.

    In your eyes, we are objects. We are likened to grapes, withered ones at that. We are not people with hopes and aspirations. We are commodities who depreciate in value every year that we gain more life experience, wisdom and grounded maturity.

    And all with the title of rabbi, no less!

    Do you understand how you made us feel?

    Now I see you keep answering the other comments by saying would you prefer not to work on the shidduch crisis.

    But dear rabbi, by cheapening us even more than we are cheapened in this system, you are not solving anything. You are only making the problem bigger.

    If all boys viewed the girls they were redt and went out with the way you view us… there would be a lot less shidduchim in klal Yisroel.

    And why would anyone want to marry a boy who has your attitude, no mater how desperate she is??? I wouldn’t. My friends wouldn’t. If your wife had this attitude when she was dating you, would you have married her? I hope not.

    Instead of applying the law of commodities to live people, please learn about the intrinsic value every neshamah has. Whether they are male or female. Please work on respecting the females in your society regardless of their age, and appreciate that the older we get, the more wisdom and experience we receive to be better people, better wives and better mothers.

    Please don’t offer any shidduch crisis platitudes to my response. That is not the point.

    And when you do learn about women’s true value, which is irrespective of their age or marital status, the single girls who have read and been hurt by your article are waiting for your apology.

    Thank you.

    Signed,

    A 20 year old Bais Yaakov girl whose parents paid less for her first year of seminary with 30 college credits than they would have for college, who was blessed with a second year of seminary that she paid for on her own, who is in college and working now, and almost completely self supporting.

    • A beautiful, touching reply, ladies. You are clearly Nashot Chayil, all of you. May you merit partners who love, respect and deserve you, and whose sensitivity and wisdom matches your own.

    • Yes!!!!! Amen! This woman, right here is a treasure! We need more Jews like her, not the false prophet who wrote this awful article!

    • You almost brought a tear to my eye with your beautiful, mature, Torah-dik response to the sheer foolishness of Rudomin. May you merit marrying a man who truly deserves and cherishes you, at whatever age the Ribbono shel Olam decides for you.

      R Rudomin – please, for the sake of absolutely everyone, refrain from any further comment on this issue. Your krum ‘analysis’ belongs in the trash, not in the public eye.

  50. This is satire right? Who writes MA when they sign their name? hahaha. I bet he got his masters from the university of phoenix or something.

  51. Rabbi,

    You seem to take it for granted that you can’t change the boys’ minds regarding the age of the girls they want to marry.

    Why do you believe you can change the girls’ minds regarding the age at which they want to marry?

    The average girl does NOT want to get married at 17, 18, 19. She wants to live a little, stretch her wings. Learn and work, become independent, discover who she is as a person. A gap year or several between high school and marriage is CRUCIAL. Without it, both girls and boys feel burdened by the responsibilities of marriage, resulting in many quick divorces months after marriage. Marriage shouldn’t be a burden, it should be an active choice. Both girls and boys have the right to a gap year before they settle down, but you seem to believe that only boys have that right.

    I think the shidduch crisis has little to do with age and quantity and everything to do with this era of keeping up an image. People want their lives to be perfect – on Facebook, on Instagram, and on paper. A shidduch paper has to glow and leap off the page to be considered. Why? There should be community events where girls and boys can mingle for shidduch purposes and meet each other, form initial impressions based on personality instead of what other people said and what is written on a piece of paper.

  52. The whole article is based on false information. A girl graduates high school at 17 or 18. That is a fact. This she returns home the following year at age 18 or 19. An older student is 20. So that 21 year old bochur ideally would date the girls who are 20 and 21. Maybe even 19. What is the issue with that. The author does not prove his point at all and in no way does seminary interfere with shidduchim!

  53. And here I thought we had moved past the age of considering girls as commodities, but clearly you still think they are just products, house-cleaning and cooking machines …Sick to my stomach.

  54. If the problem is that the boys only want to marry a certain type of girl, one who is less mature and learned in Torah, then the problem is with the Middos of the boys, not the age of the girls.

  55. The writer expects women to do all that, by the time they hit 25 with that life they may indeed be worn out, physically and emotionally and indeed like a withered vine. What a lovely life it is for a woman.

  56. Wow, I cannot believe I wasted my time reading this. There are so many things wrong with this. Firstly, I think its ridiculous to tell anyone the most ideal age to marry. That should be up to them, and at their own maturity level. I can tell you that at 21, I couldn’t even think about marriage. Now that I am 23 and in a relationship, I can think about it.
    Furthermore, it is equally ridiculous to say that yeshiva/seminary kids are “put in the freezer” during that year. If anything, sending them away for that year is very beneficial, and gives them time to exercise independence. For many others, it is a perfect transition, because from that point on, they won’t be coming home very often, be it going to college, camp, getting married, etc. It is not for everyone, though at the same time, it doesn’t make them withery or old.
    The reason we have this so called “shidduch” crisis is because we have all these ridiculous ways to box people, not to mention the other ridiculous things to go along with it.

  57. This is the most disturbing artical I’ve ever read. God forbid girls right out of high school enjoy themselves and yes have a little fun. How dare they try to find themselves?

  58. Hi Rabbi,
    While reading through the polarizing comments on here, I’ve come up with a solution to bring the two sides together, to alleviate the Shidduch Crisis (somewhat), while still allowing girls to travel (mostly). I think you will find this a wonderful way to accomplish the aims of your article.

    We must focus on addressing the Shidduch Crisis above all else. It seems there are more and more young women unable to find marriage, and as time ticks by, the pool of eligible Boys continues to shrink. Whether we like it or not, we have to be honest with ourselves and know that a girl’s age, her ‘advancing of years’, DO impact her ability to marry. I fully agree with your comparison of aging girls to spoiled produce. When I go shopping, I’m reaching for the carton of milk at the back of the shelf. The one that’s not expiring for a while. The ones in the front that expires in a few days? as a last resort only. Its terribly difficult and unnecessary for 21 year old girls to wait and wait, knowing the expiration date can’t be too far off. Because no one buys milk after the date. No one.

    But we also know that age isn’t the ONLY factor preventing some from marriage. I’ve seen many cases where a homely girl can find difficulty even at the ripe age of 16. Conversely, the 20 year old blond bombshell seems to do just fine (regardless of the level of modesty, it’s usually pretty obvious who the hotties are). So what we really need to do, is to level the playing field.

    And this is where seminary- under the following circumstances, actually helps alleviate the problem instead of aggravate it. I propose we allow our girls to go to seminary, for an amount of time that it proportional to their looks.
    Imagine the effect this would have. Picture 3 girls, all graduating high school together. The gangly, funny-looking girl would opt to skip seminary entirely. Since she’s the only 17-year old in town, her prospects of marrying are significantly brighter. Now imagine a girl who falls somewhere in the middle. Our Plain Jane. She goes to seminary until she’s maybe 19 or so. She comes home and is in the perfect spot. She has plenty of suitors, since the only girls around who are younger have some obvious deformity or general-oddness. Plain Jane also isn’t worried, because all the real beauties are 6,000 miles away for another 2 years. She gets her husband and lives happily ever after. Finally comes our Cutie who gets to stay in seminary until she’s 21, because she knows that no matter her age, she’ll still find herself a husband when she gets back. He’ll have his own issues of course, with rumors swirling of his young bride’s promiscuity in years she was away. But hey, thats life. They also live happily ever after.

    So look what happened here. We had three girls with varying levels of desirability. Each was confident knowing the playing field was now level, and married without incident. No heavy competition, and never getting that feeling of being left out. And 2 out of 3 got to go to seminary too!

    Q.E.D.

    • You were doing great as long as you were citing the excellent example of the expiration dates on milk cartons and how people always reach to the back of the shelf for the freshest item, it’s just human nature, nothing personal really.

      Then you lost me when you went off the rails talking about sending girls to seminaries based on looks, fuuuunny! You know there is a name for that, of grading girls by looks, it’s called show business…but that has nothing to do with Yiddishkeit.

      Anyhow, as for looks, girls who plan to go on Shidduchim do very much have to take care of their looks, I know people will shoot me for this, but ask any Shadchan, the boys are all looking for “thin and pretty” (welcome to the USA where people think like this) and so therefore girls, make sure to go on your best diets and always look good when you go out in public because the Shadchanim are watching you! And again, I am not making this up!!!

      Yitschak Rudomin.

      • I imagine that Q.E.D was being facetious and just riding the coattails of your pejorative laced rant. If he was not, well then, he is just as twisted and in need of psychological evaluation and treatment as you.

        You know what woman want? It is in their nature, I can’t help but tell you, because it is truth. Ask any shadchan, but woman want men who are not as psychologically flawed as you represent them to be. They want men not boys, they want men who will bespeak about women with respect and gratitude. They want men who will support them and care for them as if they are diamonds and precious stones, whose value only increases and who have no expiration dates and no expectation of spoiling. Welcome to the WORLD where MENTALLY SOUND people THINK like THIS. You must have crawled out from under some meteor flung to earth, because you are certainly not from this world, and I wish you would crawl back under your rock.

        There were over 112 comments here as of before shabbos, some of them were your responses just digging yourself into a bigger hole and the majority of the rest were comments trying to help you out of your deluded state of willful ignorance. But here you go again, demonstrating you have no idea how to pull yourself out of it, nor do you want to. I wouldn’t want to be your wife, nor your sons and daughters in law. You reek of misogyny. I would take a maharat who is completely 100% committed to actual Torah values and encouraging contributions than the random man who can garner himself some meaningless smicha to add the title “Rabbi” before his name, so that he continues to embarrass the Rabbinical institution while applying that title. You should be burying your head in shame right now and instead you spew nonsense from your mouth that is degrading to women. You mock when you claim you are “sorry”. You will stand before your maker and you will answer for these words that YOU chose. Words matter, women matter. You are a disgrace. You are required to beg for mechila for the world of hurt you have unleashed on women and how you set back any chance of helping to bring couples together into healthy marriages. Of all the comments here you could have responded to after the myriads of comments to shed light on your error, you choose this one? You are the sickness that pervades our Jewish communities.

      • QED
        An abbreviation of the Latin phrase “quod erat demonstrandum”. It literally translates as “which was to be demonstrated”, and is a formal way of ending a mathematical, logical or physical proof. It’s purpose is to alert the reader that the immediately previous statement, which naturally was arrived at by an unbroken chain of logic, was the original statement that we were trying to prove.

        Your original post is illogical and improvable and you just keep making it worse. Just go away.

    • Yitschak Rudomin,

      You fell straight into that one! You are so wrapped up in your ridiculous views that you took Henry C’s comment at face value. Are you really that gullible?

  59. I spent a year in Israel post hs, gasp!!!! And you know what?!?! I didn’t spend my year partying and traveling. I spent my year learning about being a wife, about being a basic yisroel, abut shabbas, and how to run a kosher home. My parents didn’t pay a penny, I worked hard before going to pay for it, and continued to work hard while there. And the crisis isn’t that I didn’t get married at 17, 18, 19. Bc Hashem knows that I wasn’t ready. The crisis is people like you trYing to fine a reason, like a needle in a hey stack. If we follow the Torah logic we should be getting married at 3!!!!!! But the fact is for my children, I don’t want them getting married so young and missing out on life, and then wanting to get divorced Bc they are so unhappy being married Bc they weren’t ready. And FYI who here wants a 21 year old guy?!?! Have you met them?!?! Their so immature!!!!!!

  60. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but there is now a Jewish country in Eretz Yisroel called Israel. Without that country, no one would be spending any time there and if they did, they would be risking their lives.

    I’ve noticed a trend among Charedim to avoid the use of the term “Israel”, using “Eretz Yisroel” instead. Please use the proper name of the country without which you wouldn’t be able to go visit let alone stay and learn for a year

    • omg thanks SO much for that comment. If push comes to shove they’ll all want to come to ISRAEL yet they keep turning their backs on us over with their “eretz yisroel”. Demeaning. This whole thread is demeaning on so many levels.

  61. It is sickening to read how the Galus has mixed you people up. The Navi says that the biggest [email protected] Hashem is that we have left Eretz Yisroel. You guys have invented a new religion that EY is some foreign land that we send our children off to.
    Your problem is that no matter what you will say, you are first an American and then Yid. What a Hillul Hashem

  62. The idea that Jewish boys and who have no job skills, no business prospects, no land to farm, and no education that could help them get any of the above is absolutely insane. The modern obsession with marrying kids off before they can make a living is harmful to them and destructive to all Jews.

    It is also completely at odds with how Jews have lived. Age for first marriages has been in the early twenties for a long, long time for men and women, about the age they were professionally and economically secure enough to support a family. The idea that they would all depend on charity or their parents or the government forever is unnatural and goes against all of our traditions.

    Fix that and the Shoreditch crisis will fix itself.

    • No…YOU are missing the point.
      Hashem is in charge of our parnassa, college or not, an d Shmoin Esra L’chuppa..is across the board…

  63. I’m so glad I did not grow up in schmutz laaretz listening to this. If this is your outlook, I’m a lot happier with you staying in the galus.

  64. the writer has so much to learn about the size of
    the population in the usa and the makeup of the population.
    Additional sending jews to the only jewish nation in
    the world. That should be the goal of every jew in the world also.
    http://time.com/dateonomics/
    p.s as a matchmaker i say send the kids away being under there parents
    roofs there whole life will keep them from becoming adults.

  65. Gut Voch everyone.

    This guy is making a huge mistake. How can a girl of 17 properly support a full-time learner? Only a woman of 20 with some education (maybe OT, or teaching) has a chance of being able to support a family and a full-time learner!

  66. I normally don’t even bother commenting on articles written by total morons, but due to the sensitive topic this one is an exception.

    Rudomin (not using Rabbi since I don’t believe he is one; and if he once got semicha it should be taken away) totally misses the point of having young men date at 21 – it is to REDUCE the age gap. Having girls date without going to seminary and date younger will increase it.

    His straw man arguments and assuming three years of age delay (17 to 20) due to one year of seminary is ludicrous.

    His withering on the vine comment is as disgusting as it is wrong. The VAST majority of young women who get married are 20 or older. Have they all withered? An insane comment.

    We can argue whether all girls must go to seminary…much like we can argue whether all boys should learn post-marriage. That argument should be had by intelligent lay people and rabbonim. Rudiman has removed himself from that possible discussion with this inane rant.

  67. Very poorly reasoned, poorly written and offensively phrased article. Just awful all around. However, the amount of personal abuse I’m seeing directed at the author is truly appalling. We can do better than this, people.

  68. Let’s see if I could give this a shot:

    The author is saying that since the guys are being encouraged by the gedolim to marry at 21, it’s wrong to send young ladies to seminaries at 18 and 19 since A) who should the guys marry? and B) the girls don’t become more mature anyway. It’s all a lie.

    20-year-old women are seen as different and 21 year old men want to marry younger and not older.

    I don’t know where to begin. This just seems like a whole bunch of convoluted arguments melded into one that don’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Yes, the girls are being pressured to go to Israel, but the boys are also. Many young ladies may not be mature, but some are. Some even want to learn to genuinely come close to Hashem. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with the girl schools. Young ladies may be genuinely motivated to learn more. True, guys have more of a chiyuv to learn all the time, but ladies are to some degree obligated in Torah. In any case, they gain a lot. Whether it’s exploring Israel or just being in an environment that is more conducive to learning, the ladies may benefit a lot, just like guys. It’s very stereotypical to paint with a brush broad assumptions that probably aren’t true.

    There is no “magic” in 20. Anybody who thinks so is on another planet. People may view things this way, but it’s completely artificial. The author may only be reflecting society, but I would think the job of a rov is to improve it, not reflect its nonsense. Stand up and say “let’s stop being stupid with nonsense that doesn’t fit in the Torah.

    21 year olds are a similar story. It seems guys are seeing an allure in dating younger for many reasons, but it may be due to social pressure. If you think a 21 year old lady is automatically inferior to 19, there may be something a little wrong with the person. Studies actually show a lady reaches her sexual peak as she gets older. From my own experience, I see the looks of ladies fluctuate, depending on various things. (A mishnah in nedarim seems to suggest it’s tied to money)

    There is a beracha for guys who marry older. While it may not seem glamorous, it will pay in the long run for a lot of people and a lot of reasons. One of them being is that with age comes life experience. Wouldn’t it be nice if we encouraged guys to date older ladies (and vice versa) instead of reinforcing the stereotype which seems to becoming a disaster anyhow? We might be better off with another model.

    21 year old guys are being encouraged by gedolim to marry, but perhaps that needs to be re-evaluated. If they can’t marry at 21, perhaps they should wait a couple of years. Certainly not pressure at 21 to marry. I know 18 is recommended, but the rambam anyways says one should be able to support himself which I doubt the 21 year old guy can.

    Overall, it’s a bunch of disjointed arguments which don’t fit very coherently together and reflects everything that we’re trying to prevent. We don’t need people reinforcing in the media what is already a big problem. I urge the author to retract his article.

  69. Rather than blame the girls, wouldn’t I be more logical to get men to date women their age and Maybe even girls who are older than them. You seem to be trying to push the blame on women rather than trying to find a solution to the crisis. The problem with doing that will not he you any closer to the answer

    • I am not “blaming” anyone! I am trying to put out a possible reason and factors that are contributing to the Shidduch Crisis in the English-speaking Torah world in America that is the only group of Charedim with this problem really.

      Chasidim do not have this problem, most of their girls start marrying at 18 and they do not send them to any seminaries in Israel, ditto for Israeli Charedim they are marrying off their daughters from 18 and they do not send them away to seminaries overseas.

      Sure, if a girl and her parents want her to go to a seminary, there are nice seminaries in America for American Charedim and nice seminaries in Israel for Israeli Charedim and they can then go to seminary and date at the same, or their parents can find them Shidduchim, which at 18 they are more amenable to.

      While the Americans who go to Israel seem to be becoming more and more like the Modern Orthodox and like those secular college students who feel they are entitled to spend a year or two studying and traveling abroad and never worry that that may effect their Shidduch prospects in a very tight, and getting tighter as more waves of girls and boys come on line, and competitive Shidduch market.

      Yitschak Rudomin

      • As a “Modern Orthodox” Jew who gave up a secular lifestyle to attend YU and who works very hard to support my wife and children (which includes giving them a Jewish education), I want to thank you for offending my wife (who attended seminary and college and is now an amazing Jewish mother and Eishayt Chayal) and me with this comment. It’s almost worse then your article. Stop. The Sinat Chinam you are causing is proportionately related to the level of hatred and stupidity you have put forth with this dreck.

        • the truth hurts. where, what sinas chinom? he didn’t mention no names, groups. the rabbi is entitled to his opinion. ‘oifen ganof brent dos hittle’. As in all torah hashkofos, those who are tainted with torah. maddah go bersek……you still have your secular …..sticking

  70. Everything he writes is degrading. His view of a Jewish women is no less than paying $10 an hour to a housekeeper. He’s living in the wrong century, those days were over a long time ago.
    Shameful.

  71. It is sad that Rabbi Rudomin has to take rotten tomatoes in the face for articulating the basic facts that have been known for millennia.

    Marrying young does not of course mean marrying randomly. It is an orientation toward pairing with a companion for life. Some people find a companion early, others later, for some it takes a few tries.

    Unfortunately the climate of the times we live in is insane. I think the frustration in the comments reflects the impact of that craziness on good and well meaning people.

    • BTW, as in many other cases involving clash of liberalism, free thinking and being open minded, vs. vehement brute ranting, idiotic chauvinism and spouting cliche’s like you Ms. Blumenthal do here, it is so sad to see how the attacked side (i.e., young women, people looking for sidduch services, people in need etc.) are hiding their faces

  72. Has your wife read this? I’m sure she’d be pleased to know that you think that women are supposed to be meek and compliant, and not have any opinions other than those of their husbands. You’re right, we’re pretty much non-people until we’re married when BH, we have a man who gives us purpose and identity!!! (Chas v’shalom)

      • The entirety of your choice in wording has said it. You pretty much are determining what women should do without asking them and not only that, there are many women here telling you they would like to make their own decisions in regards to their life and what is meaningful to them, and you blatantly ignore it.
        You have pretty much implied women should do nothing after completing high school but make themselves available to 20 year old shnooks for marriage.
        You have said in so many words, women need no education (unless it is something that will offer them great job prospects to support their kollel learning husbands) because all they need to be in life are cooks and housekeepers and perpetual breeding wombs who don’t forget to pick up their husband’s stinky socks and take the garbage out every night.
        You have reduced them to “things” that are there only for the service of men who need not have a brain that gathers lessons through life experience in Israel or anywhere else for that matter, who need not have an opinion because men like you would not respect that opinion as demonstrated here by you. And this latest comment of yours only serves to prove how continuously deluded you are. I would not comment further because you clearly will never understand.

  73. I feel a deep sorrow for any kids you might have and all other kids that might have their lives influenced by the absolutely ridiculous nonsense that comes out of your mind.

    • So far they have published 7 of my articles on Matzav.com. For the first 6 I was hailed as the greatest thing since the invention of cream cheese, wow, great, yippie, they all said, now with this 7th article over one sentence that states the obvious, that girls are at their prime at 18, and that she has a vey narrow window of opportunity time-wise and age-wise that is worth gold in the bank as long as she is able to cash in on it, and that our modern day brutal Shidduch market, you need all the advantages you can get, because things are getting tougher for everyone and not easier. Many Frum girls do not realize they do have the time to luxuriate in seminaries and travel but they need to focus of getting married much sooner. For that I should get a thank you.

      By the way, do you own a seminary by any chance? Just asking!

      • For the first 6 I was hailed as the greatest thing since the invention of cream cheese,

        You are more delusional than I thought. You have a personality disorder that includes signs and symptoms of Narcissism and Delusions of Grandeur. Also you got it wrong, they were saying you are like the cream cheese in the front of the fridge that is close to expiration. Pop the lid and see nothing inside but mold.

        Your other articles were hardly read and got only between 4 and 16 comments. The reason this one is getting more traffic is not a good thing. It is being passed around as a piece of garbage.

        Yeah you should get a thank you.

  74. There isn’t one comment posted here that agrees with the author; his opinion is ludicrous, & the “withering on the vine” is absolutely disgusting. Rabbi Rudomin don’t try to justify not sending any of your 3 daughters to seminaries in E>Y>…There are excellent seminaries with very capable mechanchim who help our daughters foster independence, learn how to prioritize , & most importantly become independent thinkers. Your article is so ridiculous, it’s off the chart. Why don’t you look at the divorce rate of the very young couples who rush to get married!! Over Shabbos a friend of mine told me that in her daughter’s class, in a very popular Girl’s High School , (she’s now 29) there are FIVE divorced girls, with children. As someone commented this is a Chilul Hashem.

  75. Well…I just went off the Derech from this one….

    I just want to be on any Derech that this author is not…

    GD help us…

  76. Can we please stop referencing the mishna in Avos on marriage at 18? The same mishna says we don’t teach Gemara until 15. Why don’t you post on that? The Talmud says not to get married until you have parnossa.

  77. One benefit is personal development between childhood and motherhood, because they are not exactly reading gemara. So he is advocating that even this is not necessary. No advanced education, no meaningful personal development. Awful.

    • Oh shucks, I must be advocating what it says in the Mishna of Pirkei Avot, Chapter 5, Mishna 25 clearly states:

      Yehuda Ben Teima said [meaning to the Torah-observant Jews] : ….At/by [the age of] 5 [years old] learn to read [Chumash], at/by the age of 10 learn Mishna, at/by the age of 13 to do Mitzvas [hence becoming a Bar Mitzva], at/by 15 to learn Gemora [proficiency in Talmud], at/by 18 to the Chupa [marriage], by 20 to the chase [for a livelihood to support your wife and children], at 30 attain full strength, at 40 understanding, at 50 to give counsel, at 60 seniority, at 70 old age, at 80 [new] strength/bravery, at 90 stooped over, at 100 as if dead and passed away from the world.

      If you don’t like this type of genuine and authentic Jewish Torah Halachic educational and life program, you need to go and learn what Judaism 101 is all about!

      Be well,

      Yitschak Rudomin.

      • But Yehuda Ben Teima
        “by 20 to the chase [for a livelihood to support your wife and children]”
        And so I say to you: If you don’t like this [Yehuda Ben Teima’s] type of genuine and authentic Jewish Torah Halachic educational and life program, you need to go and learn what Judaism 101 is all about!

  78. A girl’s life and worth is about much more than whom and when she marries. It’s about her relationship with herself, and, of course, with God, relationships which will be difficult to develop if she’s been shoved into a wedding dress and impregnated before she can legally drive.

    • Your sentiments are well taken, but what do they have to do with Torah Judaism as practiced in the Yeshiva, Chasidic, and Charedi worlds???

      Glad the entire world of non-Frum Jews is here to chime in, maybe they will learn something along the way.

      • So you have insulted women and now you insult Jews who are Shomrim Torah Umitzvos because they see your points as a disgrace.
        Torah Judaism:

      • What could possibly be inherently wrong with growing as an individual and connecting to Judaism on a deep and personal level? What Tanach are you reading? Definitely not the one in which Devorah served as the channel between God and the Jewish people and led them accordingly.
        You’re presumptuous attitude about my level of observance based on the mere fact that I think women should develop personally is absolutely ridiculous and says a lot about your own adherence to the ACTUAL torah (thou shalt judge others favorably).

          • Clearly, the above comment is satire. It’s an obvious logical fallacy (ad hominem) meant to prove Zahava’s original point – that within the Jewish community, we ought to value the spiritual growth of women as much more than potential wives.

          • That’s hysterical! What does her marriage status have to do with anything?
            In your mind, a woman who wants to develop a hashkafa and a relationship with her Judaism is “not frum?” Or is that just not yeshivish, charedi, chassidish? Perhaps your assumption that a frum girl needs to get married before she gets “ideas” in her head is part of the problem.

            To your original point – As a religious Jew of the male persuasion, I can inform you that my year in yeshiva in EY was one of the most important experiences of my life. It was a year in which I had a chance mature and develop in many ways. This included the formation and strengthening of my Hashkafa. As a result of my experiences during this time, I learned not “just” Torah, but what the Torah itself, and Judaism, meant to me. I hate to tell you, that is a lot more than “my rebbi said…”

          • Despicable and irrelevant response to Zahava. Say it with me: “A woman’s worth does not depend on her marriageability or marital status.”

        • mibirchsov shel adam niker …im hu Talmud chacham’ same goes for speech; writing , word usage, thoughts one can discern your hashkofes and theyre not frum

  79. The writer is using the “shidduch crisis” scare to trigger already anxious parents in the community (especially of girls) as a reason to prevent going to seminary in Israel which is threatening as a way for a girl to develop herself, away from pressure or wing of their parents and their immediate community- any change of environment where girls may develop themselves as people even if it is spiritually (which is obviously less important than their role as a housewife) is dangerous and threatening. It does not matter for a woman to develop herself as a person, main thing is her role is centered in servitude for her husband as the quote below. Notice how the question shows his expectation that women also have a full time job but no such similar demands evidently for the young men, for whom the writer appears solely worried about satisfying their concerns (which he says they have) to have a girl preferably under 20.

    “Question: How is all that a “preparation” for the hard job of marriage, running a household, often with a full time job to cope with, as well as motherhood and child-rearing?”

  80. You are a misguided moron. Equivalent of Donald Trump. Your article shows how you are not qualified to give advice to single people. Director of “Jewish Professionals Institute”??? You don’t qualify to be a director of such an organization either. You are contributing to the problem. If you truly want to help solve the Shiduch crisis, your best contribution would be to stop spreading your moronic ideas. Thank you.

  81. He clearly has a personality disorder, and unfortunately is unable to even recognize what a sad existence he lives in. As such, nothing he says should be taken personally, as he is simply an immature child in a grown man’s body with no filter on his mouth. If anything, perhaps we should pray for the recovery of his mental health….

  82. There’s a very troubling message throughout this post that being ready for marriage is merely a matter of having learned Gemara for a proper amount of time.

    I hope you realize that the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. (Maybe they should have *some* relation, but not in a major way, and certainly don’t as practiced today.) Sometimes, indeed, exactly the opposite. So, no, youth is not the solution to good marriages. Perhaps it is if you want to “clear the problem away” and pretend it’s been “dealt with,” because, hey, at least they’re married. (And let’s just ignore unhappy and broken marriages, why not.) But marriage is a lot more than a wedding and pre-marriage “reputation.” These are dinei nefashot here, and you’re dealing with it like a math problem.

    • Thank you for your response.

      Please do not put words into my mouth that I did not say or mean. Obviously when the Mishna in the name of Yehuda Ben Teima says “Ben Shemoneh Esrei Lechupa” and before that “15 to Gemara” and after “20 for ‘the chase'” it is not a “mathematical formula” but rather something more like a Piaget’s “stages of development” that sets “milestone” years when a child an the young adult etc is ready or not for the various stages of learning, life, marriage, work, accomplishments, etc and all the other stages of a normal JEWISH TORAH-OBSERVANT LIFE CYCLE.

      Thus, “Ben Shemoneh Esrei Lechupa” is the Torah Shebe’al Peh’s guideline, meaning HKB”H’s guidelines, to us as Jews and human beings that answers the basic question “when, meaning at what age, are we, as Torah Jews, ready for marriage”? Is it 20? Or 23? or 25? or older or younger?

      B”H, HKB”H did not leave us in a world of Hefkerus and our greatest Chachamim, meaning Chazal, BERUACH HAKODESH, are teaching us all the time, that the “right age” under normal circumstances and all things being equal, is 18 years of age to work for the goal of marriage. Why is that so shocking to so many people when it’s just an obvious statement of reality? It is not a “command” it is a GUIDELINE!

      Therefore, one can marry at 17 or 16 or 15 as human being can and have and do do that — the Halacha as we know allows marriage even at younger age, certainly from Bar Mitzva and Bat Mitzva on as well, it is in Shas we learn about it all the time in our Yeshivos and Daf Yomis, and one can marry at 19, 20 or 21, or later. But the Mishna in Pirkei Avos RECOMMENDS that the BEST time is 18 years of age, and I think that is a great idea we can at least think about even though it will not happen for everyone!!

      Of course we do not know what HKB”H has Bashert for each one of us and so obviously times of marriage will vary for different people given that we are human, fallible, subject to personal and social circumstances, and events and things going on in our lives and around us that may delay the ideal time of 18 years, or perhaps in some cases as we know some people will not be Zocheh top marry, Nebech, Lo Aleinu.

      So please give me a little more credit than saying “oh, how can you be so mathematical?” when I am not saying that at all.

      Yitschak Rudomin

      • So you agree that according to Torah SheBa’al Peh’s guidelnes, a man should WORK to provide for his family, is that not right? That is what HKB”H commands us, right?

      • I feel SO insulted and disrespected. I am 25 years old, I came to Israel to learn in seminary when I was 19 and got married at the age of 21. For 2 years, I was definitely not touring around and having fun as you described. I was LEARNING TORAH. I was getting ready to be a WIFE. I was WORKING on my middos to build a bais neeman b’israel. I was not ready to get married before, I was still growing up, I was still figuring out many things that I was able to figure out while at seminary. You want the yeshiva bochurs to be married asap, but you want them to marry a girl who is mentally and emotionally ready, you want the girl to have a strong relationship with Hashem. You definitely dont want them to be divorced after a couple of years. I have seen MANY MANY couples rushing to get married during their teenage years and then going though a painful divorce usually with children involved.

        Just fyi, one of the first things a shadchan asks the girl is “which seminary did you go to?” bacause is an important part of her resume.

      • You seem to have completely misread my critique. Maybe on purpose, maybe not. You wrote:

        “I agree 100% with the call for boys to marry at a younger age, especially in our times, when by 21, a good full-time learning boy is already a strong lamdan, having received the finest chinuch in the world’s best yeshivos.”

        You certainly seem to be implying there that having learned in “the world’s best yeshivot” and “being a strong lamdan” are what make for a successful marriage. That is a bit delusional, no? My only other alternative is that you’re not looking for successful marriages but for more weddings.

        As for Pirkei Avot, show me a place that teaches Tanach from 5-10 and Mishna from 10-15 and only then begins learning Gemara…and from which everyone gets a job at 20…

  83. Rabbi Rudomin, there is so much that I find objectionable in your article and subsequent posts, and most have been addressed very well by many other commenters. But most appalling in my eyes is your mind-boggling egregious disrespect for Eretz Yisrael. I genuinely fear that people such as yourself are going to bring a churban on the Jews of America chas v’shalom, because that is what has happened in history every time that Jews have forgotten that galus is a punishment, and placed their galus-home above Eretz Yisrael in their hearts. You are also completely and self-servingly ignorant about the caliber of learning in Eretz Yisrael. You need to examine the words of the Tefilot that you presumably say three times a day

  84. Wow just Wow. Where I come from it is very common for girls to at least have their bachelors degree before they marry so they are not relying on mommy and tatty for the rest of their lives. I cant even begin to comment on this aritcle. Cannot wait to show it to my father – a big tzadik- who holds VERY highly of everyone getting a torah infused learning year in eretz yisrael.

  85. There’s so much wrong with what’s written here that the real crisis is people who believe in pushing girls away from Torah institutions in order to better their marriage prospects.

  86. he author’s comments are full of sinat chinam and are degrading towards women. This man has no derech eretz and publishing this highly offensive and completely delusional article does not do anyone any good.

  87. “It is just critical that anyone reading this who has taken offense to what this crass and disgusting author wrote know that he in no way represents the Torah-authentic Yiddishkeit he purports to represent. He clearly has a personality disorder, and unfortunately is unable to even recognize what a sad existence he lives in. As such, nothing he says should be taken personally, as he is simply an immature child in a grown man’s body with no filter on his mouth. If anything, perhaps we should pray for the recovery of his mental health….

  88. From your replies, I see you just dismiss much of what everyone has to say. Let me preempt my comments by saying, I am very yeshivish, my husband is a rabbi and learned in kollel for 10 years, I agree that there is a shidduch crisis. I just don’t understand why you see it necessary to speak in such callous terms. I got married at 23, I have been married for 11 years baruch hashem, and still I was so hurt and offended by the way you chose to bring across your point. My sister is 21 and just started dating this year, and she was deeply offended. “withered on the vine???” I am scared to think that you actually believe that. I can’t believe you would write something like that….where is your sechel???
    I know from all the countless replies on every single website that this was published on that you have hurt women and girls across the world. You caused a chillul Hashem, and created a mockery out of the points that you are trying to bring across. Many people dismissed this as “purim torah” b/c it is so wrong to speak like this. If you are going to speak this way, you come across as a MAN who doesn’t value womens individual struggles and challenges, rather that the image that you were trying to portray, as a RABBI who is trying to help initiate positive change. You would do well to reevaluate your stance in how you get your message across, and see if hurting people is worse than your message, thereby canceling out all good you are trying to do. We see that Penina was punished when she hurt Chana even though her intentions were leshaim shamayim, I daven that you should do teshuva and not have wrath from shamayim on you for your chillul hashem that has spread across the world, due to the internets far reaching capabilities. It would behoove you to print a public apology for your crass and insensitive comments geared towards women.

  89. I would like to remind you we have just entered daylight savings time. When you have an opportunity, please set your watch forward another 100 years so that you may join us in 2016.

    • Hmm, interesting that the main part of my comment, which was about 80% of the total post, was completely deleted by the moderator before approving the post. I guess this isn’t the website for substantive dialog or meaningful disagreement.

      The jist of the original post, which was moderated, in somewhat more mild language, was that this article says a lot more about male insecurity in this culture than it does about the societal value of women.

  90. I am very strongly against sending girls to Seminary in Israel. At best it’s an expensive 13th grade (tuition and airfare alone is over $20k excluding spending money). At worst, it’s whereby the girls come back looking to marry kolel boys who will 9 times out of 10 amount to nothing vis-a-vis being a future “klei Kodesh” and they’re just sapping what limited savings the parents have barely scraped together over years of hard work. It’s time to shut down this nonsense lifestyle of young able bodied men shying away from REAL work and obtaining training by way of either a college degree or apprenticeship in a trade. It is too expensive to live on minimum wage which is all these yeshiva boys are qualified for after spending the best years of their youth NOT getting the training/degrees they will require to succeed financially. I went to a mainstream Flatbush yeshiva for 4 years post HS and earned a college degree in the evenings. My wife went to a Flatbush half day Seminary while attending college and by the time my wife and I got married I was 24 and she was 22. We were In financially independent (in terms of paying our own bills – not in terms of paying for our wedding) and in my opinion that’s the BEST age for marriage. 18-19 for a girl and 21-22 for a boy is nonsense. Might have worked in the times of the gemara but it is silly in today’s day. These young kids can’t apply for their own credit cards without Mommy and Totty’s guidance. They have no business getting married.

  91. I CANNOT believe the article written here. I am disgusted!

    firstly, where on earth does it say that the IDEAL age for marriage is at the age of 17 or 18? maybe that was true years ago. when the daughters did all the house work, they did not have the modern world to deal with.

    As a new mother and partially new married woman I cannot read these words and stay silent. A women needs time and proper Chinuch to prepare for marriage and motherhood. a 17 year old TEENAGER is not well equip!!!

    Let me bring up another Sugiya for you, how come young charedi girls have panic attacks before and after marriage?? can it be that they were not prepared? that they didn’t have the proper tools? I wonder why?!

  92. There is so much wrong with this. Just so very much. To encourage a woman to hold down a full-time job, run a household, and bear children while her husband sits and learns in some kollel somewhere is a recipe for disaster. You can’t expect a woman at the age of 18 and a man at the age of 20-21 to be mature enough to provide for themselves without any formalized job training or higher education? It puts an undue level of pressure on the couple, especially if the husband isn’t making a financial contribution. Not every young man should be learning in yeshiva for an extended period of time because not every young man has the skills to do so. Just the same, not every young woman should have to go directly from her mother’s house to her husband’s house and support a “man-child” who isn’t capable of earning a living.
    Also, no one gave you the authority to speak like a gadol about the community.

  93. Who are you? What is your yichus? Who gave you ordination? Please tell everyone. If you have a gadol backing your horrible words, then we can say there is emes in it. When I go to a Dr. I look to see their credentials before I believe what they say. Why is everyone arguing with you, we don’t even know where you get your misinformation from? Why do you have the power to spread this terrible retoric? Who are you to say these things and claim that you have the emes and that EVERYONE KNOWS that woman are at their prime at 18? What does that even mean? Prime of what? Childbearing years? Understanding of life? I don’t even understand what you are saying. B/c otherwise they lose their window of opportunity? That is the most horrifying thing I have read about shidduchim in a long time. When I was 18 I wanted to marry a working guy. After a year in seminary I wanted to marry a learning guy. And I did, and we were in kollel for 10 years. You are acting like you are Hashem. Honestly, the chillul hashem you are perpetrating is scary to contemplate.

    • the same way you can have your opinion without ‘who are you , whogave you ordination,whats yur yichus’ the same way rabbi rudomin can give his opinion without ‘ordination,yichus blah blah…

  94. This article isn’t even worth responding on. I know you thought you were being funny – but you should just know how many girls (and their parents) you have extremely hurt in so many different ways. I expect a sincere apology soon, and please think next time!!

  95. did you ever think about all the 19 and 20 year old girls WHO WANT TO GET MARRIED and dont get any dates?!?!!?! How does your article make them feel?

  96. did you think about all the 19 and 20 year old girls (yes, just back from sem) WHO WANT TO GET MARRIED but dont get any dates?!?!?!? How does your article make them feel? Hopeless maybe, but B”H I was zoche to go to an amazing sem in E”Y and I learned about real emunah, so instead of making up dumb analogies of rotten grapes and spoiled milk TRY TO THINK OF IDEAS FOR US, HAVE EMUNAH, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY DAVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  97. Rabbi Rudomin, How old were you when you got married? And how old was your wife? At what age did you have your first child? And how old was your wife when she gave birth to your first child?

  98. Rabbi Rudomin….this reaction to your article is a perfect example of ‘hay tzorve mirabbonon d’lo sano anshai masa mishim d’lo mocheche b’mila dishmayah’ losse trans. a young rebbi if the tows people don’t hate him because he doesn’t say mussar. one can see from rube drubah posters that they are not from our pure haskafs….one can see their posting whenever the subject is kedushash am yisroel. like seprate gender in busses , WO(f)W etc they always take the side of the SAMECH MEM. From where I come , my children, my siblings etc we have a total of 50 child. all got married like we do which is the torah way bet 18-20 maybe 21 all went in to business etc all b’h…and now the same with their children. yes by us ‘al titosh tora imaycha’ is a reality…
    yes they all say ‘I went to seminary, I got hashkafod, became mature blah blah…well so did all who stayed here

  99. While I don’t necessarily agree with everything that was said in this article and especially the way in which it was written, I would like to comment on the absolute anti-torah hashkafa portrayed in almost all the above comments. Women CANNOT do what they want…AND NEITHER CAN MEN!!! We are all here for a purpose. Everyone has their individual purpose, but according to Torah hashkafa (whether u like it or not) there are also defined gender roles. And while men have their roles so do women. And as our gedolim throughout the generations have said, a woman’s primary role is to RAISE HER FAMILY ( you don’t have to like that for it to be true). And there is nothing condescending about that. Until recently that was recognized universally, and was considered avodas hakodesh even by the goyim (someone once said a good moshol:if u think about it, in the bai’s hamikdash it was mostly cooking and cleaning, and we only don’t look at it like that because we recognize the inherent kedusha and importance of the avoda.) It is only relatively recently (since the feminist movement) that child-raising has turned into an oppression. U can no more complain about someone saying that marriage and children should be a top priority for women (even w/o a chiyuv of pr”u), than someone who says that men should daven 3 times a day. This destructive hashakafa that women can do what they want is not only stupid (for some reason when ppl started a campaign for boys to get married younger, whether u agrees or not, NOONE claimed that you can’t tell boys what to do-proof that this comes from the completely anti-torah feminist movement), NOONE CAN DO WHAT THEY WANT… We do what the Torah wants as told to us by our gedolim and rebbeim.

    • Brilliant analysis.
      It is because of “feminism” that women are putting their duties to their husband, children and home behind them. It is not at all due to the Torah world you speak of that somehow forgets the ketuba obligates the men to support the women, and instead sends women out to work. No that wouldn’t be it.

  100. Dear Author,

    I wonder why you have not considered another solution to this crisis, one which would solve the crisis without the need to have girls forego seminary; and that is, that boys should be encouraged to date girls of their own age. You take it as a priori fact that boys of 21 are wanting to date younger girls. Why shouldn’t they be encouraged to date girls their own age? At 21, girls are not “withering on the vine.” What is galling is that no one, apparently not even you, seem to consider this change to the system, when it seems to be a solution that may have legs!

  101. Sarah Imanu well past her prime, Esther who Rabbis teach us was 90 when she became queen, B”H, they weren’t considered “of a different category”.
    I hope that you do not consider your wife and mother “in a different category”

  102. Sarah Imanu was well past her prime when she gave birth, Esther we are taught was 90 when she became Queen.

    B”H, they were not considered “already in a different category”. Fortunately, our Rabbis knew better about the value and worth of women and teach that there is inner beauty, among many other things, for which a woman is to be prized.

  103. I don’t see too many people pointing out the absurd exaggerations of this writer.
    Seminary is one year, and for some, two years. Not from 17 till 20, which according to conventional math is three years.
    He claims that seminary is “dreams of travel, touring, having fun, inspired lectures about all sorts of subjects, etc.”. Who told him that? His daughters who did not go to seminary?

    How does it prepare them for child-rearing? Some things are not sound bytes, they take time to understand. People can work hard, extremely hard, if they know why they are doing it. When a person finds him/herself working crazy hours, living on little with little appreciation, they need to know why they are doing that. In-depth understanding of Hashkafa and Torah are what gives them that perspective. Not everybody will end up needing it, and not everybody will be successful with it, but it is not just ‘chavayot’.
    And the ides that ‘times have changed’ is the calling card of the maskilim. Although there are great Yeshivos in the USA, there is no Brisk, there is no Mir. And no amount of advertising pap can change that fact. Bochurim are not ‘living like kings’ in EY, my apartment had rats and an outdoor bathroom. The reason they go is for learning. Some may waste some time there, but that is not the reason for going there.

  104. I’m not a Matzav reader, but was referred here, and read the column and most of the comments through March 11 with great interest. When all the sturm and drang is swept away, R. Rudomin is making a simple point, and he’s right: If you believe that yeshivah bochurim should be marrying at the age of 21, then there needs to be 19 year old girls available for them to date. A lot of the comments suggest R. Rudomin should try to convince young men to date girls above or at their age, but that’s asking to change the basic DNA baked into the human male. Men, across all times and across all races and religions, have always dated women younger than them. Apart from simple appeals to hashgacha, there are many anthropological reasons why this is hard wired into the system, ranging from child-rearing to end-of-life caretaker issues. It seems like a lot of women commenting here don’t want to hear that, but that’s the simple reality.

    I myself have other issues with R. Rudomir’s coloumn, but that is only because the whole yeshivah dating and supporting “system”, as it were, is foreign to me. We are regular Hungarian Sefardishe Jews, and this whole system, including the kollel system, is utterly contrary to minhag yisrael sabba. Its a terrible mistake, and we are only beginning to reap the bitter fruits. However, if one does accept the basic premises of the yeshivah system, then R. Rudomin’s point is 100% valid.

  105. R’Rudomin, to answer your question as to why this is the case, it is because Sem is a big business which cashes in on girls’ parent’s fears about shidduchim, while ironically causing the shidduch situation to worsen as you’ve illustrated.

  106. First of all, stop with the criticism against Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the points he brought up, but nobody likes getting yelled at. Second of all, girls just back from seminary should not start shidduchim yet in my opinion because they are still on their “seminary high” and don’t really know what they want yet in a husband. What happens when a girl figures out what she wants, but by then she is already married (with or without kids) and realizes what she has then is nothing that she wants now? Did you ever wonder why there are so many young couples getting divorced? Girls should start shidduchim at 20, 19 if they are ready, and not the second they step off the plane from seminary. Also, why are there guys in their upper 20’s requesting to go out with 18 or 19 year old girls? It’s disgusting!! Just stick to the girls who are around the same age as you instead of having a 6, 10, or even 12 year age gap!! And if this worked out, maybe all the 21 or 22 year olds won’t feel like they are considered “older singles” since they AREN’T!! What is this whole system going to be like when I iy”H start shidduchim in a few years?

  107. Why would you want to wait till your daughter was 18 before you marry her off?Here in Israel some get married at 14 (the police recently intervened at a wedding of an ALMOST 14 year old girl and a 20 year old boy) and I have seen many girls married at 16 . (I met a 50 year old great grandmother recently) .I understand that you want the girl to marry before she matures and has opinions of her own…so why wait till 18?

  108. Why can’t young men and women marry a spouse of the same age. Maybe the solution is to get young yeshivish men comfortable with the idea of marrying a women of his age?

  109. A note from the “Chassidish World System”…I don’t know if it will work for the Yeshivish world. too much would have to change. For one thing, the wives are not expected to support their families, nor are the men all expected to be the next gedolim. They are merely expected to build a wholesome, frum family together. Hence, the girls don’t need degrees, and the boys don’t have to have become serious Lamdanim. That shaves off a few years. Additionally, since that is the goal, there is much less stress on acing the “top Boy/girl.” Parents are practical and seek a compatible partner, based on their family type and child’s strengths and weaknesses. In the litvish world, all girls seek the same “top learning boy” and all boys seek the same “rich, daughter of a Rosh Yeshiva, who is size 0, went to the top seminary and has a degree.” That turns the shidduch scene into a competitive race with winners and losers. It is also written in stone in the litvish world that girls have to be younger, shorter, etc. whereas in the Chassidish world, the boys and girls are generally within about 1-3 apart, in either direction (and you often see taller/ larger women with smaller men)
    Another point is the current school system. Since the expectation is that girls will marry soon after school, 11 and 12 grade teachers teach many practical life and Hashkafa classes. In the Litvish system, these topics are considered off limits in school and left for seminary.
    And one final question on your article…If all the eligible boys and girls are in Israel, why don’t they date there? much as the chassidish girls who “stay close to home” and date while in local seminaries or jobs.

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