The Matzav Shmoooze: Enough NASI Bashing

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matzav-nasiDear Editor,

I am writing in response to your story here on Matzav yesterday titled “Will NASI Give Them Money? Couple Ages 88 and 87 Get Married.”

I was more than a little surprised when I saw the title to the article on the front news page. I’ve always perceived Matzav as a place to access news from different places and I can state that you’re usually pretty focused.

NASI, as everyone knows, is an organization, who no matter who is running it or what the motive is, tries to set people up and get them married. The latest trend has been to bash the organization and it’s become almost a game. I am someone who has been fortunate, boruch Hashem, to get married at a young age and since then has been trying to make shidduchim among other singles and have, boruch Hashem, been successful. I have no connection to NASI, nor do I know the motives behind it, but what I do know is that if they succeed to make even one shidduch, the whole organization was worthwhile.

I see firsthand how overwhelming shidduchim can be both for the girls, who are not getting redd names like before, and the boys, whose parents may be getting too many names and don’t know where to start.

What nobody can deny is that there is a shidduch crisis – a crisis that is just growing. If there is anyone who takes the initiative to go out and try to redd a girl shidduchim, kol hakavod to them!

Anybody ranting about the “exorbitant” amount of money NASI is asking doesn’t know the work that goes into making a shidduch. And yes, let anyone say what they want, but the older the girl, the harder it is to get a date for her. Anyone who thinks they have a better method of getting girls married other than the way NASI is advertising, great. Go ahead and try, instead of bashing the organization. Meanwhile, NASI is trying. To bash them is wrong.

And you, Matzav, shamelessly titled an article with mockery of NASI. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You could have titled the article “87 and 88 Year Old Couple Gets Married” and instead you used it to poke fun at an organization trying to do something good.

Sincerely,

Not Finding it Funny

*****

The Matzav Shmoooze is a regular feature on Matzav.com that allows all readers to share a thought or analysis, long or short, one sentence or several paragraphs long, on any topic, for readers to mull over and comment on. Email submissions to [email protected].

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36 COMMENTS

  1. Dear letter writer,
    wow, to bash NASI is wrong, but that NASI is in effect emotionally bashing those single by setting up a mercenary, despicable program, that is okay? We don’t have a Mesorah for this — we do have in our Mesorah about a Tanna who found out about a girl who wasn’t being set up. He took that girl and had her redone cosmetically and married her off. He then cried for the other girls who didn’t have that done for them. I’ve made shidduchim, so don’t give me the baloney of “how impossibly hard it is” – I’ve made shidduchim where I ended up having to pay instead of being paid, where I got a present as a siddur for my shadchanus. And it didn’t bother me one bit, because we are taught that since Briyas Ha’Oalom all Hashem does is be Mezaveg Zivugim — which means that anyone who wants to emulate G-d must redt a few shidduchim. Without trying to extort money from girls who are in pain.

  2. Well, from reading Matzav, it seems that one must bash NASI because the Rabbah bashing has already played out.

    Of course, one can disagree without bashing.

  3. Well, some of us find NASI to be not only foolish, but misleading actually harmful. And besides for that, they are terrifying people into making mistakes.

    Having spoken with the head of the group, I would close them down tomorrow. I would trash them from the rooftops if I had the time. But I don’t have teh time to waste my breath on them.

    The only reason I’m writing now is to trash those who say to stop trashing them.

    They’re well-meaning, bus misguaded and a meance to the communtiy.

  4. NASI reduces the shidduchim process to money, that can be better used in other quieter ways, if making shidduchim is really the goal.

  5. “…but what I do know is that if they succeed to make even one shidduch, the whole organization was worthwhile…”

    even a few people make money within a Ponzi Scheme. Does that make the scheme “worthwhile” too?

  6. i am happy to hear that you feel that end do justify the means but the torah feels otherwise and what is now very clear with this new program is that nasi has now shown its true colors that its end game is not shidduchim it is money and while you might not care what his motive is the people who are supposed to give him huge sums of money do care. and so do many erliche shaddchanim who have been belittled by this.

  7. Many girls who are aproaching age 30 have told me that they wont agree to go out with any guy older then themselves.

    I asked them , how do you figure this?

    They answered, well NASI says that boys should date older girs, so … deliver me my younger guy that NASI says I am entitled to get.

  8. PEOPLE CAN EXPRESS THEIR OPINION WITHOUT HAVING TO GET LECTURED ALL THE TIME

    NASI HAS MANY FAULTS IE TRANSPARANCEY
    OVERBLOWING THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM
    MAKING MONEY THE SOUTION WHEN IN FACT ITS THE BIGGEST CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM AND NOT AGE
    I MEAN THE LACK OF MONEY ON MOST GIRLS PART AND THE SEARCH OF MONEY AS BEING # 1 ON THE BOYS LIST BECAUSE EVERYONE NOWDAYS NEEDS TO BE SUOPPORTED FOR TEN YEARS MINIMUM

  9. I do not know the details of NASI intimately, though I do know those involved. I could not disagree more strongly with the letter writer, however, that if one shidduch were made the program would have been worthwhile.

    We are faced with a financial crisis (no, I am not abusing that word- it is perfectly accurate) within our community that is deteriorating by the day.

    People do not have jobs, money and in some cases food to put on the table. We as a community desperately need to concentrate our resources and efforts on simply keeping people’s head above water, and in a best case even teaching them self sufficiency.

    Any other use of money on social experimentation and extraneous programs is simply depriving other organizations and individuals of desperately needed funds. This is not the right time, in my humble opinion, for these organizations and their well meaning efforts.

  10. The way i see it, if there was a hunger with no food, but someone can smuggle in bread at $500.00 a loaf, would you cry “not fair” because “only the rich can afford it”
    All the bashing comes from people with no money, and they don’t forgin someone else finding a shidduch, because that person could afford it.
    Work on your middos, and bitochon.

  11. As someone who B”H was Zocheh to be a Shaddchan many times (young, older, 2nd marriages) I feel so bad for these “older” girls. They are wonderful, great, sensitive, friendly and all other maa’los – each in their own merit. Where they all seem to come together is when they have now become society’s “Chayfetz Shel Mitzva”. This is humiliating to them. Not only are they having a hard time in Shidduchim but now we will create incentives for people to think of them -as if they are not worthy without fronting thousands of dollars.

    Hashem Yerachem.

    I once heard a story from Rav Pesach Krohn about how 3 ladies who ended up with their own children getting divorced after they acted a certain way in the Shidduchim they were redding.

    This Nasi project is from the sickest degarading funds ever established. As a Shadchan I would refund every dollar to any girl that I am Zocheh to help find her Shidduch. I cry for these girls that they have to think this painful thought that unless they dangle dollars in front of us we won’t think of them.

    Then we wonder why tragedies hit Klal Yisroel.

  12. Goldy,

    You have fine emotions but your Torah hashkafa is all wrong

    The Gra paskens that a shadchen is entitled to 2% of the naden al pid din and he can go to bais din to force collection of this fee.

    The only question with NASI is the security of the money given up front.

    Those that have older daughters would put up this money in a flash if it would mean reasonable redts and a shidduch for our choshuve daughters.

  13. The older girls are too picky, that’s why they are,still single. If they put up thousands of dollars it will only encourage them to be pickier.

  14. Can someone please explain to me why the increase in shadchanus for older girls. Does it mean they are worth more? Or could it mean they are impossible to help, and therefore nasi is not going to lift a finger unless they are paid big bucks!!! I might be looking at this organization with tainted eyes, but I can’t figure out how charging exorbitant prices will result in more marriages for singles. Are they saying they have a huge list of boys 30 and up, stashed away in a closet that we parents don’t know about??? And the only way we will ever get these “gems” is by mortgaging our homes? Something just doesn’t make sense here!!

  15. Lets get the facts down, not what you take out of them. Meaning, yes, its degrading, not to mention unfeasible to demand such funds for being an older girl. yet they are not necessarily schemers and extortionists, the system does have a logic to it, even if its dead wrong, you can disagree without contempt.

  16. The Gra never said that you can collect money up front – Shadchanus is after the fact. And if it is 2% of naden, then the Gra’s daughter’s Shadchanim probably got $0, for he did not have money to give naden. Hence, in the Nasi scheme, the Gra’s daughters would stay single.
    And with all due respect to you, the Tanna in the Gemorah tale of marrying off a girl did not do it for a s’chum kesef. Rather, l’hefech, he put in his own money to marry her off.

  17. Everyone is entitled to agree or disagree with the program. What is unfair is to cast aspersions on the integrity of the directors. I know firsthand that they are honest,sincere,hardworking and well-meaning.

  18. Putting the money issue aside for the moment, how is NASI any better or different than any other Shaddchan service, till now? How are they “better” in finding an older single, their Basherta? What technique are they using that will end in a Mazel Tov?

  19. tzoorba – my parents have 3 daughters in shidduchim that would all be under nasi criteria for payment….so they should pay all that money and where will we get the money to spend traveling in to NY with. the situation is desperate and sad but it doesnt have to be that much more costly. and honestly unless theyve dreamt up new shadchanim we’ve unfortunately spent so much time meeting a lot of them and more often then not, not even one shidduch is redt to us from them.

  20. I spoke to a shadchan and she says that as a shadchan she is NOT HAPPY with Nasi
    I also dont understand why they will only give money to a professional shadchan
    MOST shiduchim are NOT FROM PROfessional shadchanim> YES READ THAT AGAIN NOT FROM PROFESSIONAL SHADCHANIM!!!! If this program was legit then why not give the ones that redt a shiduch even if they are not professional!!!

  21. “What is unfair is to cast aspersions on the integrity of the directors. I know firsthand that they are honest, sincere, hardworking, and well-meaning.”

    1) So what are their names?

    2) So who is the Rav or the Rabbonim who are giving their Haskama to this program?

  22. instead of validating yourself and your opinion, why don’t you keep it to yourself…and use the time you would have spent bashing members of b’nai yisrael to think of a shidduch or two to redt?

  23. Goldy,

    “The Gra never said that you can collect money up front – Shadchanus is after the fact.”

    That’s true but the point is that shadchunus is something that it is legitimate to pay for and should be paid for. I made a shidduch for one couple who didn’t pay us and it ended up in divorce.

    ” And if it is 2% of naden, then the Gra’s daughter’s Shadchanim probably got $0, for he did not have money to give naden. Hence, in the Nasi scheme, the Gra’s daughters would stay single.”

    This is false. Who said he didn’t have any money? He didn’t care about money but he had it when he needed it. Do you think that he didn’t buy an esrog? Was everything given to him for free?

    “And with all due respect to you, the Tanna in the Gemorah tale of marrying off a girl did not do it for a s’chum kesef. Rather, l’hefech, he put in his own money to marry her off.”

    He is praised for going lifnim mishuras hadin. However, this can certainly not be a viable model for shadchanim or the shadchan system.

    I am sure that almost any Rov that you would ask would tell you to spend money up front to gain an advantage with a capable shadchun. To say that no money is needed is simply unrealistic.

    If NASI doesn’t deserve the money up front, they certainly do after the fact.

  24. I just saw the new ad. A few thoughts:
    I still feel it inconceived to publish any proposal (they say don’t send anything yet) till ALL the kinks are out.
    They say it’s under the direct supervision of the rabbanim associated with NASI. Do they mean all 70? Are they all intimately involved with this?
    I won’t mention that they didn’t capitalize the H in the im yirtze Hashem acronym; I’ve been told not everyone does.

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