Matzav Inbox: Follow-Up to the Torah Ugedulah Shmuess – The Sickness of Money in Shidduchim

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Dear Matzav Inbox,

I’m writing as a follow-up to the shmuess by Rabbi Klein on Matzav.com about Torah Ugedulah and the rampant opulence and overindulgence plaguing our community. But more than that, I want to focus on the cancer that’s eating away at shidduchim, the vile obsession with money that has completely overtaken everything else.

It’s disgusting, really. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve encountered people – I won’t even call them parents, because that’s a title they don’t deserve – who, when it comes to their kids’ shidduchim, care about nothing – mamish nothing! – but the cash. NOTHING! If you look at their kids’ shidduchim, you’ll see it clearly. One money shidduch after another. It’s all about the money, nothing else. Nauseating. Forget about middos, forget about the Torahdike chinuch, forget about whether they’ll have a home built on the yesodos of Yiddishkeit.

It’s all about the checkbook.

How much longer will we allow this to go on? It’s destroying families, it’s ruining the shidduch system, it’s creating marriages where the only thing that matters is the money that’s promised (and often doesn’t even show up)! Parents are playing games with money, pressuring each other like it’s some sort of competition. And what do you get in the end? A couple, who may have started their marriage with “a good deal,” but now all they’re thinking about is money, and nothing else. There’s no room for Torah, no room for mentchlichkeit, no room for proper Torahdike values. It’s a disaster, and everyone’s too busy pretending it’s fine.

It’s a busha to see what’s happening to our communities. When did we become a bunch of money-hungry people, only interested in materialism, rather than the true values that should guide us? It’s enough already. We need to wake up and realize that this madness is ruining everything, and it’s destroying the foundation of what shidduchim should really be about.

Enough with the superficiality. Enough with the obsession with wealth. Let’s bring back the true priorities, the ones that really matter – the ones that focus on building botim neemanim, raising families that truly believe that olam hazeh domeh l’prozdor.

Sick to My Stomach

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31 COMMENTS

      • Apparently I am not under the same rock as you are. Because this is not an issue in my community where yichus and middos are the most valued things to be considered in a potential shidduch.

  2. How is it ruining the shidduch system? Let like-minded people be meshadech with each other. You keep to people with your values.
    I’m not sticking up for the people you are referring to. (Although it is usually people with money that seek money. Or Roshei Yeshivos who are taka not machshiv money, they are machshiv Torah and im ein kemach…) But, I don’t know why you write that it’s ruining the system.

  3. This is the shidduch crisis in the Yeshiva world. If you can’t promise money your daughter can’t get a date. Even if your daughter has a great job and a nice amount of savings.
    Now who’s going to do something about it?

  6. “When did we become a bunch of money-hungry people, only interested in materialism, rather than the true values that should guide us?”

    Easy. When earning a parnassa to support one’s family became passe. It became something for the ” baal habayis”, not a “ben Torah”. When someone decided to distort what it means to honor ones words signed on their kesubah (ask any wife who holds down 2 jobs, juggles taking care of the home and her spouse and kids if she is truly mochel her husbands commit – what percentage really mean it).

    Moreover, it’s very easy to spend someone else’s money, easy come easy go. $650 on a baby photo shoot, why not. Matching $195 outfits for the three kids under 5, sure. When you earn your own money, you appreciate it’s value that much more, and are more careful how you spend it.

    This didn’t happen overnight. Over the last 15+ years the standards that “everyone had to have” just grew, and grew. Now, that we stopped to catch our breath, we realize just how obscene things have become.

    Once upon a time, there was the concept of the town gvir. Now, all make believe they are said gvir, while the true gvirim are embarrassed by the wannabes. At the recent Adirei HaTorah event, how many “gvirim” arrived by helicopter and plane.

    We need an attitude adjustment at the klal level. Dare I say, 7th graders should learn one less Reb Baruch Ber on the sugya and one more perek mesillas yesharim. Every waking hour shouldn’t be spent over a R Chaim, some should be spent over a mussar sefer. Lastly, financial literacy and fiscal responsibility needs to be taught. For everyone who made it big on Amazon, or Real Estate or cash advance there are 1000 who didn’t.

    • ask your competent rav. Since that it has become the norm, so now this has become stam daas of a girl who gets married nowadays

  7. blame those who are not intellectually honest with this boy and tells him he needs to learn for 10 years minimum
    ten years requires a rich shver!!!

  8. When I look around, I see so many families who were only meshadech with families without money.
    You see what you want to see.
    There are so many wonderful families in klal yisroel, and you don’t have to make a shidduch with someone who doesn’t share your values.

  11. Very well said. There is no doubt a strong correlation between the shidduch crisis and the new hot topic of “parnassah crisis”.

    Housing, lifestyle, cars, watches, vacations, and of course seminaries. There is no question the spending is to some extent a need to be viewed as “balabatish” and fit within a certain class to make a “nice shiduch”.

  12. Very well said. There is no question that there is a strong correlation between the shidduch crisis and the new hot topic of “parnassah crisis”.

    Housing, lifestyle, cars, watches, over the top simchas, vacations and of course seminaries are due to people trying to fit in and be viewed as “balabatish” to make a “nice shiduch”.

  13. Sick to My Stomach:

    I identify with your nausea. Now, let’s examine this a bit. The role that money plays in our lives is extensive, and it gets into every aspect. that’s how we pay our bills, that’s how we get everything we have. Yes, even our fulfillment of Torah and Mitzvos relies heavily on money.

    What is the expected consequence of failure to pay tuition? Mortgage or rent? Utility bills? Grocery and medical bills? Without money, how can we prepare for Shabbos or Yom Tov, purchase the basics for mitzvos? Money makes our world go round. It’s here to stay, and we gotta deal with it. No, it should not be the defining feature for a shidduch. You’re correct about that. But that’s only one angle of the picture.

    The shidduchim that are most vulnerable to the money being the issue is the boy being the classic “learning boy”, committed to spending his life learning, not producing an income. Yes, we will have the “kollel lifestyle” debate here, as this is a major factor in the preoccupation with money in a shidduch. As stated in the famous cartoon, Pogo, “We have seen the problem, and the problem is us.” Many recognize the “kollel lifestyle” as the fantasy that has gone wrong. This is not about the lack of chashivus for Torah. It is about the myth that the boy that knows how to sit is someone that has the privilege of surviving at the expense of someone else. Some boys belong in long time learning. Many do not. Those are the ones that will fulfill a whole list of other guidance messages in the Torah.

    Here are some:

    בזיעת אפך תאכל לחם
    יצא אדם לפעלו ולעבודתו עדי ערב
    יגיע כפיך כי תאכל אשריך וטוב לך
    כל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטילה

    STMS: As long as we are marrying off our children that are incapable of assuming the responsibility to maintain a home, we are sentencing them to a life of dependency. And that dependency impacts directly on ther parents. If I am earning enough to maintain my own home but not enough to support a second one, I would need to look for a shidduch that comes with that financial support. The alternative is to recognize the folly of every boy going to kollel – something that we are unable to sustain. By entering careers, we can actually prepare our younger generation to pursue lives of Torah, learning and application.

    To some out there who might wonder, the problems in Klal Yisroel are not all because of smartphones.

    • I agree, but I also disagree with your last point. I admit that technology is a problem. I benefit from it but also try to minimize it.

  15. Reb Yaakov instructed his close talmidim to stay very far away from any money shiduch, besides that it clouds what one should be looking for in a life partner.

  16. THIS DUDE IS 100000% RIGHT. ANYONE WHO DOESNT AGREE IS A FOOL. THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS OBVIOUSLY BUT THIS IS THE GENERAL SITUATION.

  17. I definitely do not see this where I live and it has not been a factor on our own children’s shidduchim, nor in those of nearly everyone I know, wherever they live.

    This might be a problem with the writer’s specific community or within the particular social circles of the writer.

    Or the writer is hyper-focusing on a traumatic situation he or she personally experienced, then assuming it applies to everyone.

    “Vile obsession with money”? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Some individuals are like that; most frum Yidden are not.

    A post like this really should be written accurately: a specific problem suffered by specific people, and not motzi sheim ra (slander that is NOT true) about the entire Torah world.

    I’m not the only one commenting here that his description is something to which many of us cannot relate.

      • The problem really is not in every community or social circle.

        If we’re going to bring children’s opinions as evidence, I can tell you that my children see it as a problem in some circles and communities, but an “outside” problem brought about by those who wish to participate, and something by which they are not personally affected nor need to consider in shidduchim.

        Rather than assuming I live under a rock, could it be that my community and social circle are simply different than yours?

        Could it be that your personal experience and observations do not define the experience and attitudes of the frum community worldwide?

  18. Anybody remember the famous saying, “Money isn’t everything, but it sure beats whatever is in second place.”

  19. “There’s no room for Torah, no room for mentchlichkeit, no room for proper Torahdike values. It’s a disaster, and everyone’s too busy pretending it’s fine.”
    I totally disagree. Why is money & what you listed mutually exclusive?
    I live in a large out of town community & while often the rich marry each other (I see it even in the more Modern community) they are huge Balei Tsedaka & are always working on behalf of the Klal.
    I don’t think it’s money. I think it’s a communities culture. The rich here are certainly Menschlich & have proper Torah values.
    They know they’re being watched & people will follow so they’re exceedingly careful to be the epitome of Menschlich. Which I believe (I know) a lot has to do with the major Yeshiva here which always & still does stress the importance of good Middos & that if you go out in public you are representing ALL Frum Jews so make sure you give a good impression.

    • The problem is the community of those who care about the superficial layer. It’s possible to have a פרנסה without being a rich, snob with entitled children. You can be successful without being influenced by things that don’t matter. Just be a good Yid.

  20. I cannot imagine the letter writer has married of several children and has witnessed first hand the enormous expense of marrying off children.

    I have, and the expenses are enormous and pressuring

    I see no reason in the world not to consider a mechutan who is well off as part of the shidduch check off list and I see no reason not to look for money when it comes to my boys.

    On the flip side, when shadchanim ask if I’m willing to support my daughters, my answer is YES and that still doesnt help, my daughter is already back from sem for over 3 years now

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