"To make matches, you have to be caring and daring."
This is straight from the shadchan's mouth. Caring,
because if you really care for someone, you try to help
him/her, rather than discuss him, pity him and go on with
your life. Daring, because many a matchmaker has to ignore
superficial impressions and stereotypes before he dares to
suggest a match that others would have questioned, ridiculed
or scorned.
Insight of a Great Man
Many great people have been involved in this great
mitzva. In countless instances, gedolei Torah
have initiated shidduchim, advised singles and helped
them to decide on a match or on a specific new direction in
shidduchim.
A 36-year-old bachelor came to Maran HaRav Shach zt'l
for a blessing to find his match. After speaking to him for
a few minutes, the Rosh Yeshiva advised him to change his
expectations and not to continue looking for the same type
of match he had sought for the past dozen years.
"Consider someone who has previously been married," he
advised. The young man returned to his rented apartment. His
parents and immediate family were abroad. He had a lot to
think about. A few minutes passed and there came a knock on
the door. It was R' Refoel Wolf, waiting to be admitted with
a special message. "The Rosh Yeshiva realizes that you
didn't take his advice seriously so he sent me to tell you
to revise your priorities. You MUST get married."
R., a young lady of 27 from an American yeshivishe
background, was told by the Rosh Yeshiva to consider a
chassidishe match. Two weeks after she returned to
America, such a shidduch came her way and she agreed
to it, explaining that she would not have considered the
suggestion, had it not been for HaRav Shach.
Shadchonim need chutzpa and spirit to promote unlikely
or unpopular matches that make sense to them but might be
surprising "on the street." The shadchan then has to
make the effort to promote it. Many a chosson and
kalla have exclaimed after marriage, "I almost missed
my basherte." All because of stereotypes, undue weight
given to public opinion, trivialities, mis- and
disinformation, narrowmindedness or predjudices.
We've probably all heard an engaged person explain after an
engagement, "We heard about this suggestion, one, two, five
or twenty years ago, but we weren't interested." At times,
it turns out that the single heard the name, rejected it,
and then when the idea was recycled, they didn't exert
themselves to check into the matter at all, relying on a
vague memory of something that did not sound suitable,
without bothering to factor in changes due to the passage of
time. And time slips through one's fingers while one is
waiting. One single put it this way: "When I'm in Jerusalem,
I hear Flatbush. When I'm in Vienna, I hear Bnei Brak, and I
can't catch up with the suggestions. Before I know it, it's
Pesach, Chanuka and then summer."
And then there are the singles who are not exactly inundated
with suggestions. R' Yitzchok Silberstein shlita, Rov
of Ramat Elchonon, told the writer of these lines, "When an
older girl makes an unexpected match, it is not because she
became older, had no other options and changed her
priorities. Rather, this was her original `intended' and she
didn't realize it for a variety of reasons until this point
in her life." Boruch Hashem we do not run the show.
And even the least humble amongst us may sense Hashem's
ultimate role after seeing a shidduch go through from
start to finish.
Full of Life
Time was marching on and Feigie was already hitting 30 and
still waiting for the type of boy she had sought at 20.
Pressure was high. "Give in. Be flexible."
A shadchan came up with a daring idea. After she got
married, Feigie couldn't explain what had pushed her to
consider this match when she had been stuck in a rut of her
"single-minded state of mind." Only Hashem knows the secret.
She was from a straight Lithuanian-yeshivish
background -- he was bearded. One strike against him. He was
chassidish -- another one. And divorced. Three
strikes. But the shadchan kept on cueing her in. "Just
meet him. You'll see that I'm not crazy."
And she was right.
Going International
Every good marriage is more than a sum total of its parts;
it blends together a unique combination of personalities and
cultures. Some people travel around the world to find their
basherte; others find their match in their own
backyard.
Yitzchok had split his childhood and adolescent years
between Toronto and Jerusalem, blending both cultures
successfully. Somehow, when he entered the stage of
shidduchim, a few problems surfaced: an identity
crisis of sorts. The Americans considered him Israeli and
the Israelis, too American. Suggestion followed suggestion,
meetings followed many of these, but no engagement in
sight.
Yitchok traveled round the world following leads. He had
many things going for him, but no marriage partner. The wear
and tear was beginning to show, but he obviously must have
retained his boyish charm, because at 30, he got married to
a 19-year-old girl who lived around the corner from him in
Jerusalem.
*
Rachel was 30 plus, a wonderful all-round American girl. But
she still had not met her basherte. As the saying
goes, "Die kalla is tsu shein." Overqualified. A wise
man advised the family to switch direction. Despite the fact
that the girl stemmed from a warm chassidishe home, at
this point, a yeshivish boy would be more suitable for
their daughter.
Shortly afterwards, Rochel had the opportunity to travel
abroad. In Europe, she became engaged to a young man,
yeshivish, European and a good several years her
junior. Together they built a warm home and merited
generations of upright Jews.
A Matter of Direction
The wedding was warm and lively. The start sweet. But then
the tension started to build up. Penina and Kalman were at
loggerheads. The young bride started to feel that perhaps
she had made the wrong choice, Her husband seemed to sleep
in, go to later and later minyonim, spend a lot of
time chatting with her and visiting relatives. This was not
what she had envisioned as a kalla. She had projected
a bright future with a husband who was constantly immersed
in learning with great diligence. You couldn't tell her that
constant hasmoda and good middos were
impossible
to find in one man because -- look at her father! He was a
great talmid chochom, a well-known Rosh Yeshiva who
seemed to have it all.
The tension between the couple became obvious to the girl's
parents. What should they do? Ignore it and keep the
problems at arm's length like good in-laws? Keep their
silence and pray that all would go well? Intervene and
exacerbate the problems? Let their daughter suffer or tough
it out?
Time did not ease the problems. The parents decided to seek
advice from a talmid chochom with a great record for
keeping marriages on track. Shabbos afternoon, after the
cholent, the A's sat down with a few photo albums. It
was a lot of fun, looking at the golden oldies, reminiscing
about the good old days. Penina joined her parents, looking
over their shoulders at old pictures.
"Ima, I recognize most of the people, but who is the
bochur in shorts and a T-shirt, with a big chup
[thick forelock of hair] and all that camping equipment?"
"Oh, dear, don't you recognize your own Abba?"
That picture was really worth a thousand words. Penina
started getting the picture that her Abba, the Rosh Yeshiva,
was not born in a day. Everyone has his own grid and pace.
The question is: where each individual is headed and what is
his potential and aspiration.
This was one marriage that started to pick up steam once it
was headed in the right direction.
