STAMFORD (VINnews) — At Thursday’s “Asking for a friend” panel a the Agudah Convention, Rav Aaron Lopiansky, Rosh Yeshiva of Silver Spring, discussed the need to gather data, in order to understand the true nature of the Shidduch Crisis.
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He said, “It has to do first and foremost with gathering data….it requires professional people who really know. Statistics is a miktzoa gadol, you can prove anything you want if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
He added, “To be able to get real insight you need someone who understands our tzibbur and who understands mathematics.”
we need according to my opinion concentrate on childern from divorced homes who are in need of shiduchim who are often over looked and unfortunetly ignored
It’s quite elementary my dear Watson. The litvish community by and large only send their boys to bmg where they have the shidduch freezer, by the time the freezer opens there is a whole new grade of girls on the shidduch market.
This is a problem of their own making and they refuse to do anything about it – it’s beyond shameful that they’re still “all talk” – every year at the convention they “talk” about it but they haven’t done a single thing to make other yeshivas that don’t have a freezer policy
For starters ask your daughter, sister cousin… graduates from 2015-2020 ,and post it total girls in the graduating grade and how many engaged..married
(Ofcourse rav lupiansky meant a major thorough study not this )
The fact on the ground is that in the Yeshivish/Heimish families, there are thousands
of girls struggling just to get a date.
Every single Shadchan who works with the Yeshivish/Heimish families
will have in their inventory a minimum of 10 girls for every boy.
(My daughter who is a successful Shadchan has over 300 girls vs 20-25 eligible boys.)
There are thousands of parents of girls who will tell you of their sleepless nights
and thousands of parents of boys who will tell you that they are flooded with hundreds of resumes and pictures of girls. Parents of boys are being begged to have their “תכשיט” date someone’s daughter.
We definitely have an אנן סהדי, which is considered as Halachically valid as if
two kosher עדים testified that we do have a Shidduch crisis.
The number one solution to the shidduch crisis is to narrow the age gap between boys and girls getting married.
Davening for this to happen on its own is futile;
it is incumbent on us to take the measures to make it happen. The problem is man-made
and can be corrected by man בעזהי”ת. It’s up to us; we can and should change the trend of having such a wide age gap between the genders.
Perhaps, the time has come for מה תצעק אלי– ויסעו. We must make a move to correct the problem.
We need to TALK and make people aware that if nothing is done to remedy this problem, then 15%- 20% of the girls will remain Agunos for the rest of their lives.
The only way to narrow the age gap is by facilitating and encouraging the boys to start dating at a younger age. This can be accomplished if the Roshei Yeshivos are on board and implement policies such as:
1. The American Roshei Yeshivos should send away their Talmidim to Eretz Yisroel at age 21, and not allow them to stick around past that age.
2. The Israeli Roshei Yeshivos should not accept Bachurim over the age of 21
3. B.M.G. Lakewood Yeshiva should abolish the “freezer” rule.
How about people dare non machers daughters?
Let me make this easy. Save the data collection. Bochrim are looking for big bucks. There you go. Saved the oilam lots of time and money.
Seriously??? Get data??? Open up your shutters and see what’s going on in EVERY community. Thousands of Litvish girls are without a Shidduch. Some haven’t gotten dates in years. This is NOT A PROBLEM by the Litvish community in Israel or the Chasidish community in Israel or America. As the Chofetz Chaim would say if there’s a fire burning don’t look to extinguish the fire with purified water. Use any water. There’s a fire burning with these thousands of girls. There’s no time to act and compile more data…… we are dealing with Agunos here!!!!
I think one problem is that the boys, and by extension their parents, know that time is on their side and they can afford to wait and constantly meet new people.
Boys are flattered by all of the offers and, immaturely, believe choosing someone is settling when the next beautiful daughter of a gvir is around the corner.
It’s a brutal process for the girls competing with, not actual girls, but with the idea of a perfect girl, that may be out there.
Big part of problem is that so many parents look for mechutanim with whom they are compatible, and not for compatible zivug for the children.
{My two grandfathers did not get along with one another (they were not a-holes about it, they just didn’t agree on just about anything, and they left one another alone), but my parents were happily married for 60+ years.}.
To the commentator Gershon who wrote:
It’s quite elementary my dear Watson……
Unfortunately this won’t be addressed by the convention because they want everyone to return to next years convention without ruffling anyone’s feathers and make real changes.
I personally heard from Rav Moshe Shternbuch Shlita that the BMG freezer policy causes much Kitrug to Klal Yisrael because the pain and the Igun it is causing so many Bnos Yisrael.
How can we allow this BMG Freezer to continue to wreak havoc on our precious Bnos Yisrael??? It was instituted less than 30 years ago WITH NO BACKING OF ANY ISRAELI GADOL!!!!! It has had a disastrous effect on Klal Yisrael. Look at how many people are suffering from it. The Rosh Yeshivah who instituted it (not all BMG Roshei Yeshivah are in favor of it) should realize it is a a FAILED experiment and rescind it immediately just as quickly as he enacted it. I’m writing this with tears dripping down my eyes. Enough is Enough!!!!
The convention only allotted 94 seconds to Rabbi Lopiansky? Vinnews gives more time to shaky pictures of a crime scene!
sadly just like all problems facing our community, this won’t be fixed, seriously does anyone really think that in 2 years we will have solved this problem?
our system locks people in in rigid inflexible patterns which does not allow problems to be solved.
this is a man made disaster – this is very similar to the Meron crush, we are all doing to ourselves, to each other, to our own dauters
this is not rocket science, Chasidim do NOT have a shortage of Boys, so this crisis is obviously caused by things specific to Litvishe / yeshivish community. namely waiting till 24 to date 19 year olds. everyone know this.
the system indoctrinates everyone into making believe they need a “top” learner, in reality only rich father in laws who don’t sit’n learn are able to affording a “learner” whom they can “show off” like an esrog while real learner father in laws and their daughters end up being left to hang out dry. no wonder you have supposedly 25 year old “top learners” “top middos” boys not even considering girls over 19.
so my message to all high and mighty “top” learners who have tens of desperate gilrs to chose from …. wait just wait you puffed up peacocks, you are going to sitn’ learn till 45then one day YOUR daughters will need a shidduch and you won’t have the millions to attract the next DOR of puffed up peacocks. then you will WAKE UP and start complaining. laugh now because there’s a mountain of pain waiting for you down the line, complaining then won’t do you any good
it will only change when People who don’t have the problem Rrosh Yeshivas, boys, top learners) will make the necessary changes TODAY and GIVE UP THEIR PRIVILAGES TODAY
but this will not happen because sadly we are all selfish, we enjoy the “system” when it works in our favor and complain ONLY when it doesn’t, sometimes we get to drive them over with a bus, then they get a chance to drive over us. and not a damm person stands up and says I WILL STOP the Retzichah, I WILL NOT DRIVE OVER ANOTHER YID,
The obvious, and the not so obvious.. where we can all agree. the fapasha,
that in the American yeshiva community having a girl in shduchim is very dif. Than having a boy in the parsha,
There is a significant amount of quality, normal frum girls that are 27 and up with no bteva explanation why they still single , some boys as well.
Many frum girls are rarely even going out, 25 years ago when you dated it was very dif. What happened
Some more facts, each boy that becomes a choson means a girl kalla he can’t do more than one
Tefila, many many girls are sincerely davening their heart out…
Finaly.Finally.. looks, gelt, yichus , plenty girls without that are getting married and many times before…the other ones
Bashert. Eyes emes..vos tut men
With all due respect , we’re individuals not data. We don’t want more info from menahelets or menahels. Rent an auditorium , invite parents and singles to the podium and you’ll hear what’s going on , or do it privately one on one on one , or whichever way. Talk to us not to intemediaries , please.
So is there a shidduch crisis or is there not a shidduch crisis?? Could we please get on the same page here?
I’m curious what’s to be gained by data. Seems to me that there’s nobody better to understand the tzibbur than speaking to ordinary people like us ; family , neighbors , acquaintances – people in the shidduch parshas.
1) I am sure that HaRov Kotler agreed with any shidduch policy that is implemented at Lakewood and it is not in our selfish thoughts to abolish it — after all Lakewood is for learning Torah not to provide some workshop for solving someone”s “shidduch problem”
2) If a say 30 year old boy marries a say 20 year old girl, what’s the problem? It is a simcha — also one less girl that in 5-10 years will become “an agunah”
3) I imagine the real heart of the problem is that if no one wants to marry 25-30 year old girls, that it is up to the shadchanim to go out and find older boys/men say 30-40 who maybe never thought about marriage or never thought they were worthy of marriage, or too busy learning or working to get married to get them to add to their limited registries of eligible boys. After all for every single girl there must be a single boy somewhere, right?? After all one boy can only marry one girl, if there are extra girls, then there are extra boys/men somewhere–find them and marry them off!!!! This seems to me a much better solution than abolishing a yeshivah’s freezer rule — particularly since getting boys to date one year earlier will not do anything to help a girl say 25-30 that is having a hard time finding a shidduch!!!
Thanks for reading.
Can we skip the data and just try to help by redting shidduchim? Gathering data isn’t getting anyone married.
It makes sense that the Aguda or other respected organization gather a group of experts in the field to work on a list of suggestions to help the singles. The organization should publicize and implement those suggestions. Many suggestions aren’t expensive to implement. Parents should stop sending their sons and daughters to Yeshiva /seminaries that teach them to demand support from their parents.You are creating problems for yourself and for your children. My generation wouldn’t have dared to ask for support.A generation of spoiled brats!
I think the rebanu girshan gazaria is over by now and men should be able to take more than one wife…
we r people not numbers
ask the germans why they loved statistics