Dear Mrs. Bluth,
The letter from “A gentleman in waiting” (4-10) invoked a number of emotions in me. Your response was – as all your responses are – compassionate and included the advice that he stay strong. With your permission, I’d like to touch on some points that seem to be lost in his letter.
Dear Gentleman:
Your letter was poignant, sad, touching and at the same time elicits a bit of disbelief. I’m not insinuating in any way that you are lying or creating a non-existent personal shidduch crisis. I am sure your frustration is legitimate and your pain comes from the heart. Hopefully you will take the advice Mrs. Bluth gave you and have bitachon in the One Above Who is directing all our lives. He has a plan for you too. Having said that, I am a bit perplexed and hope you can address this honestly. Anything less than being true to yourself will only inflate the frustration you are experiencing.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I assume you began dating long before the age of 39, perhaps at the age of 22-24. In that case, are you saying that for the last 15 years or more all the girls you were redt were divorcees? Does your letter imply that your friends, relatives and regular shaddchanim never set you up with young, single girls? If you went out with only 4 or 5 girls a year, the total dates in fifteen years would add up to fifty or sixty girls. Are you insinuating that every single one of these girls was formerly married? Doubtful! Which brings me to the next set of questions.
I’m sure that a number of the girls you dated were absolutely not a fit for you, or, you were not what the girl was looking for, which begs the question: How many of those that did fit your basic criteria did you still reject for whatever silly reasons? Was she a blonde instead of your preference for a brunette? Was she an inch or two shorter than you would have liked? Were they from out-of-town when closer to home was what you would have wanted? Did this girl graduate from “that” school instead of the “other?” Did her father wear a kippah seruga, black yarmulka, hat brim up, while you preferred he wear a leather kippah, cap, or hat with a down-bent brim? Was the girl from a Polish/Hungarian/Sefardic/Yekee/Israeli background which turned you off? Did you perhaps reject the girl because she only had a BA and you would never consider marrying anyone with less than a Ph.D? I’m confident that you ascertained correctly that a girl with a degree from Touro could never change diapers with the same dexterity and sophistication as one who graduated from Brooklyn College. I’m sure by now you get my drift.
Did you always tell the shaddchanim that you were a Kohein? Was it possible that at least some of them were simply not aware of your status because you failed to mention it, assuming that they already knew? Is it possible that they were cognizant of your Kohein status and they did thoroughly question the prospective date as to her past marital status, but as you stated in your letter, the girl was simply ignorant of the fact that the status of divorcee is conferred on a girl even after one moment after the Chuppah and, therefore, she may have neglected to mention that tiny bit of information to the shadchan?
Tell me, please, were all your shadchanim frum people? I’m asking because I simply refuse to believe that any decent, frum shadchan would deliberately mislead you by introducing you to a girl he or she knows you can never marry. The shadchan would be committing “lifnei iver lo titen michshol,” insulting both of you, not to mention that doing so deliberately would be bad for business.
Unfortunately, at age thirty-seven-eight-nine, there are more formerly-married women than there were in your early to late twenties. As such, did you do your own due-diligence? Prior to going out, during the introductory phone conversation with her, did you ask her, point blank, if she was ever married? Did you tell her that your Kohein status forbids you from marrying a divorcee so you need her to be open and honest with you on this specific issue before you could even take her out? I would assume that the average girl who wants to get married would not hide such an important part of her life –
especially from a Kohein.
Lastly, you bemoan the fact that you “…had the bad fortune of falling for the wrong women, sent by the wrong people…” If this had happened once or twice I would say you were right. However, having been misled a number of time (as per your letter), I would assume you’d be really careful so as not to waste time or get emotionally involved prior to knowing the real facts. Seeing that you continue to fall into the same pit, I would say you need to examine yourself – unless you are ready to wait forever.
P.S. If you are willing to send Mrs. Bluth your personal information, I may have a shidduch for you – she is highly suitable and meets your specifications.
Isaac Kohn
Dear Mr. Kohn,
Thank you for bringing up a number of valid points that may well apply to our letter writer and singles of both genders still waiting to find their zivug. There is one point in particular I wish to address, that of deceit and withholding or disguising the truth in order to successfully arrange a shidduch. This, sadly, is the thin red thread that runs between the shadchan and those prospective clients who conceal, omit or blatantly distort personal information in order to be set up on dates. This information given to them is sometimes the only information shadchanim have to work with and they must rely on the honesty of the client.
On the other hand, I have heard of a few shadchanim who will stoop to any level to “make the sale!” I have also known of quite a few roshei yeshiva who have only “top bochrim, the cream of the crop,” whenever asked about any bocher in their respective yeshivos, even while knowing the worst. So, to lay blame on any one sector would be grossly unfair and hurtful.
My advice here is “buyer beware!” Using a shadchan is no guarantee that one will get all the information one needs; much of the sleuthing is left up to the families of the two people involved. And sometimes, even then, much information is unavailable or distorted. Ultimately, no matter how in-depth our hishtadlus, we must trust that Hakodosh Boruch Hu is the Shadchan Who arranges our shiduchim.
I have personally been witness to how devious and cruel some young ladies are in their pursuit to marry, waiting to divulge an important, life-altering truth only when they are sure they have wormed their way into the heart and affections of a young man, resulting in broken hearts and tainted unions. I have also seen young men present themselves in a completely false light, hiding mental issues, falsifying information about education, jobs, hashkafa and such until after the marriage.
It is then that he or she faces the choice of staying and suffering for a lifetime or becoming a “five-minute-married” divorcee. There are so many ways for things to go wrong when truth is absent in a shidduch. It behooves us to understand that the remedy for our great divorce affliction is to be truthful at the very beginning, allowing people to make knowledgeable decisions on their path to building a bayis ne’eman. Only then will we conquer the problem of older singles and the huge divorce rate that afflicts our people. Truth, honesty and transparency are the only antidotes to this huge problem.