Every year an equal number of Jewish boys and girls are born – but twenty-something years later, there are far more chuppah-minded women than men. The shortage of marriageable Jewish men is well-known, but the mystery of their disappearance remains unsolved for most of us.
One of the reasons may be the “c” word (commitment), which men are supposedly notoriously afraid of. So what are we supposed to do about that?
Secular society seems to think the solution is to just give up on commitment and let boys be boys. I thought about that recently when one of my students, after bemoaning her boyfriend’s refusal to commit to a wedding date (despite their three-year relationship), sighed resignedly and said, “Well, I guess, it’s to be expected. After all, he’s a man….”
Is that what a man is, someone from whom one can’t expect much? How does it affect men when we look at them like that? How does it affect women? What are we supposed to make of the fact that for the first time in history, there are more single than married women in the United States, and – astoundingly – one in three babies in the United States is born to an unwed mother? Where are the men in these women’s lives?
Hearts Are Easy To Break
For woman, who came into the world in the context of a relationship – Chava was created as Adam’s wife – life is often about relationships. Generally, she is not the one schlepped screaming and kicking into commitment. She cares, so she is already there.
But what does she do if wearing her heart on her sleeve is a great way to get it broken? What does she do if her desire for exclusivity, commitment, and a deep relationship are considered inconvenient, quaint and naïve at best? The answer is that she buries them deep inside her, and steps out to negotiate in a man’s world.
And that male world is not a fun place to be. When men are repeatedly told how not much is expected of them, sometimes they sink deep into the quicksand of hedonistic self-serving self-service.
I recently met a 38-year-old man who told me that in his mind the biggest tragedy would be if he had married a woman who just didn’t understand him. To my mind, the biggest tragedy had already happened: here was a man who at 38 didn’t realize that the most important thing in life is not to be understood – it’s to be man enough to understand someone else!
Love requires vulnerability, but it is dangerous to make yourself vulnerable to someone who is focused not on you but on fulfilling his own needs. If in his, “I love you, but I can’t commit” she hears him say: “I love me and it’s fun for me to be around you, but I can’t commit because someone even more fun might come along,” she reacts the only possible way. Perhaps not being in a relationship at all is preferable to agonizing over trying to move a brick wall. No one enjoys having his or her most vulnerable self trampled upon.
The Making Of A Man
Judaism has a completely different view of what a man is. The Hebrew word for man is gever. Gever shares the same root as the word gevurah, strength. The Mishna asks, “Who is strong? He who is in control of his desires” (Avot 4:1). In Judaism, being a man is about being disciplined, focused, responsible and committed. The Torah tells us, “It is good for man to carry a burden in his youth [i.e., to get married young]” (Eichah 3:27). Taking care of a family – taking responsibility, being committed to the people in his care, putting their needs first – is what makes a man into a man. While it may not be good for women when men wait until they are 35 to settle down, for men it is disastrous: they may never meet the hero they could have been.