RSS #3: Boys Don't Make Passes at Girls Who Wear Glasses

Revamp the Shidduch System #3

"Boys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses."  I came across this saying in a book of quotes from a rather eccentric, but wonderful, Jew.  And it got me to thinking.  Personally, I'm not terrifically biased against girls with glasses, but everyone has their own unique distaste for some ridiculously minor detail that really shouldn't play any part in the search for a spouse.  In today's day and age, when many of the shidduch suggestions young singles receive come from people who don't know them and/or don't know the person being suggested, it is far too easy to reject a resume due to these pet peeves.  After all, for the most part the resumes seem interchangeable, and there is nothing prompting one to invest anything in this particular resume as opposed to the dozens of other suggestions received.  I myself have done this countless times.  However, when a shadchan takes the time to actually tell me about the person (I'd be curious to hear from my readers how often this occurs for them.  In my case, I think it would be true for fewer than one quarter of the suggestions.), to tell me why she thinks it is a good idea, to tell me about unique character traits this person possesses (No..."cute, great middos, and a warm family" just doesn't cut it!), to in effect "sell" the suggestion to me, such trivial considerations as glasses don't play nearly as large a role.  If there is one simple thing that shadchanim could do to improve their success rates, I think this is it.  And it is true for those of us who as amateur shadchanim have attempted to set up friends in the past.  It is not enough to make introductions, it is not enough to provide a cursory description.  Be a salesman!

This article, which I recently came across, spells this out beautifully.

Taking Matchmaking to New Levels
by Rabbi David Lapin
 
Addressing the growing singles challenge requires more than setting up introductions. We need to present one person to another.
 

The Divine art of matchmaking requires more than introducing two people to each other. God did not merely introduce Adam and Eve -- it would have been hard for them not to meet under the circumstances, even without God playing the matchmaker! God presented Eve to Adam. The Midrash [1] tells how the Almighty adorned her like a bride with 24 different items of jewelry before allowing Adam to glimpse her. That's presentation.

Many people are doing a lot of introducing, but that is not enough to address the growing singles challenge. What we don't do enough of is presenting people to one another. There's a big difference between the two.

Let's look at why the need for presentation and how to do it.

Why the need for presentation?
Finding your soul mate involves a miracle. It is natural for people to exaggerate both their own virtues and the flaws of others. This tendency makes it nearly impossible for a person to find someone truly worthy of him or her! But miraculously, people fall in love and the tendency reverses: the individual, blinded to the flaws of their beloved, sees only their virtues. (Based on Tiferret Tzion, B.R. 68:4)

We can play a part in facilitating that miracle. We can help people not only to meet one another, but to also notice one another and become attracted to them. We can do this by presenting people to one another instead of merely introducing them.

What is presentation?
Presentation is the art of helping people to overlook flaws and discover glory. We know how important the art of presentation is when we want to create desire. Chefs go to mighty efforts to present otherwise unappetizing bits of animal or vegetable as culinary masterpieces. We present ourselves well when we want to make an impression, masking our defects and accentuating our strengths. Shopkeepers and marketers seduce consumers with enticing presentation.

In romantic, social or business matchmaking, the same applies. If we truly want to create a connection between two people we need to do more than introduce them; we need to present them in ways that make them desirable. In short, we need to market them. It is much easier and more tasteful for us to promote one another than it is to promote ourselves: "Let a stranger praise you rather than praise yourself with your own mouth" (Proverbs 27:2). It is a great kindness to present others in a way that positions them well and saves them from having to promote themselves -- an action that the Torah reluctantly allows when anonymity is the alternative (Nedarim 62a).

How to present
Here are a few simple guidelines.

1. Presentation never entails misrepresentation. Presentation means highlighting the positives that may normally take a new contact a long time to discover. It does not mean making up positives that are untrue, nor does it mean concealing the truth when a serious shidduch inquiry is made.
2. If necessary do some research. Get to know the person you are presenting. Question them to learn about the more subtle and unusual aspects of their life experience.
3. Think like a salesman: you get your "commission" for closing the sale, not for a mere introduction! If you apply your mind, in an instant you can develop a marketing strategy. Figure out how best to present the individual. Create the right conditions and timing.
4. Create the opportunity in conversation and interaction, to "showcase" the person at their best. Facilitate opportunities for the person to shine in their own rights.
5. Demonstrate palpable enthusiasm for the qualities of the person you are presenting. Avoid lack of authenticity and exaggeration, but do not shy away from superlative description where appropriate.

Let's go beyond introducing people to one another and present them to one another. Even if it does not result in marriage, you will have elevated a person's dignity instead of watching them lose it in the conventional dating scenes. Yes, it does take some thought and some effort. If it didn't, it wouldn't be the mitzvah it is.
[1] Bereishit Rabbah 18:1

What We Can Learn From Chazal About Dating

I do not agree with every point that Rabbi Pruzansky makes, but am nonetheless impressed that he would write such an article and that the Jewish Press would publish it. There is a lot of validity to what he is saying.

What We Can Learn From Chazal About Dating

By: Rabbi Steven Pruzansky

Date: Thursday, July 07 2011

A recent piece posted on Matzav.com signed by "A Crying Bas Yisroel" chillingly lamented the plight of a young single woman, with fine personal qualities but without any family money or yichus, who sits forlornly waiting for her phone to ring with calls from shadchanim. Alas, the phone never rings, and for her, the shidduch system is an ongoing nightmare.

Not coincidentally, but perhaps surprising to some, almost all the weddings I attended this past month were those of couples who had "long-term" relationships. They either met in high school or when high school age, or in Israel or their early college years, and almost all of them met on their own. They did not use shadchanim, but met the old-fashioned way: in healthy social settings where young men and women mingle naturally, without the pressure of "potential spouse" hovering over every encounter. That is not the norm in Jewish life these days, but perhaps it should be.

That is not to say that the shidduch system is failed, or failing, or broken. Too many people work too hard on setting up unmarrieds that it would be incorrect and insulting to say that it is broken. So it is not broken - but perhaps it should be a b'diavad (post facto) and not a l'chatchila (ab initio) system.  

L'chatchila, it would seem, Chazal emphasized that we should find our own mates.

The Gemara (Kiddushin 2b) cites the pasuk "When a man takes a woman [in marriage]" and explains "darko shel ish l'chazer al ha-isha," it is the way of men to pursue women [in marriage]. It is not the way of men, or shouldn't be, to enlist a band of agents, intermediaries, and attorneys to do the work for them. By infantilizing and emasculating our males, we have complicated a process that should be simpler and made a joyous time into one of relentless anguish and hardship for many women. 

This is reminiscent of the life story of a pathetic man we recently encountered in the weekly Torah reading - Ohn ben Pelet. The Gemara (Sanhedrin 109b) states that "ishto hitzilato" - his wife saved him from the clutches of Korach. Ohn was an original co-conspirator who is not mentioned again after the first verse, because his wife explained to him the foolishness of his conduct (Ohn loses if Moshe wins and gains nothing if Korach prevails), prevented him from joining his fellow conspirators, and, as the Midrash adds, held onto his bed to prevent the ground from swallowing Ohn and then dragged him to Moshe to beg forgiveness. Ohn was a sad excuse of a man.

Mrs. Ohn, in effect, saved her husband not only from Korach but also from himself. The problem with Ohn is that he perceived himself as an object, and not a subject or an actor. Ohn wasn't a leader - he was a born follower, an object for others to use. He just allowed himself to be yanked along by anyone - for evil and for good. He was just part of the crowd, the personification of the personality of weakness, dependence and self-abnegation. He took no responsibility for his own destiny.  

An object is a tool of others; a subject is the master of his destiny. In the realm of dating and marriage, we are breeding Ohns by the thousands by freeing men from their obligation to pursue their potential spouses, and thereby relegating women to the dependent role of passively waiting to be the chosen one. Why do we do that, and is there a better option?

Some will argue that the shidduch system spares our children the pain of rejection - but part of life, and a huge part of parenting, is preparing our children for a world in which they will experience rejection at some point. That is called maturity.

Others will argue, with greater cogency, that we prevent young men and women from sinning. Relationships that begin when couples are younger, or friendships that start outside the framework of parental supervision, can induce or lead to inappropriate behavior. That possibility is undoubtedly true, but can be rectified by applying a novel concept called "self-control," which in any event is the hallmark of the Torah Jew.

We do not tell people to avoid The Home Depot even if one wants to buy a hammer lest he shoplift some nails, nor do we admonish others not to shop in Pathmark because one might be led to sin by the aroma of non-kosher foods. Self-control and discipline are routine components of the life of a Jew. And, even granting that "there is no guardian for promiscuity," it should still be feasible for a young man to talk to or display his personal charms to a woman without assaulting her.  

Sad to say, there is a promiscuity problem, even among some of our high school youth and certainly in college, that cannot be swept away. It can be resolved if parents take responsibility and sit down with their sons and teach them how to respect women - and sit down with their daughters and teach them how to respect themselves.

Something is not normal, and against human nature as Chazal perceived it, for men to be so diffident, so timid, so Ohn-like, and sit back comfortably relying on others to procure them dates. Young men who would not allow others to choose for them a lulav and etrog do not hesitate to delegate others to find them a spouse. This also unduly delays their fulfillment of the commandment of pru u'rvu (procreation). And something is not normal, and frankly, unfair, when young women have to sit by the phone for weeks and months waiting to be contacted by agents.

What is the solution, or the other option? For those people currently of age and in the system, or for communities that would accept only the shidduch­ system, there is no other solution but to redouble our efforts. They will reap the reward, and also, sadly, the misery of those who choose to be passive in life. Obviously, unmarried men and women should be seated together at weddings to facilitate more natural, pressure-free encounters; it is so obvious, it is surprising it is even debated.

But for younger people today - say, older teens - there has to be a better way. The paradigm of "don't smile/talk/socialize/date" until one is ready for marriage constricts the capacity of our young people to assume responsibility for their own lives. Many will disagree with me, even among my colleagues, but if we wish to minimize the heartbreak of so many of our young people, we must find healthy ways of encouraging interaction between teenagers - in shuls, in schools, in youth groups. We have to de-stigmatize self-help and personal initiative.

For example, at a shul Kiddush, it should not be construed as abnormal or off-putting if a young man approaches a young woman who has caught his eye, and asks her name, and "would you like a piece of kugel?"That should be normal; at one point, that was darko shel ish. Indeed, that should be even more normal among people of marriageable age, and would consign the shidduch­ system to its appropriate b'diavad status, for people who have not been able to meet on their own. Perhaps the young woman whose lament was featured above should take similar initiatives as well.

Dating at too young an age is certainly problematic, but teenagers who learn to socialize in groups demystify the opposite sex and learn appropriate boundaries, communication skills and modes of interaction. Such contact makes males more sensitive, and helps them learn at an early age that a young woman is not a shtender, in the Steipler's elegant phrase, or a vehicle for their own gratification, in the modern lexicon. It certainly helps prepare a couple for marriage if they know each other longer than three weeks or three months, and the recent spate of broken engagements and early divorces in the Jewish world would tend to confirm that. And conversely, the plethora of recent weddings of couples in our community who know each other for years would corroborate that as well.

I am mindful of the opinions of the gedolim who proscribe any male-female interaction before one is ready to marry, and those gedolim who permit such contact in controlled settings. As a community we have other options than the false choice of isolationism or promiscuity, and we need to strengthen our young men with the inner confidence to guide their own lives. There are too many people walking around with Y chromosomes who are not men. They have an Ohn-like existence, sitting back comfortably and letting others plot their destiny in life. They will never be masters, only objects who cannot lead or build or create. That does not bode well for Klal Yisrael.

May Hashem bless with success the work of all shadchanim.But we need to shift the culture away from the passive indifference of the well-connected to the active pursuit of spouses by all, and thereby mold more assertive men and more confident women. That is because more is expected of us - as a nation that is called by God for greatness, not mediocrity; to be active, not passive; to be followers of God and leaders of mankind. 

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun of Teaneck, New Jersey, and the author most recently of "Judges for Our Time: Contemporary Lessons from the Book of Shoftim" (Gefen).

"It's Not Me, It's You"

I recently wrote a letter to a close family friend who had been rejected after one date. We had often spoken of how the vast majority of people are quite ordinary, and being ordinary and average and a member of the majority have a far easier time finding a counterpart with whom to share their life.  The term we coined to identify those of us who escaped the cookie cutter mold is "The .2%", reflecting an arbitrary Gaussian distribution I scribbled on a napkin one motzai Shabbat to illustrate my theory.  I found the writing of this letter to be quite cathartic and thought that I would share it with those of my readers who share the trials and tribulations of being a member of the .2% on the off chance that  it might speak to others as well. 

Obviously I cannot tell you specifically why this young man didn’t see it going anywhere. Even were I to have ruach haKodesh, which is a distinct possibility, I would be unable to confirm this by using it so publicly and definitively. However, I can share two thoughts with you. First of all, on those rare occasions where a young lady doesn’t fall head over heels for my charms, wit, charisma and Aryan looks on a first date and makes the illogical decision to not see me again, I consider it a blessing in disguise. It is God’s way of sparing me from the time wasted dating a girl who is not for me. It is a clear closure and indication that this was not the right person, and spares me from having to spend several weeks debating whether this might be the one. Secondly, because we are members of that blessed 0.2%, we have the mixed blessing of being decidedly not right for many people. The vast majority of middlers (my new term for those poor, unfortunate souls who fall out in the middle of every scale of measurement, i.e. background, personality, dreams, goals, etc.) get a second date. This is because there is not much substance there, and thus they rarely are identified off the bat as “not what I’m looking for.” The exception is when we 0.2%-ers go out with a middler, in which case that pathetic quality of unexceptional mediocrity is precisely what we’re not looking for.

I will tell you that I have been here for over four weeks now, and I have not gone on a single date. I have met many girls, been suggested many more, and even been pursued by a handful, but I have yet to meet one whom I am interested in. Were a middler in my shoes, I have no doubt that he would have spent every evening on a date and would most likely have already found his wife. However, God did not place our lot amidst those of the middlers. It is a mixed blessing, but one which in the end I am sure we will both come to realize outweighs the negatives with the positives.

None of this will make being rejected entirely pleasant, one always wonders precisely what it was that the other did not see as compatible with their life dreams, but I hope that you’ll also come to realize that it is in no way a negative reflection on you, but in actuality a positive one. You’re an individual, you’re one of the 0.2%, and you are most definitely not compatible with everyone. Thank God for that.

Yours always in friendship,

PNN

How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Jerusalem)

In 1918, following the United States' entry into WWI, Joe Young and Sam M. Lewis penned an immensely popular song entitled "How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm? (After They've Seen Paree)". The premise of the song was that it would be difficult for the doughboys to return to the family farm after having traveled half way around the world and seen Paris...this was prior to the Islamization of France, so presumably it was a more attractive destination...although, as far as I can tell, the French were still around.

I've just passed the half-way mark of my trip to Jerusalem, and I'm finding my thoughts drifting in the same direction. For the past four weeks, not a single day has gone by without my meeting a new, interesting and unique person; discovering a new shiur or appealing geographic location; or encountering some epiphany or new way of viewing the world. Jerusalem is an incredibly stimulating city. It is difficult to walk the streets without experiencing a new-found sense of vitality and excitement.

My current home in the United States, where I am in school, is decidedly less so. It is a smaller community without much turnover, or to adopt a computer term, a slow refresh rate. While in school there last year, it was easy to engross myself in my work and interests and bury the feeling of social stagnation, but I'm not sure how successfully I will be able to do so after having spent this magical summer in Jerusalem. Until I discover a solution, I will continue making the most of my time here and storing up a summerful of warm memories to carry me over until my next visit.