HaAretz Tluya B'Mitzvos

It's been a while since I offered any pearls form Niflaos MiTorasecha. For those who have forgotten (or never knew) this sefer is an anthology of words encoded in the Torah in Roshei Teivos and Sofei Teivos and the striking relevance to the context.

I have two tidbits to present. The first is actually from last week's Parsha and I apologize for my tardiness.

There is only one occurence of the word ציון (Tzion) in consecitive Sofei Teivos in all of Tanach! (No occurrences as Roshei Teivos at all!) It transverses these two psukim (Breishis 18:18,19):

יח-יט- וְאַבְרָהָם הָיוֹ יִהְיֶה לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל וְעָצוּם וְנִבְרְכוּ-בוֹ כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶצ: כִּי יְדַעְתִּיו לְמַעַן אֲשֶׁר יְצַוֶּה אֶת-בָּנָיו וְאֶת-בֵּיתוֹ אַחֲרָיו וְשָׁמְרוּ דֶּרֶךְ יְהֹוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט לְמַעַן הָבִיא יְהוָֹה עַל- אַבְרָהָם אֵת אֲשֶׁר-דִּבֶּר עָלָיו:

The code in this pasuk clearly indicates that the gift of Tzion is in the merit of following the path of HKBH and specifically doing צדקה and משפט (righteousness and justice).

The amazing thing is that this message is clearly reflected in the well known pasuk in Yeshaya (1:27) that we read every year before Tisha B'Av on Shabbos Chazon:

צִיּוֹן בְּמִשְׁפָּט תִּפָּדֶה וְשָׁבֶיהָ בִּצְדָקָה:

Rav Aranovsky also points out that the lead word in our pasuk that holds the first letter (צ ) of our hidden word is part of the word הארץ - the land!

The second tidbit is related to this week's Parsha, Chayei Sara. One would expect that a simple word such as פאה would have numerous occurrences in the Torah as Roshei Teivos. This is somewhat true. There are 8 occurrences plus another 27 elsewhere in Tanach. However, the Sofei Teivos is not so plentiful. There are 9 occurrences in Tanach but only one of these is in the Torah. And it is in this pasuk (Breishis 23:9):

וְיִתֶּן-לִי אֶת-מְעָרַת הַמַּכְפֵּלָה אֲשֶׁר-לוֹ אֲשֶׁר בִּקְצֵה שָׂדֵהו בְּכֶסֶפ מָלֵא יִתְּנֶנָּה לִּי בְּתוֹכֲכֶם לַאֲחֻזַּת-קָבֶר:

Rav Aranovsky explains that this seems to referee a well known dispute in the Mishna (Peah 1:3) between the Tana Kamma and Ravi Shimon (ben Yochai) as to whether one must designate Peah at the edge of his field or if it may even be in the middle of the field. The Tana Kamma is lenient (even the middle) and Rashbi is machmir (יתן בסוף).

Rambam (Matanot L'Aniyim 2:12) clearly rules like Rashbi that Peah can only be designated at the edge of one's field.

Our pasuk seems to have this in mind when it encodes the word Peah in thbis pasuk right next to the words אשר בקצה שדהו . It is as if the pasuk is saying that the Peah must be בקצה שדהו - at the edge of the field - just as is the ruling of Rambam!

Golden Oldies for Parshat Chayei Sara

I still can't find time to write so again I will fall back on reruns from last fall.

Parshat Chayei Sara is a perennial trigger of Shidduch related articles and I actually posted 3 such articles last year. The first was titled:

Shidduchim Then and Now

and it was meant to zero in on what I have and continue to maintain is the main issue of the Shidduch crisis in the chareidi world: the gender imbalance. This is not to say that there are not other mishugossin that exacerbate the problem (a la Chanaya Weissman), but (1) in many cases these mishugossin are merely a derivative of the gender imbalance and the "buyer's market" that it causes and (2) these mishugossin are nothing new. They have existed for generations when we did not have anything called a "shidduch crisis" afoot.

The second post was entitled:

Lost and Found

and it was a succinct witicism that I heard in the name of Rav Nachum Pertzovitz, ZT"L which, in one line, dealt with the "mishugossin" aspect of shidduch trevails. Note that this "gem of wisdom" was mined way before the current shidduch crisis.

The third, and most important one was entitled:

Is the Yeshiva World Ready for Web Cam Dating?

and was a call to action. It articulates my firm conviction that we can partially alleviate the problem if we standardize long distance dating over the Internet.

The immediate result of that post was that I was introduced to ShidduchVision which was, at that time, an embryonic concept to implement this idea. I explored ShidduchVision and even contacted the developers. What emerged was that although we are of one mind on the concept, we are sorely divided on the method.

My position is that Web Cam dating can only be effective if it takes advantage of the strength and ease of access of the Internet. Yes, the Internet is a dangerous tool but so is electricity. We just have to know how to use it safely and, today, it is not that hard.

The postion of the SV developers was that the Internet is a non-starter because it won't get Rabbinic support and the quality is not lifelike. It's point-to-point cable or nothing. My contention is that PTP is so limited and cumbersome that it will take years to develop, leave many locations unattended (and thus be totally useless for those locations), and will likely be eventually replaced by the Internet anyway. As for Rabbinic support, I feel that if the cheaper, quicker and more efficient Internet system is petitioned for properly, there will be Rabbinic support. I explained all of this in great detail in a subsequent post in January entitled:

Realizing the Vision

Well, a year has passed since these posts were written and there is good news and bad.

The good news is that ShidduchVision has officially been launched and is up and running and the "date" worked out very nicely - though, if I understand correctly, the shidduch didn't (you can't win em all). This is great news...

...if you live in Chicago and want to date somebody in Baltimore or vice versa.

The rest of the world is out of the Loop (and the Beltway).

It looks like some other major communities are close to being launched and sponsors are being sought out in numerous others. So eventually, ShidduchVision may actually turn in to something effective. But only partially effective.

For one thing, we must ask: how long will "eventually" really take, and how do we justify the wasted time and opportunities to help singles that are being passed up because we must wait for a PTP cable system to be installed? We have already invested a full year and all we have is Chicago and Baltimore!

How long will it take to get to St. Louis, Denver, Montreal and Scranton?

But the real reason it can be only partially effective is because many smaller communities and mini communities will never have a PTP cable system like ShidduchVision. Not now, and not "eventually".

Will Vancouver (written up a few years ago as a 70% intermarriage rate!) ever have one? Will Cincinatti or Hartford? Will Rio de Janeiro? San Diego and Phoenix? How about Waterbury and Rochester?

And some of these places need it a lot more than Chicago and Baltimore.

I really am cheering for ShidduchVision and hope that it succeeds beyond all expectations. I really hope that the time and money invested in ShidduchVision proves to be a more "profitable" investment than what we might have gained over the same time by pushing for an Internet-based system (for less money).

And how will we know that it has succeeded beyond all expectations?

If I feel no need to write again next year singing the same blues I am singing now for the second straight year.

Aren't you sick of reruns?

Parshat Chayei Sara: Part I - Shidduchim Then and Now

Parshat Chayei Sara is upon us. This parsha is traditionally acclaimed as the Torah's Guide to Matrimonial Protocol. We are expected to learn from Avrohom Avinu the ideal procedure for marrying off our sons. (In two more weeks, we will learn from Lavan HaArami the ideal procedure for marrying off our daughters).

Thus, we learn from this parsha that the ideal method of dating is that the boy should never leave the yeshiva. He should continue learning and merely send a servant with 10 camels and loads of gifts and jewelry to Boro Park or wherever the girl lives and cajole her to drop everything and come and move into the boy's mother's tent. We also learn that he should seek a beautiful virgin, the younger the better - as young as 3 years old - even if he is pushing 40. We also learn that the quaint trick of poisoning the servant and keeping the camels, jewelry, and gifts does not always work – though it may be worth a try.

Alas, circumstances have changed ever so slightly in just a mere 3,700 years whereas it may not be so easy to emulate the ways of our forefathers. For one thing, Camels now come in packs of 20, not 10, and most women prefer Newport Lights. Secondly, there are contemporary legal restrictions against pursuing 3 year old virgins. In fact, our rabbanim have been advising us to pursue older virgins as more and more of them are pushing 40. Thirdly, I have a premonition that one of the many great "changes" that we can expect from the upcoming Obama administration is that it may become a bit harder to obtain reliable Kanaani servants. And, finally, one ramification of the worsening economic situation is that we may have to cut back drastically on camels, jewelry and gifts. Let's face it, not all of us were "blessed with everything." Most of us don't even have enough to load up one pygmy llama – forget about 10 camels.

So now we do things differently – the particulars of which I plan to elaborate on in a forthcoming post.

Because of these slight changes, many claim that we have lost our sense of direction when it comes to pursuing shidduchim. And we are finding ourselves in the midst of a shidduch crisis. Or, at least, that is what everybody is calling it. And we are looking for ways to "fix" the system. Currently, we are getting all kinds of advice from every Jon, Shmilik, and Harry.

But is it really broken?

Jonathan Rosenblum doesn't think so. And neither do I.

To explain this, let me state that there is something deceptive about this debate and this is that the parties are oft-times comparing apples to oranges. This is because there are 2 distinct problems. There is (1) the singles problem that plagues the Westernized non-chareidi world and there is (2) the demographics problem that is plaguing the chareidi world.

The crux of the chareidi "problem" is that marriageable girls far outnumber the boys. As the Beach Boys (and Philly boys and Passaic boys and Fallsburg boys and Chaim Berlin boys and Telzer boys, etc.) so aptly put it:

And we're goin' to Surf City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun
You know we're goin' to Surf City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun, now

Two girls for every boy

Or, close to it.

This creates what every businessman knows is a "buyer's market". And a buyer's market can be cruel.

Accordingly, there is no problem with the "system" - it works fine. Boys are finding wives without much difficulty. And in the yeshiva world, most people who get married…stay married. All this talk about asking about dress sizes and tablecloth colors are meaningless but automatic symptoms of the buyer's market. People ask these questions because they can afford to. In the old days of pre-war Europe there were more Yeshiva boys than there were girls prepared to marry them. It was a seller's market. So, in a seller's market, no buyer can afford to be fussy about dress sizes and tablecloth colors. That is why so many Yeshiva men went so far as to marry women who were not amenable to covering their hair.

So, don't worry about the symptoms. If we can cure the disease (the buyer's market) the symptoms will disappear.

Unforunately, this is one aggressive disease. If anybody has read my baby-boom posts about Maayanei Hayshua and Kaplan (don't think that Shaarei Tzedek or Maimonides and Long Branch are hurting for customers, either) then we know that we will not solve the "buyer's market" problem in the foreseeable future.

This problem is a different one than the long standing singles problem that has been plaguing the non-chareidi world. This is what Shmilik is talking about. There, nobody asks about tablecloth covers or dress sizes and still there's a crisis. In this world, people employ a more Westernized system for searching for mates. This is not the system of parshat Chayei Sara. It is more the system that the Rambam describes as "before mattan Torah" (Hilchos Ishus 1:1). Though many will swear by this system, more will swear at it.

Thus while R. Jon(athan Rosenblum) is talking about one crisis, Shmilik is talking about another. And Harry is trying to mix everything together.*

Now, my proposed solution for the non-chareidi shidduch crisis is the simple pre-packaged one that nobody wants to hear (especially Shmilik):

Sign on to the chareidi system.

I don’t mean just for shidduchim. I mean for every facet of life. In more palatable terms, I mean stick to the prescription of Vayikra 26:3 or get with the “One Above” scene. (Details in my handy dandy manual).

As for the chareidi demographic crisis, finding a solution is much more challenging. Up until about 3 years back I could claim I was doing my part by fathering 50% more boys than girls. I even tried to widen the margin but, somehow, the girls managed to pull even. I should have listened to Forrest Gump’s mother (You never know whatcher gonna get.).

There is no quick fix to the demographic problem. And that, in turn, is creating a “buyer’s market” that impairs the shidduch system. But, intrinsically, the fault – in chareidi circles - does not lie with the “system.” Marriages abound. The system works. But I think that maybe we can make it work better. And maybe we can relieve some of the symptoms of the dreadful demographic disease. This is because we have some tools now that we didn't have 3,700 years ago.

I plan to discuss it but it won’t be shorter than this post and this post is long enough.

Stay tuned for: The Eisek of Pirya V’Rivya


*No, I did not read Dr. Michael Salomon's book. Perhaps, if more people bought mine, I could afford to buy his.