Dr. Michael Salamon writes for The Jewish Press:
Perhaps the most obvious aspect of Orthodox Jewish life where disengagement occurs, and the best portal by which to enter this discussion, is the matter of shidduchim.
The process of finding a spouse has undergone such a major overhaul in the past two decades that it is virtually indistinguishable from anything that occurred before that. True, there have always been shadchanim (matchmakers) whose job was to find proper matches between families of reasonably equal social or intellectual status. But the current focus on irrelevant externals that are supposed to act as a surrogate for truly knowing someone – size of hat brim, style of dress, type of shoe, color of tablecloth – tells us nothing about personality, compatibility or mutual interests.
Some would argue that these questions are not part of the normal matchmaking process. Both clinical and personal experience prove otherwise. And to question why these superficial externals have become a major component of the dating process is to be immediately labeled a member of the B-List – someone not worthy of a better marriage mate.
This increasingly ubiquitous approach to finding a spouse is meaningless unless one seeks only to disengage from the world and find a mate who will comply with that desire. It is little more than lashon hora (speaking evil of others), and it sends the message to individuals of marriageable age that they are unable to form opinions of their own. Are they old enough to get married but not to select whom to marry or even to end a dating arrangement with someone they may not be compatible with? Someone else seems to always be making the decision for the dating partners.
This is not to say parents should have no interest in their children’s dating, only that their interest should take the form of being a teacher, coach and supporter – not, except in the most extreme cases – the ultimate decision maker. And the shadchan, an outsider, surely should not be the final intercessor.
There is significant fallout from the shidduch scene that trickles down to other aspects of Jewish life and causes some of us to question where rationality has gone.
Most young women are seeking “learners” or perhaps “learner earners.” They are instructed to seek men who will spend their lives either fully or primarily involved in learning. Similarly, young men are instructed to believe that if they seek a professional career instead of learning they will be seen as second class, lower status and less likely to attract the “finer” A-list women as spouses. This mindset is mentally, socially and financially incapacitating to the entire Jewish community.
Without question we need learned leaders, but not all of our children can, or should, be rabbis. I often receive phone calls from rabbis seeking advice on how to deal with a “certain young man” who will spend twenty-four hours a day, every day, in the bet midrash. While the rabbi may see it as a sign of some underlying problem, the young man’s peers are often envious of him for sitting up all night and learning. Dedication, commitment and hard work are necessary for success in any endeavor, but there is a line of commitment that, when crossed, may result in pathology.
The social and financial implications of this lifestyle are obvious. If all our young men are in the bet midrash, then by virtue of this logic those who are not in the bet midrash are not “our” young men. If all our young men are in the bet midrash, where will our doctors, lawyers, accountants and businessmen come from? Who will be able to pay for yeshiva tuition, or, more to the point, where will living funds come from?
A more insidious corollary to the vicissitudes of the current dating scene is the problem of domestic violence. It is a commonly held belief in our community that the rates of domestic violence are exceptionally low. If this violence does exist, the reasoning goes, it can be eliminated by seeing to it that our children do not marry someone raised in a family where there has been domestic violence.
Both these beliefs are fallacious. Research has shown that the rate of domestic violence in the Jewish community, including the Orthodox community, are virtually the same as in the secular world. Further, children raised in a home where violence occurred are not necessarily more likely to be violent; in fact, they may even be less prone to violence. We are teaching our young adults to ignore the research data and follow a belief system that may end up being destructive.
