The Shidduch Crisis

A number of months ago, Hamodia published an article by D. Kiel about her mother-in-law. She began with the following paragraph.

"My very first meeting with my amazing mother-in-law, a”h, was an incredible lesson in good mother-in-lawship, although I didn’t realize it until years later. Dressed in the most stylish outfit I possessed, I gingerly sat down on her sofa and searched for words. Not one for trite “how-do-you-do’s,” Mom turned to her son and said, Oy, mein kind, host du gut gedavent! “Oh my son, you really prayed well!” This definitely loses flavor in translation, but I still remember her words more than fifty years later. Mom not only knew how to make a nervous kallah feel good, she knew how to lay the foundations for a solid mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship, a tradition I have tried to carry on."

Those words made a deep impression on me and serve as a lesson how to act when meeting your prospective son-in-law/daughter-in-law. A very wise relative once told me that her husband had posed her the question, "You want 100% for your child. But did you ever stop and think if your child is 100%?"

Particularly in these times when there is a shidduch crisis and older singles have yet to meet their bashert, if we have the zechut of getting our children engaged, our first reaction should be one of simcha and gratitude to Hashem. We should say, "Thank you, Hashem. Ich heb gut gedavent." And to our son/daughter, we should say, "host du gut gedavent." Let's not focus on the flaws, but on the positive traits. And let's be happy and grateful that our son/daughter is meriting to build a bayis neeman beYisrael.

As I mentioned, there is a shidduch crisis and I would like to invite readers to send me their ideas on how to alleviate the problem. Just email me at devorah@live.co.uk. If the idea has merit, I will post it on my blog, either anonymously or I can post the author's name if he/she wishes.

In high school, one of our assigned readings was the book Tehila by S.Y. Agnon. It was about a woman who spoke sparingly because she believed that Hashem had allotted her a certain amount of words in her lifetime. If she used them up, she would die.

Similarly, Hasem decreed that a certain number of souls are to be born before Mashiach's arrival. So, let's help singles get married and bring further souls into the world, and may we merit seeing the redemption bimhera beyamenu.