The Shidduch Crisis and Hypocrisy

They'll force radical changes for girls and guys but not for giyus.

A reader forwarded me an extraordinary special insert from the Pesach edition of Ami magazine, which was published at the behest of many leading rabbis in the charedi world and quotes them. It was about a huge problem in American charedi circles of older girls who are single. Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, described in the article to be the Gadol HaDor, presented a diagnosis of this shidduch crisis and a solution. According to R. Hirsch, the reason for the problem is that girls start dating much earlier than boys do; they begin right after they finish seminary, whereas the boys only start after returning from learning in Eretz Ysrael for a few years. Thus the solution is for girls to start working and delay dating until they are 18 months older, and for boys to go to learn in Eretz Yisrael earlier and return at a younger age to start dating.

But the point of interest here is not the proposed solution. It’s how the various rabbinic leaders quoted in the article justify it, despite the fact that it involves a radical societal change (which also means that the approach until now was wrong), and even spiritual risk to the girls (since they are entering the workforce, the wider world, while still single). Yet their justifications are all the more applicable to the situation of charedim joining the IDF! Let’s take a look at what they say:

From Rav Dov Landau: “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.” Exactly. When there’s a war on seven fronts and thousands of soldiers are out of commission and hundreds of thousands have been in endless reserve duty and it’s realized that an entirely new security approach is required, you can’t just continue your way of life as though nothing has changed.

From Rav Elya Chaim Swerdloff: “Our current shidduch system is a man-made system. Hashem didn’t impose this system upon us. It was not designed to be this way - rather, it evolved with good kavanah. Had we known the results, as we do now, it would never have been set in place this way. All we are doing as a tzibbur is trying to fix the mistakes we made…” The current shidduch system evolved in a society that was under rabbinic leadership, and yet they didn’t recognize that it was mistaken. Hashem also didn’t say that every charedi young man has to avoid working and serving in the IDF and that there needs to be 100,000 people in yeshiva. In fact, this was never the norm, and in the War of Independence, charedi rabbinic leaders called upon young men to fight. At the beginning of the state there were only 400 yeshiva students, and until the 1977 change by the Begin government there were still plenty of chareidm serving in the IDF and hardly anyone in kollel. The situation evolved in a way that is badly mistaken.

From Rav Shlomo Feivel Schustal: “When someone is suffering and we can do something to help, not only are we allowed to help, we are required to help. If you see someone drowning, Rachmana litzlan, can you possibly turn a blind eye and say ‘Hashem is running the world’? It is a mitzvah to go help him!” Right, you can’t just say “I’m learning Torah!” when people need help. And the nation of Israel needs help. We are under threat by millions of hostile Arabs. Reservists have to spend endless months away from their jobs and families, causing financial and familial collapse. How can you possibly turn a blind eye? It is a mitzvah to go help!

From Rav Binyomin Cohen, in response to the question that the Gemara says that a Bas Kol goes out 40 days before birth announcing a person’s zivug, and thus surely we cannot be required to ‘help’ Hashem: “The Chasam Sofer says that one cannot understand the Gemara of bas kol on a practical level, and it is not to be acted upon… we have to do whatever hishtadlus we can…” Right. And the same goes for all the Gemaras which talk about Torah providing protection from war or disease. They were never interpreted on a practical level to mean that Torah is a replacement for hishtadlus. We have to do whatever hishtadlus we can for military protection, just as we do in every other sphere of life.

From Rav Dov Kahan, in response to the question that surely Hashem is in charge: “When we see a natural reason for an unfortunate event, be it an accident, illness, or anything else, we are supposed to act to correct it, even though we know Hashem is the one who orchestrated it… if we don’t do our hishtadlus, the bashert can get taken.” Exactly. When we see a natural reason for an unfortunate event - such as Arabs who want to kill us - we don’t say that it happened because of the sins of the victims, and we don’t say that we simply need to learn more Torah. We do our hishtadlus.

Finally, there is an editorial in response to the concern that it will be spiritually harmful for girls to be forced to be single for a while after finishing seminary. The response is threefold: that there is no significant risk, that the result of the initiative is that while some girls will marry later it will increase the overall number getting married, and that new educational programs are being developed to strengthen the religiosity of girls in a post-seminary framework. All of which also apply to the army - there is no significant risk in a hesder framework, the risks that do exist are more than justified by the need to help the overall population (including reducing the spiritual risk to others), and when you’re interested in solving a problem, you take initiatives to create frameworks to mitigate it.

If all these rabbis were only to apply all their reasoning to the army situation, then Israel wouldn’t be suffering and endangered by the IDF manpower shortage and the charedi drain on the economy. So why don’t they? Why the inconsistency and hypocrisy?

The answer is contained in the very beginning of the magazine. The lead editorial declares: “…With so many of our daughters in pain, we cannot wait for the perfect solution… Reflect on the issue. Feel the pain these bnos Yisrael live with as they sit alone.” When you recognize the pain of people suffering from a problem, and you care about it and feel a responsibility towards helping them, then you are motivated to find a solution, even if it’s difficult.

But the charedi world does not recognize or care about the pain of the nation of Israel, because they are effectively not a part of it. People in their community are not getting killed or injured or are away from their families on endless reserve duty. And the leadership intentionally keeps up the barriers between themselves and the rest of the population even after the war started. The rabbinic leaders of the charedi world are opposed to their constituents visiting injured soldiers in hospitals or attending funerals or learning about the pain of the reservists and their families. They don’t care and they don’t want any of their constituents to care. They don’t want them to be motivated to address it. Because being charedi is all about being separate, as I noted in my post The Charedi Secession From Klal Yisrael.

The editorial proclaims that “the change requires our collective achrayus (responsibility)… We ask you to read this with an open heart and mind. To understand that no solution is perfect, but if we focus on criticism, change will never happen.” Right. No solution is perfect, but change is required. And this requires collective achrayus. The question is, who is part of the collective?

A list of posts on the topic of IDF service is at Torah and Army: The Big Index