Originally posted on 12/11/08
I want to beef about the Orthodox Jewish manner in which mates are selected for you. Unfortunately, most of what I have to say has probably been said so very many times. When one is looking for a spouse in the Orthodox Jewish world, they go to a matchmaker known as a shadchan. If the match gets married, this is known as a shidduch.
One problem in the Orthodox world is that EVERYONE wants to be a shadchan. I mean, yes, it's a mitzvah to make a match, but, it's not so simple. A real shadchan spends hours pouring over their laptop looking at their spreadsheets trying to find two people who seem like they belong together FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.
At best, these amateur wannabe shadchans try picking out someone they they want to marry off and they put them at a table for a meal with a bunch of people of the opposite gender hopefully are age appropriate and remotely compatible.
Unfortunately, more often than not, they are trying to set people they don't know well enough to determine if they are compatible. Someone recently invited me over for a meal. When I was there, it comes out that they invited someone for my benefit, but they didn't say it outright. He wasn't even Orthodox. He was Conservadox.
Another type of attempt at a shidduch that I would like to vent about is what I call the "Beauty and The Beast" type. This is where a man women don't want, usually a dirty old man, persuades people to try to coerce a girl into to dating him. They usually use some awfully grimey tactics, too. They try to make you sit next to the person. They will get together a whole shul and make sure that the seat next to him is the only one available. They will invite him over when they've invited you over. When you're in the kitchen washing for bread, they will have sent him in behind you and no one else is waiting to wash. They pretend they are interviewing you for a job then they bring up how they have someone for you. They scream and yell at you. They tell you if you don't settle for one of these HORRIBLE HORRIBLE men, you'll be alone for the rest of your life.
I will gladly take the trade off. When you marry someone you spend the rest of your life with them. You touch them and do other things with them. You bring children into the world together. If I don't want to be in the same room with a man, he's not a good candidate to be my husband.
I miss the good ol' days when I was still in conversion and I could just say, "I'm not allowed to date."
COMMENT
Great post! Would love to talk to you too. will send an email.
By Over The Rainbow on Everyone wants to set me up but, no one really wan... on 12/14/08
I say Conservadoxy is just Orthodoxy for those who actually have learned history. Did you know that the Jews of Cochin, who followed only the Mishneh Torah, had women sing in the synagogue as an official part of the liturgy? That women in Iran and Iraq wore pants and that the Ben Ish Hai even forbids men to wear pants and says pants are women's garb? I could go on and on in this vein. :P
ReplyDeleteOh yes, and Rabbis Yosef Messas and Moshe Malka of Morocco, and the Ben Ish Hai, and Rabbi Isaac S. Hurewitz (an early American Orthodox rabbi, who learned in the mussar yeshiva of Novorodock and bitterly opposed Louis Ginzberg), all say that married women nowadays need not cover their hair. And you know how the Conservative Jews eat swordfish? So do Moroccan Jews. And Ladino Jews would allow women to sing romances (ballads) in the presence of men; Rabbi Marc Angel says his rabbi, Hakham Shlomo Gaon (from the traditional Sephardi community of Sarajevo), once not only attended a woman's public singing, but afterwards, stood up and loudly applauded and praised her quality before the entire crowd. I could go on and on and on... :P
ReplyDeleteNo offense is meant, and I hope none is taken. I'm just defending myself and my fellow Conservadox Jews. :)