When Talk is Dangerous

Tehillim 73:15 אם אמרתי אספרה כמו הנה דור בניך בגדתי
"If I said, "I shall tell it as it is," behold I have made the generation of Your children into traitors."

Rashi: Said Asaph, “If I said in my heart to tell everything as it is, all that His people say about this, I would make them into traitors and wicked men."

Metzudas Dovid: If I say it the way it is, i.e. whatever it is that I think, then the talking will incite even those who are your children, i.e. those who believe in You, for when they hear what is thought, I will make them into traitors which is why I won't talk much.

I heard someone say, based on this verse, that the trend to discuss all our frum society's ills out in the open is the modern day version of "es iz shver tzu zayn a Yid" - it's hard to be a Jew.  How many Jews are being turned off to frum life when they hear about all the crises and social ills we are suffering from?

Back in the early 1900's, when shomer Shabbos Jews sighed over the hardships of being religious, they lost their children who were not interested in living a hard, religious life.  These days, why would someone want to belong to a society which has a shidduch crisis, tuition crisis, parnassa crisis, housing crisis, drop-outs, those who keep "half Shabbos," Kiddush clubs and alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, shalom bayis problems and molestation problems? Sounds quite unappealing!

Some editors and askanim pat themselves on the back for "breaking taboos" and (supposedly) dispelling stigmas by airing issues that used to be kept quiet.  Are we gaining or losing thereby, that is the question.  What would they say if they knew that just one person was turned off to Yiddishkeit because of this openness?

a related post

"From"

A girl's shidduch resume was sent to a mother of a boy.  The girl seemed to be what the mother of the boy was looking for, for her son, and the girl was in town!

Within hours of sending off the resume, the mother of the boy said no to the idea.  Why? She was out of town and would let me know the following week.

The following week she explained that since the parents of the girl were divorced, and it would have required extra research, and it was complicated, she declined.

Divorced!? They are not divorced!

What?! But it says in the resume that the father is in Miami and the mother is in Detroit!

No it doesn't! The fact that it says "Miami" in parentheses after the father's name is to indicate that that is where he is from, not that he is currently living there! In fact, the very next line says where he works and it's in Detroit, where he lives with the mother in an intact home!

Oh! But the resume does not say (from Miami).  It says (Miami).  Can you see why I thought they were no longer married?

Yes, but ... I would have said if they were divorced! And I had looked at that resume and did not think anything untoward by (Miami).

Divine providence strikes again.  For some reason, she was meant to misread the resume and say no at that time.  She can still revisit the idea, but the suggestion at that time was definitely off.

Mean What You Say and Say What You Mean

No sooner did I finish listening to a shiur in which the speaker said this is an alma d'shikra (world of falsehood) in which words do not retain their true meaning, than I heard the following.  Someone with a son in shidduchim said her son told her that in the yeshiva world, when they refer to someone having "lots of yiras shomayim," those are code words for "lots of money!"

Ironically, this came up on the Shabbos of parshas Vayeira in which Avrohom said to Avimelech, "there is no yiras Elokim here!"

It's not the only code for money.  People say "balabatish" or "comfortable," but to use a term like "yiras shomayim" for money? Unacceptable!

Beyond Segulos

In the book "Riding the Waves" by Tamar Ansh, there is an amazing story that the author heard directly from the girl's mother.  It's called "The Sister Project" and it's on page 156 and the story goes as follows:

Shoshi (pseudonym) was a senior in an Israeli Beis Yaakov and there were about 40 girls in her class.  Most girls were from large families and although parents wanted to marry off their children in order, this was sometimes hard to do when there were many eligible siblings.  Many girls in Shoshi's class were worried about how they would do a shidduch when they had one or several older single siblings.

Shoshi and her friends made a list of all the older siblings in their class alone and it amounted to 40 singles! They did every known segula such as hafrashas challa, saying Tehillim, saying Perek Shira and Shir Ha'Shirim, they gave tzedaka, etc. and nobody got engaged.

Shoshi had initiated the project (even though she did not need this yeshua herself) and she was very disappointed.  She wracked her brains for an idea and came up with this - maybe they needed to do something that required mesirus nefesh on their part.  It's not that doing segulos is easy.  They take time and effort, but they're formulaic and don't necessitate going out of your comfort zone.

Her class had a teacher that no one liked and the girls misbehaved in her class, talking, passing notes, etc.  It occurred to Shoshi that their mesirus nefesh project should be that the entire class behave like model students for ten hours of this teacher's class.  Her classmates did not exactly jump at the opportunity but Shoshi insisted and convinced them all. 

You'll have to read the story for all the details but suffice it to say, the girls behaved, the teacher was thrilled, and after ten hours of behaving properly, ten singles from their list got engaged!

The girls were overwhelmed by this obvious cause-and-effect connection and decided to do another ten hours.  Yes, another ten names were crossed off their list.

Shoshi wanted to do a third round of ten hours but many girls had had enough.  Shoshi must be an extraordinary young lady because she convinced them, and she had to convince them all, to do it again.  The teacher was ecstatic, they had behaved for thirty hours, and thirty singles from their list were either engaged or married, and some of them were over thirty years old!

The story ends with the girls working on their fourth set of ten hours.

A Solution We Don't Hear About

Despite the endless articles and speeches about the "shidduch crisis" and "economic crisis," we have yet to hear the Chofetz Chaim's solution: grow a beard! 

Here is what the Chofetz Chaim says:
(published in his sefer Kuntres Tiferes Adom ch. 1)

“If one lets his beard grow...one can certainly expect that Hashem will provide him with a fitting marriage partner, an intelligent and G-d-fearing woman, who will be a helpmate during his life (as our Sages say: ‘If one has merit, she will help him’), and they will be privileged to raise a generation of upright children in whom he can rejoice as they sit around his table...his marriage should be pleasant, that Hashem should provide them with their livelihood, that they should be privileged to have upright children, and that he should experience a good life with the wife whom Hashem has designated for him...

“On the other hand, if one does not place his trust in Hashem and he turns from the path of the commandment, surely Hashem will not desire to treat him well.

“Instead of the love and favor he hopes to gain by trimming his beard, eventually it will turn, G-d forbid, to bitterness and poison through lack of livelihood and other prevalent causes, because Hashem’s blessing will not rest between them.

“Sometimes it will come to the point where he has to wander far away to find his livelihood, and then, what benefit does one have from this [temporary] joy?

“In fact, all this is explained in the holy Torah sources, that by standing firm to fulfill Hashem’s commandment, one is privileged to raise a generation of upright children”.