Reply To: Rechnitz – There is no Shidduch Crisis

Reading through the comments on the 2 articles, I’ve noticed a few comments mentioning the freezer. This is not a problem. It actually solves a problem of people going to Lakewood just to get married. The point of this article is to get people into the freezer earlier so that they can get out earlier or get them married before the freezer. The freezer is just a few months and does not significantly impact this problem.

Getting boys married before they even get to Lakewood would be the ideal for the age-gap crisis. Or better yet, b’mchilas kvod kol hatalmidei chachomim b’Lakewood – boys should stop going to BMG altogether. And b’mchilas kvod Artzeinu Hakdosha, boys don’t have to go to Eretz Yisrael either!

“Aseh l’cha rav” in a small yeshiva and then stick with your Rebbe long-term while you get married, get a job, etc. Why should you ever leave your rebbe? R’ Rechnitz has a whole arichus here about the “rosh yeshiva shiur system”. I don’t undersatnd the system at all. It encourages boys to leave their Rebbe eventually.

I feel the ideal would be to have boys go to smaller yeshivas and stay there. Go out of town and stay there if needed as well. Brooklyn and Lakewood are not Yerushalayim! There is no mitzvah to live there. There is no mitzvah to even learn in BMG for a few years. There are plenty of wonderful, growing, frum communities in places like Dallas, St. Louis, San Diego, Denver, and even Las Vegas! The cost of living in those places is much less than in NY and contrary to popular belief, there are real frum people in those communities – kollels, shuls, schools, etc. If, for whatever reason you need to stay in the North East there is Waterburry and Baltimore as well.

All of these places have yeshivas that boys can go to for a few years and they can then get married and stay there! There are jobs available in these communities both in klei kodesh and the secular workplace.

The problem with this is that currently all the boys and girls are in NY/NJ so they stay there for shiduchim. And girls are brainwashed to only marry Lakewood boys. If R’ Rechnitz can fund LA girls going to NY for dates, I’m sure he can fund dating between all of these communities as well. This will help solve the parnasa crisis as well since the cost of living for frum families is much lower in those communities.

How about if R’ Rechnitz were to pay for boys to go learn in these communities on condition that they stay there long term. He can pay for families to move there to help the communities. And then we need the seminaries to encourage their girls to date boys from these places. It will take a complete over-haul of the entire yeshivish mentality but who better than R’ Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz to bring this to reality!