For someone determined not to comment…well here I am. I just want clarity and realize that I need to clarify something.
There is a shidduch crisis and the contributing factors, and I realize the need to focus on the age gap. I wouldn’t be so dismissive of the pie chart, there is serious buzz about, say, the learning gap. But I’m not an actuary or sociologist and can’t crunch the numbers some feel is necessary to fully address it.
But I wasn’t referring to the other issues contributing to the shidduch crisis in my earlier post. I wasn’t in crisis mode at all. I was simply referring to certain ikrim that can’t be trampled on in coming to a solution. Kind of like getting a prescription filled and you want to be sure that there won’t be negative repercussions. Some ikrim include emunas chachamim, chanoch l’naar, middos, etc.
I’ll refer to the first two examples of ikrim. IF and when my boys go to E”Y they will not be dilletantes out for an “experience.” They will go to a specific yeshiva to learn under the hanhala there for their growth as bnei Torah. We will not set arbitrary cut off dates. I’m apprehensive about advising people to do something without knowing if it’s good advice for THEM, there’s this lifnei iver thing.
There is emunas chachamim. If it were at all possible in galus for something like this to occur, if there was uniform, specific, targeted lashon by a vast majority of gedolim, of course I would listen. (And listening doesn’t preclude going to an adom gadol and getting clarity as an individual, BTW.) If there was a takana that could have legs saying go for nine months only I could be machshiv it. But otherwise, I have to be leery about blanket solutions that are contraindicated by the ikrim.