100% Solution to Shidduch Crisis–Goral

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  • #590774
    Pashuteh Yid
    Member

    Rabbosai, I just thought of something which might end the shidduch crisis, completely, once and for all.

    Every single who passes the age of 30 voluntarily agrees to enter a goral (lottery). To enter, you sign a promise which cannot be revoked under any circumstances that a name will be chosen completely at random for you from other singles who have agreed to enter, and you must marry that person, period. There is no possibility of getting out of it, under penalty of cherem (and possibly severe monetary consequences, as well).

    In effect, the RBSH is picking out your shidduch, and you may not be happy at first with his choice, but at least you will not have the pain of being single any longer. You will work at your marriage and make it work.

    You may end up with with someone completely different than what you expected or hoped for, but you are married, and can raise a beautiful family.

    An alternative would be separate tracks for chassidish pool, chareidi pool, modern pool, and possibly handicapped of each type. (This last thought hurts me, but possibly nobody would agree otherwise.) Possibly, this may require separate pools by five year age brackets, as well.

    This would completely solve the shiddduch crisis. Anybody still single past 30 has nobody to blame except him/herself for not agreeing to enter the goral and for thinking that they deserve better than the general pool because they consider themselves more special than the next person.

    Any thoughts?

    #667558

    PY: I like it.

    It also shares an element with the Chasidesha shidduch model, in that it the groom and bride are pre-chosen with minimal (note I say minimal not none) input by them.

    #667559
    AZ
    Participant

    one problem with the goral. I assume only singles will be entered into the goral, correct?

    Well there are gong to be far more females in the goral then males. What are you gonna do about that.

    #667560
    AZ
    Participant

    Just an example, continued from a different thread.

    Another school:

    2001(26 years old) 6 single -out of 38 Graduates=15.78%

    2002 (25 years old) 4-42=9.52%

    2003(24 years old) 9-62=14.5%

    #667561
    Pashuteh Yid
    Member

    Thanks, MM.

    Just to refine: In order to enter, a person puts down half the price of a wedding ($10,000, say). When you get married, that money is used for the wedding. If you back out, this nonrefundable money is used for poor chassanim or kallos, and you are permanently banned from entering the goral ever again.

    #667562

    What are you gonna do about that.

    That’s what the polygamy proposal aims to alleviate.

    #667563
    Pashuteh Yid
    Member

    AZ, I am proposing that this system starts at 30, (but no reason it can’t start at 25). I have no statistics on the number of singles of each gender for age brackets over 30. If you have, then please share. Note, suppose the number of single guys in the 30-35 age bracket works out to be equal to the number of single girls in the 25-30 age bracket. Then you may want to make the lottery to mix those brackets. However, that exacerbates the problem for the much older women. However, I think I read in the NY Times that for the very senior age bracket, there are many more times as many women as men, so no system can invent a solution if the men simply don’t exist.

    #667564
    AZ
    Participant

    PY, you failed to respond to a critical question

    #667565
    Just-a-guy
    Member

    I have a serious question, which is Pashuteh Yid, are you serious?

    #667566
    Jewess
    Member

    Pashuteh Yid, I hope you’re joking.

    Are you attracted to every girl/guy in your age bracket, line of Orthodoxy and health status bracket?

    Enough said. Or asked.

    #667567
    AZ
    Participant

    PY you write “so no system can invent a solution if the men simply don’t exist.”

    Correct. And being that the case is such as has been discussed in the CR many many times, we therefore need to figure what happened that made the men simply not exist (AGE GAP) and alleviate that going forward.

    #667569
    Just Smile
    Participant

    AZ – you’re gonna have the opposite problem. Girls wouldn’t put their names in but boys would.

    Boys take more risks than girls.

    #667570
    Pashuteh Yid
    Member

    JAG and Jewess, I am not kidding, as it is no worse than any other solution that has so far been put forth, and this one can actually work, if people really want to end the crisis.

    Jewess, I don’t know how things are from the female point of view, but apparently because there are so many laws such as yichud even for a few minutes, men are able to get attracted to just about anybody in short order. If it were very rare for people to be attracted, why the need for all these laws?

    But the main point is that you have a choice. Keep looking for Mr. Perfect and run the risk that you’ll never get married or will marry after you are too old to have children, or decide that getting married is the most important thing to you, and you commmit to marrying whoever the RBSH picks for you.

    Note that when they entered EY, the land was divided by goral. Ach bgoral teichalek haaretz.

    #667573
    Josh31
    Participant

    Pashuteh Yid, this thread is out of character for you!!!

    Goral in the Torah is for land as you mentioned and goats, not for women created in the image of G-d.

    The wrong match and it is La-a-za-zel, over the cliff!!!

    #667574
    mybat
    Member

    Here we go again….. Yeah the age gap…… Right?

    #667575
    AZ
    Participant

    PY: You have not responded to the basic problem in the goral and that is that there would not be enough male names for the female names. W/O solving that you haven’t solved much of anything.

    #667576
    bein_hasdorim
    Participant

    PY; Nice try! There is too many flaws in your proposal,

    Like trying to eat stuffed cabbage with chopsticks, most of it ends up on the floor.

    Don’t get discouraged though, for if you do not succeed at first try, try again.

    #667577
    tamazaball
    Member

    mybat. i checked the cf, and almost fainted and i was like oh no!! not another shidduch thread!!

    #667578
    skates
    Member

    are u kidding? this isn’t gona work at all….for a girl/boy who has been waiting all those years, davening that Hashem should send the right one, hoping everytime that this time will be the one, this boy/girl isnt just gona marry a name out of a lottery! they won’t appreciate the other person, they will only feel compelled to marry them! who wants to be in a marriage where ur forced to marry that person! I know staying single is hard…but being married to someone you don’t like is even harder…so pashute yid, you may “solve” the shidduch crisis with this…but your certainly gona escalate the divorce on!!!

    #667579
    rebetzin
    Participant

    I hope you’re not serious, but either way, this is a typical condescending attitude that people have to older singles. I love how people who are happily married blame singles for not marrying the next guy that comes around. Believe me, if you went out with the people some of these girls are going out with, you would opt to remain single too.

    Without going into the details, I had a few stories when I was single, where I was red someone who I had heard not such great things about, and then when I tried to inquire more, everyone tried to cover it up and backtrack what they said, or make me seem nuts for not ignoring what I heard. Maybe some singles are too picky, but most are not and you have to give them the respect they deserve from up on your comfortably married perch.

    In any case, as AZ said, this method should prove once and for all whether or not there are more girls than boys. Or, instead of going through all the trouble, you can just believe the shadchanim who say that there are more girls than boys in their database.

    #667580
    A600KiloBear
    Participant

    BS”D

    A completely voluntary goral might not be a bad idea for shidduch dates, but forced marriage this way is frankly barbaric.

    #667581
    rebetzin
    Participant

    Also, I dont see why it’s more appropriate to joke about older singles than it is to joke about infertility or other misfortunes that people go through. You would not joke about it you knew the pain of these people who want to get married and have children but it’s just not happening. Part of the reason is that people think that the singles are more in control of their situation than the other cases, but many times that’s not true. I hope none of you jokers ever have to learn this from experience.

    #667582
    haifagirl
    Participant

    Pashuteh Yid: Great proposal. But what about people who don’t have $10,000, or even anything close?

    And also, kudos for the following:

    . . . chosen completely at random for you from other singles who have agreed to enter . . .

    (For everyone: Notice the use of “who” and not “that” when referring to people.)

    AZ: Mezonos Maven answered your “critical question” for Pashuteh Yid:

    That’s what the polygamy proposal aims to alleviate.

    ben_hasdorim: I never tried it, but why would it be so difficult to eat stuffed cabbage with chopsticks?

    #667583
    haifagirl
    Participant

    Pashuteh Yid: Don’t let all these naysayers get you down. As an older single, I appreciated your suggestion. I wonder how many of those who don’t like it are actually older and/or single?

    bein_hasdorim: I apologize for misspelling your name in my previous post.

    #667584
    AZ
    Participant

    Haifagirl: so whats it’s gonna be, polygamy (w/o any backing from gedolim) or close the age gap. Until you come up with a handful of Gedolim supporitm your soap box of polygamy it’s just a waste of cyberspace.

    Either way the goral isn’t gonna do much.

    Edited

    #667585
    A600KiloBear
    Participant

    BS”D

    I am both older and single and this proposal of a goral is completely barbaric. It smacks of the Reverend Moon method of making zivugim for his mass weddings.

    On the other hand, a goral system for dates between willing participants, where anyone who refused at least a first date with another voluntary goral participant would be out of the game for further proposals, would possibly work.

    Polygamy is illegal in our host societies and is also out of the question; it would lead to massive chilul Hashem. Ditto for the pilegesh idea that is circulating in the trailer park sewer section of the Jewish internet.

    #667586
    cantoresq
    Member

    As to the original proposal, didn’t a certain Saducee women try to do something similar in the course of her dialogue with R. Yochanan ben Zakkai?

    #667587
    AZ
    Participant

    Seems like some people just want to avoid the issue. Unfourtnately cyncism is NOT going to make it go away.

    just received

    well known school – class of 1998 (29 years old) 16 single out of 107 graduates =14.95%

    they started dating 10 years ago. This class just had a get together and were shocked at what they realized. This is not including 4/5 girls that seem to have fallen out of touch with the rest of the grade. They are not part of the 16.)

    #667588
    tzippi
    Member

    Thanks PY, I needed that. Good job I didn’t bring my coffee down here or my computer might not be functioning.

    And hey (es chatai ani mazkir) why not call the over 30 plan, Carousel?

    #667589
    Mayan_Dvash
    Participant

    Pashute Yid, you are not wiser than Shlomo Hamelech. He tried something similar which did not turn out well.

    ;

    #667590

    There was a story with R’ Yochanan Ben Zakai and a Queen who asked him “What does your Hashem do a whole day?” He replied “makes shidduchim”. The queen didn’t think that was so hard, and she paired 1000 males and females together and told them to get married. They did and came back a couple of days later bruised and disraught and told her “this isn’t working”.

    The Queen then admitted that it is a job only for Hashem.

    I recall reading this from a small sefer on bitochon and hishtadlus.

    As humans, wouldn’t it be a better solution to the shidduch crisis if each individual take on one single to daven for wholeheartedly, every day, from the depths of our neshamos, and daven as if they were our own child? I imagine it would have a much greater effect in shomayim where The Ribono Shel Olam, who is the orchestrator of all shidduchim, will shower His brochos and yeshuos to all those who need to find their zivug.

    #667591
    Pashuteh Yid
    Member

    CantorEsq and PositiveAynayim, in that story, the RBSH deliberately withheld his hashgacha so the choices were random. However, in a goral lshem shomayim, he would operate the same way he operates in any other method of making shidduchim which are all min hashamayim. People use the goral HaGRA to make decisions sometimes, and it is not considered random.

    AZ, as you well know, and which I have checked on population charts, the number of boys born each year exceeds the number of girls, and boys outnumber girls up until age 35, the crossover point, at which time the increased longevity of females begins to overtake the number of males. When I said senior age brackets have a shortage of available men, I meant in the elderly brackets, where nebech, many men have passed on. That has nothing to do with our discussion.

    Since marriage is between one man and one woman, there are an equal number of single men and women at any time before 35. The only question is who is getting paired with who. Assuming population growth of a few percent per year, your hypothesis is that the men of a given generation choose from the bigger pool of younger girls, while the women who don’t get chosen are left without anybody. But keep in mind that at all times, the number of single men equals the number of single women. The men may just be pickier and think they can hold out for a younger girl. However, I think by age 30, many men realize that a 19 yr old fresh-out-of-seminary girl will not go for them so easily. The goral system says that if you are single, you will get paired at random with people in your 5 year age bracket. So for a man at age 30, he will automatically get paired with somebody who is in the 30-35 yr bracket, and this means he will llikely get someone older than him until he is 35, at which time all the people in his bracket are younger than him.

    Anyway, please cite statistics of boys schools as well, so we can compare.

    #667592
    Pashuteh Yid
    Member

    HaifaGirl, thanks for kind words.

    To address the complaints of others here that there are many undesirables, possibly there can be a multiple tier system. For example, if a person has an impeccable letter from a well-known person attesting to his or her character and fitness for marriage, and if furthermore a panel of shadchanim determines that his or her personal hygiene is A-1, he or she goes into Tier 1. If their appearance or hygiene is not A-1, they go into Tier 2. If their character is flawed and they are dangerous, they are unfortunately put into a nonmarriagable category. When I say appearance, I do not mean that one is a model or movie star, just dresses and carries themselves 100%. Of course once you do this, there will be people who demand that weight enters into the equation as well, as a criterion for determining one’s tier.

    However, the more intervention there is, the more hurt feelings and the less it is a true goral.

    Haifagirl, you have a good question about the money, but lmayseh, either way, a person needs to come up with money for his or her wedding or borrow it. If there is no financial pressure, people will back out, and the system will not work.

    As far as those who say I am making fun of singles, chas vshalom that should be true. I feel their pain, and I know wonderful girls (and guys) who I grew up with who come from wonderful families and are attractive who for some reason never got married. Some people come across as shy, although they are great fun once you get to know them. It is to prevent perfectly good people from being stuck with nobody that I thought of this.

    I recently read an article about a politician who wanted to save his county lots of money by consolidating all the school districts under the control of the county executive which would eliminate much duplication, but at the expense of towns losing control over their schools. He said, look, if they don’t want this, I fully understand, I guess they aren’t feeling enough pain (over the economy) yet. When they start feeling enough pain, they will give this proposal a second look.

    It is hard not to have the joy of picking out your own bashert. However, possibly the pain of not getting married is far worse.

    #667593
    anon for this
    Participant

    Wow, this is the first time I’ve agreed with every post (okay, both posts) that A600KiloBear has made in a thread.

    haifagirl, I know several older singles. None of them would be interested in either a polygamous marriage or a shidduch by goral.

    #667594
    Just-a-guy
    Member

    PY wrote: “JAG and Jewess, I am not kidding, as it is no worse than any other solution that has so far been put forth, and this one can actually work, if people really want to end the crisis.”

    Instead of asking if you are joking, I’ll ask this- are you trying to satirize the other solutions that have so far been put forth?

    #667595
    haifagirl
    Participant

    People really believe they know what other people think, or are interested in. A friend of mine tried to convince a man she knew not to divorce his wife. She told him nobody would be interested in a man with 7 kids. To prove her point to herself, she decided to ask single women in his age bracket if they would consider a man with 7 kids. Without exception they all said, “Where is he? I’m interested.”

    So, I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but I don’t care for the opinions of people who “know people who would not be interested.” Yes, there is at least one older single on this thread who doesn’t like this plan. Fair enough. But if you aren’t an older single, please don’t tell me in what you think your older single friends would or would not be interested.

    #667596
    telegrok
    Member

    You all laugh, but this is how my husband and I met – kind of. But it would never work these days because boys and girls are not permitted to meet in “natural” environments.

    In the late 1960’s the social committee of my parents’ shul identified a need to establish a “kosher” meeting place for the youth; even at that time, popular music and film was undergoing a rapid change for the worse, and an innocent date for dinner and a movie became a potential mine-field because the content of films had become quite inappropriate. The shul responded by converting a basement room into a “youth lounge,” which would be outfitted with some tables for cards, a pool table, and a record player; the goal was to provide a place for social gatherings within the shul aside from the gym, which was the domain of the boys.

    In order to raise funds for the project, the parents devised a raffle of “kosher” activities – the point was (1) to raise money for the renovation, and (2) demonstrate to us kids that there was more to life than movies and concerts (at least until the lounge was completed). The prizes included tickets to the zoo, museums, the local ice cream shop, and the skate rink, etc. The condition was that each prize consisted of two tickets and the winner had to find a date (winners were required to be post high-school, they were not encouraging high-school dating) from among the other “kids” in the shul (in our parents eyes, even college kids were “kids”).

    Well, one boy who I thought was a complete nerd won tickets for a boat ride in the park. My girlfriends and I were nearly convulsing with laughter at the thought of this nebbish asking a girl for a date – he wore eyeglasses, attended city college at night, worked part-time during the day, and looked perpetually lost. While we joked about how long it would take him to fall out of the boat, he took his ticket to the mistress of ceremonies and asked whether she would intervene on his behalf in order to facilitate an introduction with one of the girls.

    I nearly spilled my Coke all over my white skirt when Mrs. Goldish strode over and picked me up from the shoulder. The rest is history. Behind the glasses was a nice boy. Nothing remarkable, but we had a nice enough time and found each other’s company interesting.

    So, the raffle can work.

    #667597
    A600KiloBear
    Participant

    BS”D

    Once you go into the tier system, you have the present shidduch system minus. Now I am convinced this is satire because the worst of the shidduch system is just a tiered goral.

    On the other hand, that tiered goral to set up dates would eliminate some of the worst shadchanim of the “sheker diber kesef notel” variety. I dealt with one who vetted girls for me by height. Not that I care being large of build and therefore not intimidated or looking out of place with a taller girl, but besides being wildly incompetent and desperate for a thousand or so bucks, she must have included my hat when estimating my height. (This was years ago before I went off; she matched me with girls based mostly on height and ability to speak French [if anything Yiddish and Ivrit are important to me as opposed to English, let alone French which is my third language but one that I did use quite a bit in community and kiruv volunteer work years ago] and claimed they followed my Chassidus when they absolutely did not.)

    #667598
    ☕️coffee addict
    Participant

    the roman noblelady preceded you!

    she had 1,000 man slaves and 1,000 female slaves and said this one should marry that one and everybody got all bruised so I don’t think it will work sorry

    #667599
    haifagirl
    Participant

    Thanks telegrok!

    #667600
    Pashuteh Yid
    Member

    Telegrok, that is a beautiful story. It shows exactly my point, that people can get to know the true person and make it work, even if it seems way off at first. I had a similar experience with my wife, as well, who at first wouldn’t even consider a half hour date.

    BTW, I heard from my High School Menahel about a story where a guy was at a party and someone pointed out a certain girl for this guy in the room. The guy made the most annoyed face while pointing to the girl like who, her, are you out of your mind? Somebody took a picture of him gesturing. Now they have that picture framed on their living room wall and they live happily ever after.

    #667601
    AZ
    Participant

    Next school

    2000 (27 year old) 5-67=7.46%

    2001 (26 years old) 9-81=11.11%

    2002 (25 years old)7-77=9.1%

    2003 (24 years old)12-86=13.95%

    Totals 33-311=10.6%

    PY: It is difficult to get data on boys since HS don’t keep good updated info. The only data that I have access to so far is BMG where 5 years after starting to date (equivalent of 24 year old girls) fewer than 2% are still single. In addition Shadchanim report not having to many older boys but that’s not a scietific method.

    #667602
    anon for this
    Participant

    telegrok, thanks for sharing that story. You might say that it’s an argument for A600KiloBear’s modification of PY’s idea–a goral for shidduch dates, not shidduchim. Such a goral could even include a requirement that the matched couple only be allowed to date each other for a period of time.

    However, in your story your future husband was already interested in meeting you, even if you were not interested in meeting him. In this goral, neither party would even know the other’s identity before meeting.

    haifagirl, I see that I’ve offended you, and that wasn’t my intention. Please forgive me. To clarify what I was saying, I know that my acquaintances, older singles in their late twenties to early thirties, would definitely not be interested in a polygamous marriage or forced marriage to someone to whom they’ve been matched via lottery. Obviously I can’t speak for you, and I wouldn’t think I can. I only meant to say that in order to make a polygamous marriage work, both the husband and “sister wives” must agree to the arrangement. Ideally, the polygamous family should also live in a community of other polygamous families. And based on my conversations with older singles of my acquaintance (including relatives), there are not enough women to make this plan work.

    The goral proposed by PY would also require a critical mass of people willing to participate, and again I don’t think the interest exists.

    #667603
    Pashuteh Yid
    Member

    AnonForThis, one thing this idea will clarify, though, whether or not it is ever put into practice, is that if the singles themselves would rather remain single for an unspecified amount of time, rather than using a solution that would guarantee them a spouse of some kind immediately, is whether there is a crisis at all. If singles elect to remain single by choice, can that be classified as a crisis? If the guys are looking for girls too young for them, and girls are looking for someone just right whom they are very attracted to, then what can the rest of us possibly do to help?

    Also, recall the gemara of tav lmeitav tan du which asserts that in at least some women’s minds, it is better to be married to anyone at all than to be all alone.

    #667604
    anon for this
    Participant

    PY, are you saying that this idea is meant more as a mental exercise (for singles or others) than as an actual tool for creating matches? If so, then I see it very differently.

    I’ve heard of that gemara, but I’m not sure whether it means that a woman would marry anyone at all–even someone who is violent or abusive–just so that she can be married, or just that she would marry someone who is not her ideal. If the former, in my opinion the gemara is describing what it true for some women, but this would not necessarily be a good environment in which to grow healthy families and children.

    #667605
    cherrybim
    Participant

    #667606
    Pashuteh Yid
    Member

    Anon, I am saying that if the singles want, this system can be set up. If they don’t want, then in effect they are saying they would rather take their chances with the current system.

    Cherrybim, I don’t think we should discourage people from wishing for the best, if there is any possibility. I think most people who go out want to see if there is a genuine kesher and they have a good time being with them and look forward to the next time. However, if a guy decides that although he is having a good time with a certain girl, but maybe the next one will have more money, that is pure rishus.

    #667607
    YW Moderator-42
    Moderator

    AZ, I think you are missing PY’s point. He believes that there will be the same number of boys and girls in a given age bracket. So if there are 100 boys in the 30-35 age bracket, there will also be 100 girls. According to you, there would be more girls so let’s say, 200. The way things go right now, people are picky, etc and out of the 100 boys and 200 girls, 5 years later 50 boys will be married to 50 girls and there are still 50 and 150 left, or there might be more than 150 girls left if some of the boys marry girls less than 30. With PY’s plan, the 100 boys will all find shidduchim in their age bracket so there will be 100 girls left instead of 150+. (Note, I am not saying it is a good idea, just explaining why PY thinks it would be work, even in AZ’s world)

    #667608
    YW Moderator-42
    Moderator

    It seems from the story of the Queen mentioned earlier that a complete goral would not work. It would probably be considered a lack of proper hishtadlus. What might work is to put info about everyone into a computer program and have the computer make the matches. This has obviously been tried in many different ways by sites such as Sawyouatsinai and Frumster and other sites in the goyish world.

    Just to explain briefly how each of the above 2 sites work. In each, the singles fill out a profile. In Frumster the singles themselves can then search by criteria and the site will give them profiles to review after which they can contact whoever they want. With Sawyouatsinai the singles themselves cannot search, rather a professional shadchan searches and then suggests matches. In each case, it is sort of an educated goral. Whereas a regular goral is completely random, here there is some rhyme and reason as to why someone is being suggested.

    If you want to use PY’s idea but put some hishtadlus into it, perhaps you can have every older single be put into a computer and have the computer make a suggestion based on a bunch of criteria. Instead of having the couple then go out and decide, have them commit to marry whoever is picked for them. I doubt too many people would go for this though, but it is certainly better than PY’s completely random goral. Perhaps we can even add a little more human intervention by having the computer make 10 suggestions and then have each boy meet with a professional shadchan and then have that shadchan meet the 10 girls suggested by the computer and then the shadchan decides who to set him up with. This is very similar to how Sawyouatsinai works except that in our case, the couple would commit to marry whoever is picked for them.

    I don’t think too many people would agree to this idea either but it’s certainly better than the original goral idea.

    (btw, where is Kapusta, she was mentioned earlier in this thread in two different contexts, cabbage and queen)

    #667609

    All of this hishtadlus sounds great—proper davening for singles is what will get it to work. When we show areivus, rachamei shomayim are ignited and yeshuos are sent forth.

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