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Can a individual benefit from remaining single ?
Can a family benefit from a single family member ?
Can the Orthodox Jewish community gain from a large single population ?
You’re obligated to get married.
It’s not always in a person’s choice. If someone is single (not by choice), they must recognize that it is from Hashem and it is good and try to see the positive in it, while still davening and doing hishtadlus. They should also make sure to maintain an appropriate balance between hishtadlus and living their life productively meanwhile and trying to find things they can accomplish precisely because they are single.
“Does a person have to continue looking for his zivug even after he is 53 years old ?”
yes, if he’s a man.
“Must a person continue to make histadlus forever ?”
Ditto.
Kitov – in such a situation, I would recommend possibly limiting the amount of dating but not cutting it out altogether. This can mean taking breaks, or only going out once every month or two or only going out if it sounds very shayich.
For a guy in that situation (and possibly even a girl), I would recommend considering the possibility of therapy and/or speaking to a dating coach and/or sitting down and trying to figure out if there is a reason he is not married yet. There doesn’t have to be a reason, but there often is (at least for guys). The reason may not be something that they can do anything about, but on the other hand it might be.
Some possibilities are:
1. They may have some emotional issue that they can work out by going to a therapist.
2. They may be going out with the wrong type of girls. Maybe they need to make it clearer what they are looking for. Maybe they need to move to a different community. Maybe they need to do something different in order to get set up with the right type of girls.
3. Maybe they have a middos or personality issue that they need to work on.
4. Maybe they are too close-minded about what they are looking for and they should be more open about who they go out with.
5. Maybe they say no too fast and don’t give things a chance.
6. Maybe they need lessons in dating.
7. Maybe they have a fear of marriage that they need to find a way to work out.
8. Maybe they don’t want to get married badly enough, and they have to think of a way to change that.
9. Maybe they are not happy enough or have gotten too mellow over the years, and they need to change or add something in their lives to change that.
About the positive: I think LU was saying that it is nice that you are acknowledging the positive qualities in being single right now.
Based on my reading, LU was not advocating for being voluntarily and complacently single or staying single forever without working on yourself and finding your partner.
One benefit for someone who has remained single until his/her 50’s is that this person will hopefully appreciate his/her spouse much much more when they’re married, as well as be ever grateful for Ha Kodesh Baruch Hu.
A single girl has an obligation to reproduce due to the commandment of pru-rebu.
No, women are not commanded in P’ru Ur’vu.
Not a commandment as in one of the 613 mitzvos, but depending on the circumstances may indeed be obligatory.
Where there is chashad.
DaasYochid,
You’re making it to complicated.
There’s no obligation for women to marry according to the 613 mitzovs.
Obviously, society is better off when women get married. That makes it a mitzva, but it’s not obligatory.
“Chashad” isn’t something that comes up during a regular lifetime of a single girl. So it’s really not relevant.
I don’t think I made it very complicated.
I don’t know why you think chashad doesn’t apply. Did it apply in the time of the Shulchan Aruch?
I can think of several benefits. For one thing it’s much cheaper once you’re married tuitions take up the vast majority of your salary and the rest of it goes to other things for your kids or for work on your house. If you’re lucky enough to have a few dollars left your wife will spend it on stuff she needs. Even making $150,000 you can still feel poor. Also the responsibilities of a wife and family can be quite overwhelming at times. When you have people depend on you they are always asking you for Stuff. It’s a huge commitment in terms of time. Not to say that I would give up my family but people don’t realize when they get married what a huge responsibility expensive commitment it is. And I don’t even have to support son in laws in kollel yet….
In response to your second question which I didn’t see until now single family members are the best. Since they don’t have a family of their own yet they always have time to help you out and if you’re short a few dollars they always have some in their pocket, if they have a job that is. My brothers and sisters are always helping me and I don’t know how I can have my family without them. Will be much more difficult once they get married
Kitov,
1. I know someone who did not get married until age 57.
2. Women are exempt from peria v’rivia. This is halacha pesuka.
Lilmod, it depends. If a man knows that he cannot have children and this yetzer hara is not bothering him he is not required to get married.
If a man is studying Torah he can hold postpone getting married.
As for the yetzar hara not getting to him, I heard that men today simplysimply cannot reach that level of being unaffected, considering we are referring to a man who is naturally attracted then he is required to be getting married.
Plus there is the whole a man isn’t a man without a woman and he needs to be married or at least try to fulfill his purpose in this world.
I have heard mixed things. You are a complete person as is. Yet without your other partner in marriage one isn’t complete because the neshamah needs its other half.
“I don’t know why you think chashad doesn’t apply”
What’s chashad mean? That people will think she’s gay? I really don’t think that’s an issue nowadays. At least not by girls.
I don’t know why it used to be – it sounds strange to me. But maybe it was different then because people’s fathers married them off, and because in those days, most girls preferred marrying anyone rather than being single because girls had no lives back then, it was impossible for them to manage on their own, and/or people had different expectations of marriages.
Nowadays, people assume that if a girl is single, it’s because of the shidduch crisis, or because there aren’t enough normal guys around, etc. There are so many normal single girls today that most people aren’t that judgmental about it. They are only judgmental in the sense that they assume they are overly picky.
But I just realized that maybe it’s talking about a case where someone davka doesn’t want to get married and doesn’t do any hishtadlus at all? I could hear where that might be different. But even then, the only chashad anyone would have is that she has issues or had a bad experience.
Avi:”If a man knows that he cannot have children”
That possibility had not occurred to me. I imagine it’s pretty rare for someone to know that he definitely 100% can not have children. Unless he’s over 70 and not unrealistic enough to assume that someone under 60 will want to marry him.
Avi: “and this yetzer hara is not bothering him”
?
That’s not what chashad means. In fact, chashad would not apply if she lives in a place where there are only women.
really? so what does it mean then?
Chazal say that women would rather marry anyone than to marry no one.
btw, from the footnote there, it is not a chiyuv even b’makom chashad.
I didn’t realize that’s what chashad meant. I still don’t get it. People aren’t choshed frum girls for things like that, there is rarely a reason to be, and it doesn’t make sense to me at all that anyone would be.
Again it could be that it is referring to a girl who doesn’t want to get married, but even in that case, it doesn’t make sense to me.
I just reread it – he brings the possibility that it is only talking about a girl living on her own. I could hear that in those days that was so uncommon that it would have been suspicious.
But today it is common enough that I don’t think it’s an issue.
What footnote? If you mean the ???? ???, which is what I’m referring to, he says no such thing. It is a chiyuv, just not based on p’ru ur’vu.
If you think it doesn’t apply today, you are misinformed.
kitov,
Can a individual benefit from remaining single ?
Yes – in almost any situation there are benefits and downsides. Decision making usually involves attempts to maximize benefits and minimize risks and downsides. I happen to feel that there are far fewer benefits and far more downsides to being single than there are to be married.
Can a family benefit from a single family member ?
Perhaps, but is it wise for a person to remain single (and not start his own family) because it benefits the families of his relatives?
Can the Orthodox Jewish community gain from a large single population ?
Sure. The community also gains from growing families.
“What footnote? If you mean the ???? ???”
sorry that is what I meant.
“he says no such thing.”
He very clearly says such a thing:
????? ???? ???? ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????
“If you think it doesn’t apply today, you are misinformed.”
not in any of my circles, Boruch Hashem.
I know what he says. Quiting it doesn’t change the meaning.
To get to your faulty understanding, you need to skip words.
You can’t decide on your own which circles have chashad and which don’t. The halachah is said for people who follow Shulchan Aruch, so if you think chashad doesn’t apply to nice frum girls, you are obviously mistaken.
Foremost, get married if you can and try.
That said… thought of two nice things about being single right now:
1) Eating with your hands
2) Not having in-laws
Yepp yepp 🙂
I still eat with my hands. When my wife complains I tell her that if she wants I’ll give her a get
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