A Second Phone Call

I called Dr. Susan Shulman, a pediatrician in Boro Park who’d been my kids’ doctor for years. I explained that I wanted to help people in shidduchim who had medical conditions and deserved matches that weren’t just you-have-a-medical-issue-so-does-he-get-married. The problem was that I didn’t know much about medical conditions, and I needed a medical advisor.

She didn’t hesitate.

“I don’t mind being your medical advisor,” she told me. “But I have two conditions. First, we need to work with both the litvish and chassidish communities. Second, we can never match ‘medical with medical.’ We need to focus on intellectual compatibility, because that’s what defines a person.”

That became my guiding principle.

When I do an intake of a new person, medical issues are the last thing I look at. I start with name, date of birth, and background. Is the girl/boy litvish, chassidish, heimish, or Modern Orthodox? What does the person do? How do they spend their time? What are they looking for in a spouse? Cognitive, emotional, and frumkeit compatibility are central. Medical issues come last.

And the proof is in the tens of happily married couples that started through Mesos Dodim. Their marriages are strong, despite the physical challenges they face, because they’re on the same page of life — and that’s what matters.

How Many Phone Calls?

I started small. After I reached out to Dr. Shulman, she started referring patients to me. I also told some other doctors what I was doing, and they began sending people my way. It was a few phone calls a month, all from word of mouth. As Mesos Dodim became more well-known, the numbers exploded. Now, I do a few intakes almost every night.

The phone calls aren’t always easy. Each one takes a long time because after years of keeping their stories secret, talking releases a torrent of pain. I understand, and I listen — but I wish I could tell them not to hide.

A few months ago, a young woman called me (from a blocked number, of course). She was happily married, had a baby and a wonderful husband, but when she was younger, she had a condition her mother didn’t allow her to reveal. After having a baby, it worsened, and she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to have more children.

“How can I tell my husband? He doesn’t know!” she cried.

I don’t know what she did in the end, but she isn’t the only one. When I hear stories like that, what can I do? My job is to preempt this, to let people know there’s help out there, and shidduchim can be done confidentially, and not at the expense of a marriage based on trust. Because when marriage is based on a lie, the divorce rate is high, and I’ve seen it happen more than once.

Mesos Dodim is completely confidential, to the point that even my husband doesn’t know anything. Sometimes, people come over to him and say, “I spoke to your wife….”

He tells them, “I don’t want to know.”

Once, I overheard my husband speaking to his brother about a boy on my list. They were discussing him for my niece, but even though I knew this bochur had a medical issue, I didn’t say a word. If the shidduch had progressed, I would have asked daas Torah what to do, but my first responsibility is to keep people’s private matters private.

I only speak directly to parents. I won’t take calls from grandparents, mothers-in-law, siblings, or concerned aunts. And as more people know what I do, I’m careful about where I go. I once made a shidduch for two families where both the boy and girl had hidden medical conditions. When I went to the vort, someone said, “Were you the shadchan? I didn’t know you do regular shidduchim. I thought you only do medical shidduchim.”

“Of course I do regular shidduchim,” I told her, but that’s when I decided not to go to vorts anymore. I don’t want people to know I’m the shadchan and start assuming things.

For all my confidential cases, there’s a staff of one (me). I won’t expand Mesos Dodim, because then I might not be able to guarantee perfect confidentiality. I was once asked to work at an organization, and they gave me a private office and computer. I was excited — until the very first intake. A father walked in to see me, and other people saw him. I stood up and said goodbye.

Mesos Dodim’s office remains at my house, in the privacy of my own four walls, with me, my phone, and anyone who wants to reach out.

The Call of Duty

People often ask me, “What kind of conditions do you see?” When I first started, I was seeing cancer survivors, people with heart conditions, and a host of minor medical issues. But over the years, I’ve been privy to a heartbreaking gamut of physical issues, everything from missing limbs to chronic genetic diseases and silent brain tumors. I still don’t focus on mental health conditions, but if someone calls and there’s no one else helping them, I won’t say no. (In these cases, I make sure everyone is stable. I don’t care how much medication someone is taking; what I care about is stability. And I try to meet the boy or girl to see if they’re marriage material — a beneficial step for every boy and girl I work with. The family also has to promise that for two years they won’t experiment with dosages of medication. “Don’t touch the medication. Stability is everything. A setback is much harder to recover from, and the doctors know what they’re doing,” I tell parents.)

These young people often call me early. They already know how brutal the world of shidduchim can be, and many of them have already experienced rejection. Their stories can be painful, and over the years, I’ve learned to mute my emotional responses and focus on figuring out how I can help them. It’s the only way to keep going.

Some cases involve Dor Yeshorim, where we need to know if both the boy and girl are carriers for specific genes. If only one parent is a carrier, the children will be fine. That’s where genetics and medicine come into the picture, because a major goal is to make sure future generations are healthy. I work with Brany Rosen from ATIME, and there’s a lot we discuss. For example, some conditions make it necessary for the couple to use IVF, where genetic testing on embryos ensures a healthy baby.

I handle both confidential cases and obvious conditions, and both can require extra caution. If one side has a genetic hearing condition, we wait and test the other side through Dor Yeshorim to make sure they aren’t a carrier. I don’t let the shidduch proceed until we know. No dates, no beshows, nothing, until we get the answer.

Some cases are unutterably painful. Someone with silent brain tumors, or a degenerative disease with a poor diagnosis… two very sick people, both with serious conditions. Even if their children would be healthy, I have to think about the bigger picture. What if the children become orphans at a young age? I try not to pair two people with extreme medical conditions.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve always liked the medical field, and 15 years of experience have taught me a tremendous amount. I’m always consulting doctors — endocrinologists, hematologists, neurologists — every “gist” on the medical spectrum, because I never make decisions in a vacuum.

Today, when a mother tells me her daughter has NF1, I know exactly what questions to ask. And I know which doctors and organizations to speak to. But the most important thing I’ve learned is how to see. When I meet someone who is, for example, visually impaired, I don’t see limitations. I imagine how far this person has come, and I see potential. I see a future. I see someone who one day will get married, with siyata d’Shmaya.

A Wake-up Call

Shidduchim are the ultimate wake-up call in terms of knowing Who’s in charge, especially shidduchim mixed with various medical conditions.

Every boy and girl who comes to me is entered into my computer database, where I have files for everyone, and then the work begins. But I’ve seen time and time again that the real “magic” in making shidduchim is Hashem.

I still think very carefully before I suggest a shidduch. I never pair two people with serious physical limitations who can’t support each other. But a vision-impaired person and someone with a limp work beautifully together. She doesn’t see the limp, he appreciates her as a person, and matches like that work well. A shidduch has to make sense and “feel right” before I pick up the phone — but the Hashgachah pratis in every shidduch is breathtaking.

A mother once called about her son, describing him as a “real tchatchke.” Within minutes, a girl’s mother called, and she used the same word to describe her daughter. And yes, they’re married today.

One boy was having an exceptionally hard time. His parents had tried everything. I’d exhausted all of the suggestions I felt were right for him. The parents decided to place a quarter-page ad for Mesos Dodim (something I never do since I don’t advertise) in a local newspaper as a zechus for their son to get engaged.

The ad ran for one week. That week, I received a call from a man visiting from Israel. He’d seen the number for Mesos Dodim, and began describing his daughter. I immediately thought of that boy, and everything fell into place. Within weeks, they were engaged.

Timing is also bashert. One summer, my sister invited me to her bungalow, on one condition: No work allowed! I happily agreed. And then I got a phone call. A few months before, a promising shidduch had been called off at the last minute. My first night in the country, the girl’s mother called: “We’re ready to continue.”

I said, “I’m on vacation. Maybe we can work on it next week?”

The next morning, the boy’s father called. He was also ready to continue. Clearly, this was from Hashem. My vacation was transformed into endless back-and-forth phone calls, but the couple got engaged.

And there was the time I was calling someone for information, and ended up dialing the wrong number — one digit off.

“I don’t think you meant to call me,” the woman on the other end said. “But what do you do?” It turned out she had a son with a medical condition, and I ended up being the shaliach for his shidduch.

I can write a book of similar stories, and each one gives me encouragement.

Because, as the Chovos Halevavos explains, it’s not how many shidduchim I make. There are three things a person has to do when making a shidduch. First, you have to want to do it. Second, you have to make the call; you have to make the effort. And third, you have to remember that success is not up to you.

It’s the only way I don’t burn out. Sometimes half a year goes by, and nothing happens. And sometimes, in one month, I celebrate three shidduchim.

As long as I know Who’s in charge, I can handle the ride.

Return the Call

There’s one step in my process other shadchanim don’t have. I call it Open Books.

I tell parents, “You don’t have to tell me everything, but there comes a point where both sides have to sit down together.” That’s why my process takes longer.

We need consent for some shidduchim from doctors or someone who understands the medical history. If a case involves fertility or genetics, we’re often in touch with Brany Rosen or one of her dayanim. Sometimes I’m the go-between, sometimes there’s another professional involved. But at some point, everything has to be out on the table.

At the beginning of a shidduch, I don’t share the medical condition if it isn’t visible. I want people to ask about the person, not the diagnosis. Once the interest is there, parents sit down, and both sides disclose everything.

I’ve seen too many cases where the shadchan finds out about a medical condition at the last minute. The shadchan is upset because they worked for nothing, and the previously secret information spreads. In my experience, when a medical condition is revealed this way, the shidduch falls apart. That’s why I insist on openness — at the right time.

Parents play a huge role in this. I never push them, even if I feel that a shidduch is very compatible. I only encourage (I’m not a salesman). Each shidduch I suggest comes from the desire to build a bayis ne’eman b’Yisrael, and I’m careful to keep that goal central.

Call It a Day

Mesos Dodim is my night job. I come home at five p.m. from my day job as a care manager, and that’s when the phone calls start. My children are married, I’m still young and energetic, and that’s when I have time. Sometimes I find myself still on the phone in the middle of the night.

Once a shidduch becomes active, I’m available 24 hours a day, six days a week. It’s the thread running through everything I do. I’m at the store? Now they’re going on a date. I’m cleaning my kitchen? Now there’s another beshow. Now they saw each other again. How did it go?

I need to be ready, even at two in the morning, to take the call. We had a good time. We didn’t have a good time.

I take challah and daven to Hashem that if this is good, it should work out. With these shidduchim, I’m more emotional than I was with my own children!

The calls come at any time, from everywhere. South Africa; Europe; Israel; Belgium; England; Canada.

I can’t help everyone, but I try my best.

Good Call

We live in a crazy society. If someone had leukemia as a baby, or another childhood illness that doesn’t impact adulthood, there are some people who still look at it as a medical issue and won’t even consider it.

Attitudes in our community are shifting, and people are more open about medical conditions than they were 15 years ago. There’s still real fear, but there’s a greater willingness to talk and seek help, and I hope more issues are retrieved from under the rug.

I also notice communal patterns. In litvish circles, many more girls with medical issues come forward, while in chassidish circles, it’s the opposite — more boys call me, and far fewer girls. For every chassidish girl, I have 30 boys; for every litvish boy, I have 30 girls. Doctors tell me their patients are split 50/50 between boys and girls, and I wish more girls and boys were ready to call me.

And it would be nice if more people would consider someone with a manageable medical condition. Some families are open to the idea, but I wish more were.

I also see how people google conditions and make assumptions. They might think someone has a problem based on symptoms they read online, but the reality can be entirely different. Google and gossip cause myriad problems. I tell my clients: Don’t google! Listen to the doctor. Get the facts from someone who knows the child’s medical situation. Many manifest differently in different people. Not everyone with a specific condition has every (or even most) symptom(s).

Everything is about the individual.

Gossip is also incredibly damaging. For instance, I once saw a girl whose classmates decided she had anorexia, just because she was skinny. Her doctor confirmed she was completely healthy, and today she’s the mother of a large family.

Answering the Call

In the last 15 years, medical knowledge has increased, which is a tremendous brachah. The more we learn, the more we can help boys and girls get married and ensure those strong marriages result in healthy children.

That’s what I remember every day. My job isn’t simple. There is so much pain in the world, but there is also so much potential for joy, and Hashem has given me a mission that helps me find it.

Everyone has their mitzvah and their role, and I believe this is mine.

Still the baby…

I’m the youngest in my family, and I’m still called “the baby,” even though I’m married with kids and grandchildren.

Ignorance is bliss.

One of my kids was born with a large brown birthmark on her knee, so I asked the doctor if it could be neurofibromatosis. It wasn’t. Fun fact: That child is now a mother, and her second child has the same birthmark in the same place (also not a neurofibromatosis). Sometimes it’s better not to know too much.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 981)