“Before we can talk about closing the age gap, we need to have a serious conversation about closing the maturity gap”

Podcast Hazards [Guestlines / Issue 1054]

Thank you for the powerful piece by Rabbi Kerzner about the newfound openness in our society. His message was super relevant, and I’d like to add one important point to the conversation.

Today, one of the primary ways people — frum and not frum alike — spend their free time is by listening to podcasts. Whether during commutes, workouts, or downtime, podcasts have become a constant presence in our lives. But with this trend has come a new and concerning form of overexposure.

The very purpose of many of these popular interview-style podcasts is to get the guest to “open up” — to speak candidly and personally, often about their deepest struggles. While this may be considered powerful or refreshing in some circles, it has also led to many moments that cross lines of modesty and appropriateness — especially when our children and teenagers listen to these interviews.

When a guest on a podcast shares personal details about his mental health challenges or past resentments toward rabbanim or roshei yeshivah, and that content becomes accessible to our pure and impressionable youth, the impact can be damaging.

Not every struggle is meant to be public. Not every private journey is meant to be consumed as entertainment.

As a community, we need to start thinking more seriously about how often — and how freely — we allow these podcasts into our homes. While they may seem harmless, they subtly shape the way our children think, feel, and perceive Torah figures and values.

Esther Weiss

Just Be Mechanech Them [Guestlines / Issue 1054]

Thank you for sharing Rabbi Kerzner’s eloquent article on our generation’s embrace of openness and vulnerability. His words captured a growing shift in our communal norms, and I’d like to share a concern that I believe is deeply connected to this trend.

In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on emotional openness and relatability — not only in our personal lives, but also in our approach to chinuch. Parents and educators are being encouraged to be more transparent, more vulnerable, and to adopt a “buddy-buddy” relationship with their children or talmidim. The prevailing message seems to be, “Just love them.”

This phrase, often associated with the legacy of the beloved Rabbi Dovid Trenk ztz”l, has become a slogan of sorts. But as someone who had the privilege of knowing Rabbi Trenk personally, I can say with confidence that his greatness was not in being permissive or boundary-less. Yes, he loved his talmidim with all his heart — but he also maintained clear expectations, demanded growth, and radiated shtoltz and dignity as a mechanech.

Unfortunately, this new style of parenting — rooted in endless emotional sharing and softening of boundaries — has begun to erode essential structures within the home. In the name of being relatable, some parents have lost their authority. In the name of emotional honesty, some have blurred lines that should remain intact. And in the name of “the 2025 chinuch way,” we may be raising a generation that knows how we feel more than they know what we expect.

P. Friedman

Close the Maturity Gap [Sea Change / Issue 1054]

I am wondering why the age gap exists to begin with. Is it possible that in general, boys need to match up with younger girls because of the general maturity gap between girls and boys? In other words, a 24-year-old boy is often equivalent maturity-wise to a 20-year-old girl. If that is driving the age gap, then perhaps it is time to think creatively about the maturity level of the boys entering marriage.

Perhaps during their formative high school years, they can do more to cultivate maturity, such as taking on additional positions of responsibility toward the world around them. Most high school girls are given (or required to become involved in) various positions of responsibility, from running G.O. programs to tzedakah campaigns, chagigahs, chesed initiatives, and school productions. In the process they learn that they have an achrayus to those around them, and they cultivate an awareness of this responsibility as they actively improve their skill sets in areas that contribute to the klal.

Obviously, boys should concentrate primarily on developing their learning during their high school years, but perhaps if time were used very efficiently, some time could be designated for creating positions of responsibility for the boys. Very often, being in such positions translates into a more mature, other-centered perspective which can benefit them in marriage. We can balance this with the idea that their ultimate contribution to the klal is through their learning, but we can add a bit of responsibility in other areas in blocks of time that do exist. Just a thought.

Name Withheld

Consider the Human Element [Sea Change / Issue 1054]

I am writing as the mother of a 21-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter. I fully understand the need to close the age gap, and I would be happy to have my son start shidduchim, but he is not interested at all, and as his mother, I know that he is not nearly ready to take on the responsibility of a wife and family. My daughter, on the other hand, is a mature and capable young woman, who is ready and eager to step into the next stage.

I am wondering how, according to the shidduch initiative described in your magazine recently, I am supposed to be handling the shidduch parshah with my children. When I receive a promising shidduch suggestion for my daughter, am I meant to turn it away in order to save other bnos Yisrael? What about my daughter’s future — and her present? Why should she be compelled to remain single and untethered, in a dangerous world, when she can be building a home for the Shechinah, bringing neshamos into this world, and accelerating the Geulah?

As for my son, he is not mature enough to start shidduchim, and still has a lot of growing up to do before I can even consider marrying him off. I would love to do my part to solve the shidduch crisis, but there’s no way I can put a child into shidduchim prematurely. One day he will make a wonderful husband im yirtzeh Hashem, but he’s just not there yet.

So while the age gap can be solved — at least on paper — by adjusting the ages when young people start shidduchim, there’s a human element involved here, on both ends, that doesn’t resolve itself so neatly. How can you tell a girl who’s ready to get married that she has to sacrifice her own needs and remain single for the sake of the klal? And how can you push a boy into shidduchim when he’s not fully an adult yet?

Before we can talk about closing the age gap, we need to have a serious conversation about closing the maturity gap. Why are our girls ready for marriage so much earlier than our boys? This can’t be explained by physiological factors, as in the chassidish world boys and girls start shidduchim at the same age and the boys somehow mature in sync with their female counterparts. Likewise, in Eretz Yisrael, boys in the yeshivah system typically begin shidduchim at around 21, and do not seem to be lagging behind the girls in terms of maturity. So there must be some significant societal or environmental factors at play that are causing our boys to be unprepared for marriage until a later age.

Can we talk about that?

A Confused Mother

Is This a Numbers Game? [Sea Change / Issue 1054]

As an “older single” I am living the “shidduch crisis” and I appreciate the concern of our rabbanim and their attempts to alleviate this nisayon for so many.

When I read about the ideas to try and solve this problem though, I wonder why we are treating this as some “numbers game” or mathematical problem that we can solve formulaically. This idea of narrowing the age gap seems to completely ignore the concept of bashert. If we believe that Hashem has designated Bas Ploni to Ploni before a child is born, then making girls start dating older and boys start dating younger is not going to solve anything. The Ploni in this example is not going to help any of the girls in the batch older than his intended Bas Ploni, who is now just forced to wait longer before meeting her bashert.

Furthermore, in the same article you both decry the “severe sense of desperation [that] has become intrinsically embedded into the attitude of everyone in the ‘market’ ”, and print the quote that “It’s a disaster” that only 44 percent of a class of 22-year-olds are married. Calling the situation of unmarried 22-year-olds a “disaster” only bolsters this sense of desperation. As an “older single” quite a few years past 22, I found this statement to be disheartening and painful.

While we should certainly help others in shidduchim, it is important to remember that Hashem is in control and we should not think we can eradicate the issue if we just get the equation correct. While we may not be able to solve the shidduch crisis, we can at least treat our singles as “someones” instead of statistics.

Kaila K.

Some Clarity, Please [Sea Change / Issue 1054]

I read the article on closing the age gap for shidduchim and I have several questions and comments. As someone who has had the incredible brachah of marrying off three daughters (I do NOT take that for granted) and a fourth on the way to seminary, the topic was of great interest to me.

Firstly, I am humbled, grateful, and in awe of our gedolim and rabbanim who care so deeply for Klal Yisrael and work tirelessly to resolve such important and sensitive issues. There were three questions that came to mind with regard to the solutions presented. It was suggested that an “after seminary” program should be set up for the girls returning from seminary to facilitate their continued learning and to give them a chance to know themselves better. Will we be creating another costly post-high-school year that will become another criterion for which girls will be considered for shidduchim? I personally know many people who will not consider a girl who doesn’t go to seminary in Eretz Yisrael. Will this now become another “must” for girls to attend to be worthy of a yes? Not to mention the added cost after an exorbitantly expensive year in Eretz Yisrael while parents are scrambling to save in order to support their future sons-in-law.

Second, will this increase the maturity gap between bochurim and girls? If the girls are a year older and the boys are a year younger, won’t this be a concern? Girls begin dating at a younger age than boys because intrinsically, girls mature faster than boys. And last, but most certainly not least, how does the concept of bitachon and bashert play into all of this? If we truly believe that Bas Ploni l’Ploni, then how do we reconcile that with telling girls and boys when or when not to date?

I would love to gain some clarity on all of the above.

It is my fervent wish and tefillah that all girls and boys find their bashert easily and quickly with clarity and dignity.

Rena Levovitz

Chicago, IL

More Ways to Enhance the Giving [Guestlines / Issue 1053]

Rabbi Plotnick suggests a method of enhancing the shalach manos process by spending quality time with the recipient. I would humbly suggest a few additional ways to enhance the giving.

1. In lieu of tremendous amounts of shalach manos, make donations to organizations that provide for the poor (and be yotzei matanos l’evyonim as well). We mail Tomchei Shabbos Purim cards to all our local rabbis, neighbors, friends, and family across the country.
2. Send to people for whom the receipt is meaningful or advances kiruv. To fulfill the mitzvah of mishloach manos, we give to a few nonreligious neighbors, some singles in the community, and people who have done us favors in the past year as a recognition of hakaras hatov.
3. Only send items that you know people will appreciate and eat (e.g., a challah and a bottle of wine) and not a mishmash of junk food that is likely to be thrown out, especially if the recipients do not have small children at home.
4. Give to people in the local community who provide services for us (especially people who are not religious). My wife gave to the cashier at the local kosher grocery, and I gave to the nonreligious Russian shoemaker. The lady at the grocery store was incredibly happy; the shoemaker was literally on the verge of tears. By giving to them, we fulfilled the mitzvah, made their day, and, I hope, a great kiddush Hashem.

Name Withheld

Shorten the Process [Open Mic / Issue 1053]

I would like to respond to the proposal of Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald. As a parent of a current senior, I fully agree that the process needs to be changed to be more honorable.

I am a bit concerned about the solution of leaving the final decisions up to a computer system. I believe the real issue is that we give the girls until Thursday to send a response to their acceptance letter. I feel this is outdated with the current process of email responses. My daughter got into more than one seminary, baruch Hashem. She was able to pick pretty quickly which one she wanted to attend, and out of respect to others, I immediately let all the seminaries know so that they could offer the slot to someone else.

I was quite surprised to hear that others took days to respond. You knew for a few months where you were applying; why is it taking so long to decide? I believe that people either don’t make a decision until they get a deadline, or they enjoy the high of “picking” which seminary to go to. I’ve encountered people who spent days deciding, and for all of them, I knew which ones they would pick, and deep down I’m sure they did, too.

I’d like to suggest that instead of sending acceptances at midnight (why do we keep all the parents up so late!) the seminaries should send them at 8 p.m. with a deadline to respond by midnight. I’m sure many would appreciate this more than a computer deciding which seminary each girl will attend. Then everyone can go to bed by midnight, which is just in time for morning in Israel — when the administration is waking up. They can then see how many slots are left and send out the second round of acceptances by Sunday morning/afternoon. Anyone who didn’t respond the night before can still accept on Sunday but the slots may be full. This will certainly encourage everyone to make a decision in a timely manner.

Let’s cut the acceptance process from two weeks to two days.

Name Withheld

Personal Memories [So Strong Yet So Simple / Issue 1053]

Thank you for the tribute to Rav Nota Schiller z”l. Besides being mekarev hundreds of baalei teshuvah, Rav Nota also launched the careers of young talmidei chachamim whose potential as mechanchim he intuited. One of them was my late husband, Rav Moshe Dombey z”l, who was hired by Rav Nota and Rav Mendel Weinbach z”l to be a teacher in the community Ohr Somayach set up in a backwater town in northern Israel called Givat Ada, and later in Zichron Yaakov. Thanks to the confidence Rav Nota instilled in my husband, he taught in those communities, went on to teach for many years in Neve Yerushalayim, and, together with several partners, founded Targum Press.

I was also once the beneficiary of Rav Nota’s kindness. When Joseph Tanenbaum z”l, a major donor to Ohr Somayach, came to visit our community in Givat Ada, I was asked to speak on behalf of the women of our little enclave. No lofty thoughts or Torah insights emanated from my mouth. Quite the contrary, I regaled the guests with our travails in setting up households in a remote absorption center with no hot water or drainage system for our washing machines. Yet Rav Nota, with characteristic grace and eloquence, approached me to tell me my speech was “masterful.” It is doubtful that I was deserving of such high praise, but the uplifting effect his compliment had stays with me until today.

Yehi zichro baruch.

Miriam Dombey

It’s Part of a Deal [Picture This]

I’ve been reading the back and forth about wives not being their husbands’ mashgiach with great interest, since it’s a struggle I can relate to as a wife and former kollel wife. There is one important point that I have never seen addressed.

When a husband is in kollel, the wife often takes on the burden of being the breadwinner, which should be the husband’s responsibility. And breadwinners don’t have the option of sleeping in and missing work. Thus you can have a situation where the wife goes back to work after sheva brachos, but the husband is not sticking to his kollel schedule. This inequality can cause resentment. And since a wife supporting her husband in kollel is essentially a deal between the husband and wife, one side is not keeping their part of the bargain.

In this situation, I feel it is much harder to tell the wife to “let go” of her husband’s ruchniyus, and I have not found a satisfactory way to come to terms with it. I would love to see this aspect addressed.

Name Withheld

An Invaluable Service [Picture This]

I have to commend Ariella Schiller on the completion of her masterpiece serial. It is a must-read for every new (clueless) couple to help them understand and normalize their situation, and to help them learn how to cope with the inevitable conflicts that are part and parcel of this stage. It was a wholesome and realistic example of a typical frum couple navigating shanah rishonah and an invaluable service to all those at this crucial period in their lives.

The humor and relatability made this an exceptional piece.

May Ariella continue to inspire with her outstanding talent and perception.

P.N.

London

Let Go [Picture This]

I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed Picture This by Ariella Schiller. I found it so relatable and even more than that, validating. Estee’s and Yonah’s miscommunications, misunderstandings, and one step forward two steps back, all reminded me of my shanah rishonah!

I remember thinking a few times during shanah rishonah of perhaps calling my kallah teacher, a friend, or even my mother, to try and gain some clarity and perspective. However, I never had the courage to do so. I thought I was the only one experiencing “growing pains” during this time, and I didn’t want anyone to judge my shalom bayis. Also, the miscommunications that happened were always about such trivial things; I felt silly calling up my kallah teacher and “bothering” her. I’m so proud (and even a little jealous) of Estee for having the courage to reach out for clarity!

About a year ago, someone told me about a shalom bayis CD by Rebbetzin Waldman of Bnei Brak. Listening to her classes gave me a whole new perspective on marriage and the growing pains of shanah rishonah. I wish Estee could have listened to it along with me!

Rebbetzin Waldman addresses another topic that I don’t hear many people talking about: The importance of showing our husbands that we trust them, and beyond that, that we want to join together with them in creating a new home. Sometimes we hold on too tightly to our old ways, minhagim, and even our mothers. This can feel very intimidating for a new husband who just wants to see that his new wife truly accepts him.

After listening to the classes, I noticed that many of my own conflicts, as well as Estee’s and Yonah’s, had this element at its core. We saw Estee trying to do things her own way or her old way and Yonah just wanting to be let in. It was so beautiful to see Estee slowly learning to let go, zoom out, and bring Yonah into the “picture.”

R. E.

Lakewood, NJ

Undermining the Message [Picture This]

The serial Picture This set out to explore a difficult issue. Kudos for showing a young newlywed wife how her behavior might appear to her husband, for showing the other side — the husband’s feelings and thoughts, and for simply holding up a mirror.

But I feel that the ending undermined the messages and lessons along the way.

Here’s the thing: While we felt strongly that Estee wanted Yonah to learn and to keep to his schedule, her urgency and dread around what Yonah was doing/not doing seemed to be coming from what she’d been taught in school or seminary, as opposed to from herself. Especially at the end, it seemed that she was just parroting Rebbetzin Weiss — and it wasn’t particularly coming from a good place.

Actually, I wouldn’t even judge it as good/bad; it just wasn’t coming from a place where she thought or understood.

To me, married (happily, with constant work) for over a decade, Estee’s wishes — at the tender age of 20 — seem to be for sameness and conformity and for what society says is best.

Yes, at some point she “put her money where her mouth is” and took a job she didn’t really want in order to support them. So that was some level of growth — this very immature woman realizing that she had to do her bit for a “wish” of hers. But really the wish was self-serving.

Nowhere in the story did Estee sit down and really think if full-time learning is something that works for her husband. She continued to hold him up to standards that were really hard for him, and had him quashing parts of himself. We saw that in the end he gave up — with a sinking heart — on Rabbi Wagschal and the boys, where he was clearly thriving.

And for what? So that now Estee could pat herself on the back and tell herself that everything is as frum society says it should be in her home?

A real story of growth would have been that she supports Yonah in whatever it is that gives him chiyus and that he’s good at. In a real story, she would follow him and respect him even if he goes to work — and chas v’shalom veers from the script she’s been dancing to her whole life.

It didn’t feel real or good that her husband capitulated to her at the end of the story. It felt like a perpetuation of an unhealthy pattern — where people aren’t really looking in the mirror to see what they or their spouse need or can handle.

And for the record, when someone does something out of gratitude — even if it’s because she’s the mother of his child — it cannot last. We didn’t see that full-time learning was something Yonah himself really wanted or could do.

It was sweet that at the end Estee trusted him and called him when the baby was sick. But this was after he’d totally given in to her, so it kind of lost its impact.

I want to say that I enjoyed the story and followed it with interest — and was so happy at the open look it was taking. But when the ending fell back on damaging and untrue ideas like “you have the power to change other people” and “you can make your husband do right,” it felt deeply disappointing. This was a chance to show that “the only one you can change is yourself,” and how beautiful and empowering that is, and it wasn’t taken up.

R.R.

Jerusalem

Don’t Pass Judgment [Picture This]

I’m writing about the postscript to Picture This, in which the author wrote that she wanted to address the “young divorce rate.”

If she had said that she wanted to address people having better shalom bayis and spouses better understanding one another, that would’ve been fine and not hurtful. But the way she put it (perhaps unwittingly) passes judgment on why people divorce young.

I have two close relatives who recently divorced during shanah rishonah: one after a few weeks, one after a few months. These divorces were not about the issues you brought up in Yonah and Estee’s story. The people involved did not get divorced because of normal adjustments to marriage or growing pains. Their stories are long and hard, involving much trauma and pain, which led them to divorce. And that is true for the vast majority of people getting divorced young.

Please — don’t insinuate (more like say outright) that young divorce happens in normal situations where work on oneself is required. It happens because people absolutely have no choice. They are torn to pieces and don’t want to do this — but for various reasons they have to. They should get our full support instead of being judged that they could have avoided this if only they didn’t have expectations/were willing to work more. Like Estee and Yonah.

Divorce gets enough stigma and judgment — we don’t need more.

S. S.

Be Reasonable [Party Pooper / Double Take – Issue 1052]

I was surprised at the bas mitzvah rules described in the most recent Double Take.

When I was in school 25 years ago, one of the rules for bas mitzvahs was: If inviting more than half the class, the entire class must be invited.

Are these draconian measures for bas mitzvahs really standard? No classmates? At all?

To expect girls to celebrate this milestone with no friends is unrealistic, and therefore, an unenforceable rule. The explanation for it is rather weak; the haves will always have — and apparently get away with — the party of the century, while the smaller celebrations will, of course, get penalized.

To my knowledge, yeshivos have no such restrictions upon their students for their bar mitzvahs. Do boys not compare? Are they immune to materialism? Please.

Don’t demand more from girls or their parents than they can give. It’s not reasonable to expect tweens to be content with having their great-aunts and five-year-old cousins at their bas mitzvahs.

Enforce a rule like my school did so no one feels left out, and let them be happy at this special time.

Lea Pavel

A Sign of Things to Come [Worldview / Issue 1051]

In his article, “Lightning Against the Dark,” Gedalia Guttentag reflects on the well-known picture of the two young children, Kfir and Ariel Bibas — the “gingim,” the red-headed tots — along with their mother, Hashem yikom damam.

This past Purim, both in North and South America, we witnessed a total lunar eclipse, known as a “blood moon.” I was fortunate enough to capture a photograph of this extraordinary event. The moon radiated an orange hue, reminiscent of Ariel and Kfir’s red hair.

Hashem is sending a message to the world: The Bibas family, now a symbol for all the hostages, is foremost in His thoughts. He has a score to settle with Hamas, yemach shemam, for what they did to the Bibas family, as well as to the other hostages and victims of the Simchas Torah massacre.

A friend of mine pointed out that there is an opinion in the Gemara (Succah 29) that a lunar eclipse is a bad omen for the Jewish people. However, since Purim is a time when “v’nahafoch hu” — everything is turned on its head — it is davka a very good sign for the Jews on Purim!

May the Purim “blood” moon serve as a reminder that “Hashem will avenge the ‘blood’ of His servants and bring retribution upon His foes” (Devarim 32:43), just as He did thousands of years ago on Purim.

Mordechai Bulua

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1055)