While singles feel like they’re drowning, can a rabbinic initiative stem the tide?

Photos: Naftali Goldgrab

Two decades ago, there was already a niggling but growing realization that too many young women just weren’t finding shidduchim — and that there was some factor bigger than “pickiness” or “types” that was at play. What became known as the “age gap” has only broadened since, creating not only a larger pool of girls but a feeling of desperation at best, hopelessness as worst. Can a rabbinic initiative really stem the tide?

There’s no need to dramatize, elaborate, magnify, or embellish when describing the shidduch crisis.

We all know what it is; nothing the written word can portray will suffice to capture its magnitude.

Finding one’s match is like splitting the sea, we are taught. But what about not finding it?

It is like the sea itself. Endless, unyielding, overpowering.

And thousands of our sisters are there, in the abyss, floundering desperately.

Watching from the shore presents its own anguish. You can yell, blow a whistle, wave your hands frantically.

You can give up.

Sometimes, that seems like the most tempting option.

But you shouldn’t. Because if you keep your ears cocked, and your hopes up, you may hear the faint hum of helicopter rotor blades, a speedboat’s motor.

Or maybe, the sea itself will split.

I arrived in the Queens home of Rav Kalman Epstein, rosh yeshivah of Shaar HaTorah, where I would be holding a joint conversation with him; Rav Elya Brudny, rosh yeshivah of the Mirrer Yeshiva of Brooklyn; and Rav Yaakov Bender, rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Darchei Torah. Our discussion would focus on the shidduch crisis and fervent efforts to stem its tide.

I had never met Rav Epstein before, yet the warmth with which I was greeted was well beyond what I deserved. Rav Epstein, I will learn, deliberately shies from the limelight, though he fully belongs in its center. A towering talmid chacham, he was exposed to the grandeur of Torah from his infancy; his father was Rav Zelik Epstein, one of the Mir’s prominent talmidim who joined the yeshivah on its storied escape to Shanghai, and who was later handpicked by Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky to serve as the rosh yeshivah of Torah Vodaath. Many years later he joined Rav Kalman in Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah, a flagship yeshivah in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, New York.

The art of concealing greatness must run in the family. Rav Zelik, too, never assumed a public role, but world-renowned askanim such as Rabbi Moshe Sherer and Rabbi Chatzkel Besser would turn to him for advice on critical communal matters. Rav Shach routinely referred Americans in need of guidance to Rav Zelik as a leader uniquely capable of providing the desired counsel.

And that capacity for wise, far-seeing advice has passed on to the next generation. While he eschews any publicity or fanfare, Rav Kalman Epstein’s office is the address for so many in need of direction, both on personal or communal matters.

The shidduch crisis is the one area in which Rav Epstein allows himself to be publicly seen. Even when it was a barely noticeable issue, he was sounding the alarm, alerting all to the catastrophe toward which our kehillah was careening.

Within a few minutes Rav Brudny and Rav Bender arrive, their very gait projecting a force of purpose. “Carrying the weight of Klal Yisrael on their shoulders” is a clichéd description, but their postures and facial expressions make evident that it is the only accurate one. Both have led central yeshivos for decades and have thousands of talmidim who turn to them for guidance and direction.

Rav Bender is viewed as one of America’s foremost experts in chinuch for students of all ages and his experience has put him at the forefront of support for mechanchim and mechachos as well. He has authored eight books, most focused on chinuch. His most recent publication is titled A Heart for Another, in which he shares firsthand encounters with gedolim who expressed exceptional care and concern for their brethren.

(If I could write a sequel to the book, I’d share an encounter of my own. We’ve all heard the many unhealthy effects of social media but, in a private conversation with Rav Bender, he voiced a concern I had never contemplated. “Do you know how many teachers have lost their jobs because class parents speak lashon hara about them on their WhatsApp chats?” A heart for another, indeed.)

Rav Brudny is a man who, by no request of his own, was tasked with caring for a vast forest. But that’s not the way he sees it. All he sees are the trees. He is the prime address for rabbanim, askanim, and baalei chesed dealing with some of the most painful and sensitive issues plaguing the community on a macro level — yet in every communal conversation, he retains his focus on the individual suffering. I once spoke to someone who had the zechus of driving Rav Brudny somewhere. He told me that “the whole time he was on the phone, trying to make arrangements for someone who needed a place to stay on Shabbos.” A frequent refrain of his is “Der ikkur eichus fun a mensch iz achrayus far yenem — the primary value of a person is his sense of responsibility for another.”

These gedolei Yisrael see in a day what most don’t see in a lifetime. Sitting across from them was the opportunity of a lifetime, and it went by too quickly.  In this precious pocket of time, they zero in on that issue causing so much agony to thousands of families throughout our communities. And they share their vision, their passion, and their adamance that hope truly is on its way. That things must change. Now.

But is it really possible to split the sea?

For us it is not.

But, says Rav Brudny, in the merit of our efforts, Hashem will look down and have mercy.

And He!

He can!

He, and only He, can split the sea drowning so many.