While I was absentmindedly skimming through a magazine
article about shidduchim, one sentence caught my eye.
It was a quote from the mother of a prospective kalla.
"We aren't ready to settle," meaning, to lower her
expectations.
That declaration brought me back to another time and place.
It was the late 1950's in New York City. People who had made
money in the post World War II economic boom, spent their
Sunday afternoons driving out to Long Island in search of the
single family home of their dreams.
Some of the house hunters were first generation Americans,
some second, and most were living in apartments in Brooklyn
or the Bronx. All had the same goal, which was to buy the
largest, showiest home they could afford. The house had to
make the statement, "We have arrived." That is, when someone
looked over the new domicile, s/he would know that the
occupants had made their mark in the world of
gashmiyus.
The U.S. at that time was full of development towns. Builders
offered a choice of houses that could be selected by visiting
the sales office for a prospectus and then strolling through
a series of model houses built from the various floor
plans.
The models were named or numbered. In an elaborately designed
neighborhood with lots of choices, plan 101 might have been
the title of the one story house with three bedrooms, while
#102 was the same basic layout with a family room, #150 was a
split level, #200 had two stories and so on.
Although there were only a few basic designs for the houses
themselves, there were an almost endless number of choices to
be made. Some houses had carports while other offered
attached garages. Some developments had a large range of
lots, either on a hillside or on flat terrain. Some builders
gave buyers the option of selecting brick or stone facing,
shutters, and various other architectural touches to
customize the look of the houses. At the top of the price
scale were virtual mansions as glamorous as the homes in a
Hollywood setting but there were also inexpensive tracts
which offered rows of houses that looked as though they had
been stamped out by the same cookie cutter.
An average American family of that time consisted of two
parents, two children at least three years apart and a dog.
The entire family was involved in the weekly trek out to the
`Island'. After all of the models had been visited and all of
the plans had been scrutinized, everyone except Fido
contribued his two cents towards the decision. At long last,
the choice was finalized. Then the family produced the
requisite down payment, signed on the dotted line and became
home owners.
There were, however, some families which were not so quick to
make a decision. Their budget said "split level or maybe a 3
bedroom two story" but they were not willing to buy in that
range. And so they continued to house-hunt Sunday after
Sunday, sometimes for years, looking for that elusive center-
hall colonial of their dreams that was going to miraculously
sport a price that they could afford. And what was their
rallying cry? "We're not ready to settle," meaning, settle
for any less than their house in the clouds with a price on
the ground.
And that brings us back to shidduchim.
There are many really nice, truly yeshivishe bochurim
and an equal number of lovely, refined Bais Yaakov graduates.
Both sets come in different sizes and shapes with a variety
of minor differences. One boy sings nicely and another has a
talent for askonus or kiruv. There are girls
who play the piano and others who have job skills. But just
as there are only a few center-hall colonials, there are few
young men who are future roshei yeshiva, and few girls
who are the daughters of gedolim and/or
gevirim. But that does not still the rallying cry of
"We're not ready to settle."
What is the ending of the house hunting story? Let's jump
ahead almost half a century. The people who `settled', who
made realistic adjustments to their expectations and moved
into a home of their own, invested between ten and twenty
thousand dollars in their purchase, of which maybe one or two
thousand was cash on the barrel head and the rest was a
series of monthly mortgage payments spread over the next
thirty years. Some time in the 1980's, their houses were
fully paid for and they could live rent-free as they headed
into retirement. Some sold their houses for six figures and
moved to Florida. Others have stayed put in a beloved home
that now has a built-up equity that will provide a legacy for
their children.
And the people who refused to settle? They paid higher and
higher rents as the years rolled by, unless they were in rent-
controlled houses, which gradually deteriorated into slum
housing. Either way, all they have to leave to their children
is a drawer full of rent receipts.
So you see, my friends, it is the children who missed out
because of their parents' refusal to settle.
Often, it was only one parent who was adamant. Very often,
the `we' in, "We are not ready to settle," was not first
person plural but rather, the imperial `we'. A woman might
have been saying `we' are not ready to settle for a house
that was lacking an eat-in kitchen, while her husband
wistfully envisioned himelf cutting the grass behind that
very house.
Similarly, a husband might have been making the same `we'
statement vis a vis a house that was not flashy enough
because it didn't have a sweep driveway or it wasn't located
on a corner, but the little woman could readily see herself
sitting in that particular house's living room happily gazing
through the bay window at the lilac trees in her yard.
Whether it is a one person `we' or both parents who are
involved, all too often the decision of whether son Chaim
should meet prospective shidduch Chaya revolves around
one simple question: "What will the neighbors say?" Is that
any different from the decision years ago concerning whether
or not the Joneses should buy a sweet little #150 on Long
Island?
When it comes to finding a mate for our child, we, the
members of the yeshivish velt, should learn a lesson from
Chana, mother of Shmuel Hanovi. According to the
gemora in Berochos, Chana prayed for a "child
of men" who was "neither tall nor short; neither skinny nor
fat, neither ruddy nor pale, neither smart nor stupid." In
other words, Chana didn't give any thought to the opinion of
the neighbors. She was willing to `settle' for a very fine,
but very average child.
Why can't we?
