Tuesday, February 28, 2006

On Hypothetical Shidduch Calls

Riiiiiing! Riiiiiiiing!

"Hello? Hello? Hi! How can I help you?"

"You need a shidduch for your son? Well, you've come to the right place, um... what was your name?"

"Yossi. Right. Well, you've come to the right place. I'm sure we can find your son's bashert. Now, of course, I'll need a little information about him. For starters, how old is he?"

"Forty? Did you say forty?! Well, truth be told, that's kind of old for a shidduch. Has he ever been married? No, well, OK, let's see what we can do. Next question: what does he do for a living?"

"Excuse me, did you say livestock? Ooooooookay. I just wanted to make sure that I heard that correctly. How about his education. What yeshiva did he go to?"

"None! He hasn't gone to yeshiva at all? He knows nothing? How is it that a child in a Jewish home didn't go to yeshiva. Didn't his grandparents offer to chip in for tuition if you couldn't afford it?"

"Oh, I see. Your parents aren't Jewish. You're a ger. So, any girl he marries will have a ger for a father-in-law and non-Jewish grandparents-in-law. To speak frankly, Yossi, the prospects for your son are rather dim. I don't know of any girl that would marry him. Well, let's try one more approach. Do you have any money?"

"No. Poor. Hmm. Well, I'm sorry Yossi. I don't think I'm going to be able to find a girl for your son. I just don't think it's possible. To be honest, between your son's lack of yichus, learning and money, there's simply no hope for... what was his name again?"

"Akiva. Right. I'm sorry, but there's just no hope of getting a shidduch for him."

The Wolf

10 comments:

Air Time said...

If I remember correctly, Akiva was much to smart to go through a Shadchan.

And from what I remember, her fatehr was none too pleased with that situation.

Anonymous said...

Air time: That may have been true in the beginning, but look what became of that "non-desirable" shidduch! Something tells me that Rachel's father's friends were kicking themselves years later that their daughters hadn't made such an illustrious match.
Just goes to show you that you never know what Hashem has planned..

Anonymous said...

Yeah, and didn't he turn into the perfect match. Not only did he learn full time for 14 years, he didn't even have time to say hello to his wife once!

Yoel.Ben-Avraham said...

The first woman I proposed to invited me to visit Boston to visit her parents and discuss our mutual desire to marry. I was in that house all of an hour. "No daughter of mine will marry a non-Jew!"

I returned to Israel (where I had settled and belonged) the next time the parents came to me, not to them! The "Next Time" was the daughter of a rabbi who adopted me like a son (not in-law) and encouraged and supported me in my Limud-Torah so I could make up for lost time.

No one in the chugim that I and my wife travel, have ever indicated to us (or those close to us) that my conversion would be detrimental. In fact, the girls who are interested in marrying my two oldest actually said that the opposite was true.

My experience!
(Avraham) Yoel Ben-Avraham
Shilo, Benyamin, Israel

BrooklynWolf said...

Avraham Yoel,

Thanks for sharing that story. I'm glad to see that you found people who were willing to accept you and look at who you are, and not at who you were.

The Wolf

Pragmatician said...

hilarious but realistic!

Pragmatician said...

hilarious but realistic!
you gotta give credit to the shadchan for asking about the money last and not first.

Anonymous said...

I don't know about this. I married a convert woman, who to top it off is poor as dirt (Thanks to my sugardaddiness, we are now as poor as fancy store bought nutrieant dirt) I know another man, outstading student, decent money who got married this week to a poor ger who had a child to top it off. I know a few weddings like that. I have never seen the holyier than thouness you seem to keep refering to.

BrooklynWolf said...

Ilan,

Firstly, thank you for commenting. I'm certainly glad that you have not experienced the prejudice that I was parodying. It gives me hope that things aren't as bad as I've been led to believe.

Sadly, however, I think it is undeniable that the prejudice is out there.

The Wolf

BBJ said...

Funny man. I like it! But seriously...

Gets married.

Leaves town for fourteen years.

Comes back. (theoretically some time in between here) Gets self martyred.

I hope they took some wonderful family vacations together.