I have, here and elsewhere, taken real exception to the way we designate our singles, using age as a delineator. Hit 21 as a girl and you are now "officially" a borderline older single. Go over 23 or 24 and you are no longer borderline. Hit your late 20s and the community begins the head shaking. Make it into your 30s and still single and the community sighs and shrugs its shoulders.
Listen up everyone. While there may be a communal suggested age for looking for a shidduch or getting married, it is only that--a suggestion. It's not based on anything logical or rational and is completely and totally the product of human minds "inventing" norms.
I believe, fully and with no holding back, that Hashem is me'zaveg zvugim. I believe that HE does not play practical jokes, nor does HE go back on his word. It is human beings, with their limited views, who give tzar to those who have not yet found their intended spouse. Yes, there is someone for everyone, if we will just open our eyes wide and our minds wide and keep our mouths closed unless it is to give chizuk that is positive.
The last few days have brought news of not one, not two but of three shidduchim that have been made. In each case both choson and kallah are in their 30s and one in their 40s. Looking at those shidduchim I am crying tears of happiness, for the choson and kallah and for their families. These people did not follow the public's view of them as over the hill and out of the race. These people kept their bitochon and continued the search. These people believed, and their beliefs were vindicated. Someone made a comment about the last shidduch that I heard about that is fairly typical--this person knew of both the choson and the kallah and somehow never put them together in his mind as a possible couple that he would introduce. His comment ended "If I would have known this was a possibility I would have introduced them years ago and they could already have been making a bar mitzvah by a child instead of first getting married now." Nope. Apparently it was bashert that things go this way. We need to remember that old yiddish saying: "Die richtige shidduch in die richtige tzeit"--the right shidduch at the right time.
To these chosonim and kallahs, a heartfelt mazel tov and hopes that their lives will be full and joyous. And to those out there who have as yet not found their bashert, hang in there. YES, it can and will happen. Forget what some others with limited and distorted vision may tell you. Your time will come. All you need to do is believe, keep your eyes and mind open, and put your faith in HaKodosh BoruchHu.
2 comments:
Thank you! Thank you! I'm not old or older or over the hill or stubborn or blind either. I just haven't met the one destined for me yet. I haven't given up my hopes but a whole lot of people have given up their hopes for me. Tough on them!
In the non-OJ world in modern America, it is not at all unusual for first marriages, and successful ones at that, to be made in one's 30's, 40's and even beyond and no one would ever consider someone in their late 20's or 30's to be over the hill. Yes, it can be harder to meet a singe person you are attracted to as you get older, but age is no longer the stigma it once was. Sometimes Klal may benefit from looking outward and not just inward for important lessons.
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