Question
Although I was raised in a Modern Orthodox home, I became more Yeshivish when I “flipped out” [became more religiously observant], after learning in yeshiva for a few years.
Despite the fact that my home was fully Shomer Shabbos (albeit with a few laxities), I received a series of forwarded voice notes from a group of Yeshivish shadchanim that characterized me as either a ba’al teshuvah or a ba’al teshuvah from a Modern Orthodox home. This is disgusting!
In contrast to a ba’al teshuvah whose ancestors abandoned the path of Torah and mitzvos during challenging times, my great-grandparents, z’l, nearly starved to death and had to find a new job every week in order to keep Shabbos after they first immigrated to the United States during the pre-WWI immigration wave.
The pressure to go “off the derech” and become secular in the Goldener Medinah was intense.
Many of these shadchanim descend from Holocaust survivors who immigrated to America decades later, when the chinuch infrastructure was already established. They had it much easier to stay frum. To add insult to injury, I do not recognize the voices of the people who were talking about me in any of these voice notes, and no one has told me their names, not the shadchanim I’m working with and not the person who leaked the voice notes. Instead, everyone is just telling me to daven to Hashem to find the right one at the right time.
When I asked my Charedi Rosh Yeshiva (as well as some rabbanim who know my family) to call the shadchanim and ask them to locate every shadchan who mischaracterized me as a ba’al teshuvah and set the record straight, they said there was nothing they could do.
Instead, the shadchanim asked my Rosh Yeshiva if he would encourage me to date a modern machmir girl from Yeshiva University, since they claimed such types of frum-from-birth girls would be more appropriate for my family background. Instead, the Rosh Yeshiva told them I am more of a “Lakewood type” of bachur and should only marry a girl who is likewise. While I acknowledge that many of the Yeshivish girls are looking for full-time learners, I am already 26 and working.
Additionally, while I’m open to dating a ba’alat teshuvah, I do not think it’s possible since the majority of them today are either gravitating toward Chabad or are Sephardic and are looking to marry only Sephardic boys.
Other than those two demographics, the number of people who are becoming ba’alei teshuvah is much smaller than what it was twenty or thirty years ago since the descendants of secular Jews have largely intermarried and their daughters and granddaughters are not halachically Jewish. Bizarrely, I was suggested to around 46 girls who were undergoing conversion after embracing their patrilineal Jewish roots in the aftermath of October 7. I am a kohen. So, why am I being compared to a ba’al teshuvah? How can I stop this misinformation?
Response
Your letter is a bit like preaching to the choir, but before I address your dilemma about being mislabeled and mischaracterized as a ba’al teshuvah, I am most baffled about your claim of being suggested to 46 girls who are undergoing conversion, when you are a kohen and therefore forbidden from marrying a giyores. You also indicate that the shadchanim you are working with are the descendants of Holocaust survivors and had the benefit of the established chinuch infrastructure. In other words, they should be knowledgeable about the types of women you are permitted to date. You are either not sharing that bit of vital information with them, or they are not reading your bio in its entirety. I recommend that each time you speak to a shadchan, remind them that you are a kohen and cannot marry a divorcee or a giyores. That should hopefully eliminate your frustration at being redt inappropriate shidduchim.
People who “flip out,” whether male or female, all encounter the same challenges when it comes to shidduchim, which is why you feel a disconnect since this is not who you are. I recently had a case of a young lady several years older than you who is the product of a Modern Orthodox machmir home who did not “flip out,” yet is finding the search for her bashert so frustrating for similar reasons. She came to me because she is being matched with men who are ba’alei teshuvah. While she bears no prejudice against ba’alei teshuvah, she shared with me the details of her most recent date with a man who was raised secular, but adopted a more Chassidish mindset. Suffice it to say that although she gave the boy a fair shot, she declined the match, to the dismay of the shadchan.
I want to make something clear. A true ba’al teshuvah has achieved a higher level of kedushah than even a person who has been religious his entire life. Ba’alei teshuvah are especially dear to Hashem. Please note that I am referring to those ba’alei teshuvah who are extremely makpid in keeping halachos bein adam l’Makom and bein adam l’chaveiro and serve Hashem with Yiras Shamayim in their daily life. The Gemara teaches us that a tzaddik gamur cannot stand in the same place as a ba’al teshuvah.
With that said, a shidduch is still a personal decision, and just as one might appreciate being matched with a particular height or look or hashkafic background, so too, when it relates to a ba’al teshuvah. The reason why you declined dating such a young lady is probably because you feel as though you lack anything in common with them.
It is interesting to note that you were mischaracterized as either a “ba’al teshuvah or a ba’al teshuvah from a Modern Orthodox home.” It is possible that these specific shadchanim have no clue what Modern Orthodox means. It is sad and oftentimes frustrating that in some circles, Modern Orthodoxy is not accepted as being frum, and when you tell such people that you are now Yeshivish, in their minds it means you have now become frum and they consider you a ba’al teshuvah.
You can explain to them that you were raised frum, although the laxities that you cite stick in their minds as being not frum, or not frum enough for a young lady from a Yeshivish home.
I understand that you prefer to date a “Lakewood-type,” and your former Rosh Yeshiva feels that you should marry such a young lady; however, the reality of life is such that even if you find a knowledgeable shadchan within that community, who knows who you are and sees eye-to eye with you on all your issues, they might still face a brick wall when it comes to the young lady and her family accepting you, primarily because of your Modern Orthodox family. In the very right-wing circles, the parents of the young ladies care very much that they are hashkafically similar to their mechutanim. That is why they list names of mechutanim on the shidduch résumés of their children. There is that old saying: you can’t fight city hall. In other words, nothing can be done to change the situation within a system. However, that does not mean that your circumstances are hopeless.
I don’t want to speak against the psak of your Rosh Yeshiva who discouraged you from dating “FFB modern machmir YU girls,” but I will say that not only might those girls not have an issue with your family background, but they are truly Bnos Yisrael who live their daily lives doing avodas hakodesh both in their personal and professional affairs. If that is not what you want, then just as the Lakewood types have the right to decline you, you as well have the right to decline such a shidduch.
To alleviate any further disappointment and bad feelings all around, I recommend that you try to find a shidduch without the assistance of shadchanim. There are young ladies who come from a Yeshivish upbringing and still consider themselves as such, yet encounter their own specific set of challenges and frustrations in finding their bashert. Like you, they may have exhausted their options with shadchanim because all their suggestions just didn’t seem plausible.
You will find many such young ladies at singles events that are geared to the Yeshivish crowd.
In the meantime, please do not close the door to suggestions of ba’alei teshuvah young ladies that you mentioned you would be open to dating so long as they don’t veer to the hashkafos that you are not comfortable with. In addition, please speak to your former Rosh Yeshiva and explain to him by giving details to support what is really going on. Though he initially recommended that you date Lakewood types, it is not always in the control of shadchanim which girls will want to date you. Perhaps his advice might then take a different turn. n
Baila Sebrow is president of Neshoma Advocates, communications and recruitment liaison for Sovri-Beth Israel, executive director of Teach Our Children, and a shadchanis and shidduch consultant. Baila also produces and hosts The Definitive Rap podcast for 5townscentral.com, vinnews.com, Israel News Talk Radio, and WNEW FM 102.7 FM HD3, listenline & talklinenetwork.com. She can be reached at Bsebrow@aol.com.
