Question:
I went out with a girl and, during the course of our conversation on the date, we were discussing the Yated. More specifically, the conversation focused on the Shidduch Forum and the Chinuch Roundtable. The girl posed a question: Given a choice of being a panelist on the Shidduch Forum or the Chinuch Roundtable, which one would you choose?
I responded that it’s a no-brainer: Shidduch Forum hands down. What’s the big deal about answering chinuch questions? First say that you don’t have all the details, then quote Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky about not worrying about things that kids will grow out of, and then offer some canned advice about loving your kids to death, and you’re good to go. It’s easy like pie. Shidduchim, on the other hand, are so challenging, and capably answering the questions in this column requires special acumen.
The girl, who happens to be smart and on the ball, disagreed. “Being a mechanech is the highest calling,” she explained. “Guiding parents in the chinuch of their children is more important than anything else. Answering shidduch questions about crooked teeth and bad dates? Give me a break. It’s like coffee room hock. No kuntz there. All you have to do is tell the singles that the shadchanim don’t make the shidduchim anyway, and it’s all bashert and up to the Mezaveig Zivugim, and they should just have emunah.”
So who’s right? Which panel is the more prestigious one? And does the fact that there are currently no mechanchos on the Roundtable have any bearing on our discussion?
Answer:
As it occurs to me, there are three distinct items in dire need of our consideration with regards to this most imperative of disputes.
1. While engaging in a reverie of reductive reasoning and inference to discern which of the two columns affords its panelists greater prestige is certainly a beguiling and mesmeric venture, I fear we must belay the investigation, as the true answer to this query can only be found deep in sifrei kabbala; and as is oft said about the chochmas haemes, “Those who know don’t say, and those who say don’t know”.
2. As both you and this young woman have displayed so brilliant a penchant, propensity, and proclivity for brobdingnagian oversimplifications, it appears that this shidduch may be the quintessence of a match made in heaven. I sincerely hope the l’chaim will have been scheduled by the time this issue has gone to print.
3. With respect to the Chinuch Roundtable’s penurious dearth of mechanchos, perhaps while all the men are diligently entrenched in deontological analyzations of educational methods, systems, and techniques – a most indispensable of endeavors – the women have taken a more teleological approach, and are busy actually raising the children.
May the Borei Sasson V’simcha bring us all illimitable exultation, and may the words of the Megilah be nigleh l’ein kol; liyehuhim hoysah orah v’simcha v’sasson v’ykor.
