Dating & Marriage: The Basis and Techniques for Going Out - Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser

It's a great to be together on such an evening on what I would consider to be the most important topic in the entire world to discuss. It is something that is so very fundamental. The Jewish family, the shidduch. And it's an interesting thing because sometimes a person has to know the basis of even going out, the technique of going out. Now you're going to say, "What technique?" So I saw this afternoon from the great Steipler. He said when a person goes out they have to know what to use for conversation. To make conversation sometimes people are quiet, sometimes you got to break the ice, so what do you talk about? Here is what the Steipler says. Tell over stories of gedolim. Stories of Chacham Yosef, stories of Rav Elyashiv. That will make it go. That will get the shidduch going. Now you think about it and you say, "What do you mean? I got to talk about things today, I got to talk about current things." And the answer is that in shidduchim people are looking for ruchniyus. Gashmiyus, there's a whole world full of materialism. How we get along, that can be very quick. I can get to know that. But if I have a deeper connection, if I can relate to that person in a way that could be so special that they could be my zivug, they could end up being my marriage partner, I've got to go a level deeper and see how do we relate to each other ruchnius wise, spiritually. I tell you I had a time with him I think he could have used a couple of lessons. The time with went out and he went for a date. He went to the city. All of a sudden, after he left about 2 hours later I get a call. And he's on the phone. He's all excited. Rabbi, Rabbi, I got to ask you a question. I said, "What what's the problem?" He says, "Well, all of a sudden we sat down and all of a sudden the girl that I took out, she ran out. She ran out. I said, "Well, what happened? How did it go? She just didn't run out like that, did she?" He says, "Well, I asked her something." I said, "What did you ask?" I said, "Do you want to marry me?" I said, "This your first time you're going out, you're sitting down for 10 minutes yet." He said, "Rabbi, what should I do?" I said, "Well, first of all, go and run after her. Wherever she's at in the city, go and find her." He's running down the street looking for her all over. Obviously, a person has to know what is the correct way, the mahala, the derech, when to ask, what to say, what to show interest in. Even things that are technicalities may, unfortunately, may railroad the whole shidduch if a person is not careful. We are used to looking at our phones, right? So, in the meantime, the guy was waiting for an important call and he keeps taking out his telephone, he keeps looking at it. So, the girl said, "You know, it's more interesting to him the telephone than going out with a live person." So, she said, "No." And the guy was very upset. The guy called me up and said that this is what she said, that he's looking at the telephone a lot and how does he get it back going on the track? So, I said to him, "Listen, when you're going out, to me, leave your phone at home. Leave your phone in the car. Turn it off. But, once she's going to see that you're interested in the telephone, it's not going to go too far." So, after a lot of apologizing, he did go out with her. It didn't quite get to the finish line, but it's important that we see that we are interested in others. The phone cannot be a substitute. If we're a little bit nervous on the date, going on the outing, the phone cannot be the one that fills in the time. A person's got to learn it. Now, uh there are several uh different areas that I would like to go into, and I do want to say that uh this evening, it should be a tremendous zchus to Reb Moshe Chaim Meir of a tremendous zchus. I feel that anybody that undertakes to sponsor a shiur on shidduchim, it is the highest level that a person could possibly do in order to bring closer their shidduchim. Why? Whoever prays for their friend who needs it also, the person needs the same thing, the first one, he is He's the one that gets answered first. So, in the zchus that he worries about others, and he prays for others, he should be answered as well. And it's an interesting thing, because there was the great Reb Bulman. I don't know if you heard him carry out Nachliel, Reb Bulman. So, there was a girl that came to Reb Bulman and said to Reb Bulman, she wants a shidduch, and it's difficult for her. What should she do? Reb Bulman said, "I know another girl. The girl is in the United States of America and she needs a shidduch. Give to me your name and your mother's name. I will get her name and her mother's name. We'll exchange it and you pray for her, she will pray for you. Baruch Hashem, they did it and within a certain amount of time, they both became a kallah. So, it's an important thing. A lot of times a person doesn't realize the energy in terms of praying, being mitpallel, praying for a shidduch is the greatest single thing that a person can do. First of all, everything comes through tefillah. Everything comes through prayer. The second thing is, when the malach, the malach showed to the great Shmuel ben Elisha up in shamayim, a lot of gezeirot, a lot of bad things that were happening. So, Reb Shmuel said, "Tell me, what can I do? How can I be mevattel the gezeirot? How can I get these bad decrees away?" So, he said, "There's one way." The malach said, "Answer Yehei Shmei Rabbah. Answer with all your might during tefillah, you can be mevattel all the gezeirot. All the bad decrees you can annul." So, this is the yesod. Even chas v'shalom, a person has a gezeirah, even there's a decree, by prayer we break through the decree. And it's interesting because we see it in the halacha in terms of when a person is allowed to make a party for an engagement or for a even for a marriage. When is a person allowed to make the party, yes or no? So, the question is that I'm asked at least once every year during the nine days. Nine days, right? Nine days from Rosh Chodesh Av until Tisha B'Av. It's a time of sadness. It's a time of sat velut. It's a time of a little bit of morning. So, everybody says that we're allowed to make the vort, the l'chaim during that time, the engagement party. The answer is yes. A person is allowed. What is the reason why? A very interesting really we shouldn't be able to do it, but we are allowed to do it even Tisha B'Av. Even if a person wants to make it the night before Tisha B'Av, they can make it. Why? The answer is shema yikadmenu acher. We are afraid that somebody else will come along and before the kallah is ready to go to her engagement party, he's going to steal her away. He's going to take her somewhere else, Jersey. And he'll be she'll be his kallah. So, you take a look at it and you say, "Well, you better watch your kallah. You better watch your chatan." No. The Torah says not what we're talking about. Shema yikadmenu acher bitfilah. He's going to be praying so hard, "Really, I wanted her. I wanted her. Sarah, she's the greatest girl in the world. I wanted to have her." And what happens? I'm praying so hard, I may be successful to take her away from her chatan. Shema yikadmenu acher. So, hurry up and make the vort. Make it official. Put it on wherever you put it on. Make it official and let everybody know because that is what a person should do. In shidduchim, there is a clock and the clock runs. There is a sha'at kosher. There's a proper time. And when that proper time comes around, you got to be careful to do it. I had a guy and the guy was going out for 2 years. You sugar, two years? What was he doing for two years? Two years you could build a family. Okay, two years. So, he's going out for two years. Uh and uh you know, I always thought him whenever he came over to me, he was a nice fellow. I said, "Yossi, when you going to do the big question? When you going to pop the question?" He says, "I'm waiting for the time when shamayim what it's the right you know, I get the I'm able to see stars and at that time I'll be I see, you know what? I'll buy you a kaleidoscope and you going to see all the stars in that little thing. Then you know it's ready to go." Okay, he calls me up. "Rebby, you're not going to believe what happened." I said, "What happened?" Uh all of a sudden, there was a guy that came in from Eretz Yisrael, came from Yerushalayim and he took her out. I said, "What happened?" She liked him. And she went out with him a few times. And he did something very very not nice. I said, "What he do?" He proposed to her. I said, "No." "How could he do such a I'm in the middle of going out with her." I said, "Yossi, how many years you're going to be in the middle of going out with her? I mean, eventually she's going to smell the coffee. A person has to know there is a shas kosher. Pick up the time, do it, run with the ball. Don't let it wait because in shidduchim anything could happen at any given moment. It is something that there is such hash gacha. There is such divine providence. Chazon Ish said, "It's difficult to see sometimes divine providence." Shidduchim. I want to see hashgacha in the world. Tell me the hashgacha. So many things I got to just have emunah. I would like to know exactly how it works. I want to know exactly when this is going to happen and that's going to happen. And Hashem, show me the plan why this went on and I was supposed to get the promotion at work and my neighbor got the promotion or I got two promotions, whatever it is. But those things we don't know. When it will be the time in the future, so Hashem will show us the reason why everything happened. At the end everything will be revealed. But in shidduchim says the Chazon Ish, it's revealed. In shidduchim, a person is able to see it in front of them, the divine providence, how it unfolds right in front of us. Unbelievable. I had a friend many, many years. He tried to get married. Each tzaddik, unbelievable. A lot of tzaros. Couldn't get married. Couldn't get married. Problem. Everybody felt bad for him. Somehow it didn't work. A guy came in from Eretz Yisrael. He needed some medical uh tipulim. He needed a little bit of uh medical uh some visits and some procedures. So he came. He didn't have a place to stay. So my friend had a little studio apartment. And he didn't have a place to stay, so my friend said you could stay with me. So for 4 weeks he stayed with him. For 4 weeks he cared about him. That guy from Israel didn't have money to buy food and drink. He cared. He bought food for him. He made sure that he drank. The couple of times he arranged rides to go to the hospital to bring him back. He was making sure that he had everything that he needed. On Shabbat he stayed home. He made Shabbat for him instead of going out. He took care of him day and night. He didn't know him from nowhere. Olam chesed yibaneh. You want build a world, do chesed. So interesting. He's going back to Israel. And he says to my good friend Elio, Elio, what could I what could I send you from Israel? We have such nice things, such beautiful things. What could I send you? Reb Elio said, "I I don't need anything. I I I really tell you, I I I'm very happy that we met each other and I was able to help, but I can't I can't think of anything." So, he says, "I tell you what, I'm going to be in Netivot. When I go back, I'm going to go to Baba Sali's kever and I'm going to pray for you." My friend said, "Okay." He gave him his name and his mama's name. The guy went back. Elio receives a telephone call from a shatchente. The lady gets on the phone. "Hello, Elio." Yeah? Uh I would like to make a shidduch. So, my friend says, "Well, tell me uh who's the person? I'll give a recommendation for him." No, no, no, no. It's for you. He hadn't received the call in so long, he didn't believe that the shatchen was calling about him. She read him a shidduch. He went out. He got married. They found out the time when he got married, when he went out for the first time, and he got the call was shortly after this man had gone to the kever of Baba Sali. Tefillah. Not any great mystical solution, just a person prays and they put in their heart, from the depths of their heart, they pray to Hashem, anything can happen. Shem Yikach Menachem, even the couple is already engaged or almost engaged. And it's a shailah l'halacha, of course, if a couple's already engaged, then you can't you can't tamper with it. You can't Uh, I've been asked once or twice over the years if a couple's engaged could I pray that they become unengaged? No, you can't pray that. You may be interested in that, but that's not the way things work. A person should know that through tfila much can be accomplished. And that is also yesh ba'al koach l'ilacho l'eis matzo. Omer Reb Chanina l'eis matzo zu isha. When a person comes to the perek of shidduchin when a person gets ready to get married, they should know one thing. Pray from the innermost of their heart. And there are various times in tfila in the Amidah and Shmoneh Esrei when a person can keep this in mind. And it's an extremely powerful, more powerful than anything else that we could ever imagine, is the zechut is the merit of praying. Likutei Moharan, just to give you an idea, Likutei Moharan says that every single thing in this world should come through tfila. And he gives an example that if a person does not pray and they get a bracha in this world, so it's like the elephant in the zoo. The elephant in the zoo walks around in the cage and some good people come Chol HaMoed Pesach, they go to the zoo, right? And what do they do? They buy those peanuts from the vending machine and the elephant's inside and they go, "Hey, Dumbo." Whatever the guy's name is. And they throw him the peanuts. Did the elephant pray? No. Elephant gets pure material existence. Says Rebbi Nachman, if a person gets their food and they didn't pray for it, if a person gets the brachot in life and they didn't pray for it, it's on the level of materialism. It's like the elephant in the zoo or a monkey or whatever. A person that said no that everything is out your date, that a person prays for it, that they come in the morning and they say, "Hashem, please, I want to fulfill your ratzon. I want to do your will. I want to get married. I want to bring a family bezrat Hashem. I want to have all the good things here in this world in order to establish a home, a bayit ne'eman b'Yisrael. Hashem, I am ready to do your will." "Please, bring forth a zivug to me." A person that asks Hashem in that way. So, Hashem looks at it and says, "This individual wants to do the ratzon of Hashem. What could be bigger than that person?" So, I just want to say that everybody through tefillah, anything can happen. Even a person thinks, "Has v'shalom, uh I've been praying for a long time. I davened for a long time. I tried this. I tried that." A lot of people come in, "I've tried this." We should know one thing, it does not matter if a person tried. It can be the time that a person will try that one more time, or put in a little more feeling, or a little more kavana, and that zechut is going to be the time that you're going to be answered. You know, uh that they put up on Purim the piñata. You know the piñata, that thing? So, it's up there, right? So, a guy hits it. Inside they got gold and silver and coins and money. So, he hits it. Uh then it break, right? Then the next guy hits it, then it break. Then the next guy break hits it five times, it then it break. Uh Pete gives up, the other guy gives up, they all go home. Then one little guy comes in, he takes a stick, boom. And everything comes down. That's tefillah. Where a person said, "No, I prayed. I already hit the piñata. No, I'm done with it. Too much work. I have to hit it, THE BUT DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE WORK. PRAY. Pray from the from the umek and the shama, from the depths of the soul, and a person will be answered. Ze ani kara Hashem shomea umikol tzarato hoshia. Hashem saved them from all the tzarot, from everything, from every challenge in life. That's what we say, and that's what we believe be'emunah shleima. So, it's the first thing, t'filah, pray. Put it on the top of a person's list. When they're going out for a shidduch, so in that moment before they go out, pray. I'm going out b'siyata d'Shmaya. Not I'm going out tonight to the city, we're going out. I'm going b'siyata d'Shmaya. I'm going to meet him b'siyata d'Shmaya or b'ezrat Hashem, or with God's help. I don't care if you say it in Swahili, but a person has to know, we say we are going out with Hashem's help. Then we bring Hashem into it. Eliyahu Hanavi, Elijah the prophet came into the world just to teach a person that whenever you're going to attempt to do something, always say b'siyata d'Shmaya. I am going with the help of heaven, and then the person will be matzliach, they will be successful. Now, a lot of times a person goes out and this is a very important thing. There is a zivug for each person, and that zivug is min Hashamayim. In Shamayim, it is a zachar and an nekeva. Every neshama is a male and a female. The zachar gets born, goes into a little baby boy, then the nekeva, the female goes into a little baby girl. It was one. They spend their time in this world in Queens and Brooklyn and Los Angeles and Idaho, no matter where they're at in the world, Australia and England and Ireland and Dublin and doesn't matter. And eventually, they're going to find each other again. The same neshama is going to unite, reunite, and that is the zivug. Now, a person has to know that sometimes we have the zchut to meet our zivug and we don't know about it. It's similar to the great Vorker. I just want to say it for one moment, the Vorker, the great Reb Itzik of Vork, he told a chassid who wanted to see Mashiach. He wanted to see Mashiach. We would all like to see Mashiach, right? Bezrat Hashem. So, he told him that you should go to the train station, come early in the morning. The very first train that comes in, the first man that comes off the train is going to be Mashiach Tzidkeinu. Maaseh shehaya, it happened. So, he goes down to the train station. It's over in Poland. The first guy that comes, he thinks he's Polish, so he says to him, "Good morning." in Polish, "Dzień dobry." First guy just walks past him. He goes to the Vorker and he says, "Rebbe, you told me the first guy that comes off the train, that's going to be Mashiach and it didn't happen." So, the Vorker said, "You know, when you saw the first guy, what did you say to him? You told him good morning in Polish. We think Mashiach speaks Polish? YOU GOT TO TALK TO HIM BE MEKABEL IN THE proper way. You got to accept him, you got to receive him. The same thing is a person goes out on a shidduch, right? So, a lot of times they say, uh I don't know, wasn't the right one or must have been a mistake or I don't know why, uh no, no, no, no. A person that goes out, they've got to know lo kach pashut, it's not so simple. If they met, there is something behind it. They've got to look a little bit deeper. How many people go out the first time? No, not for me. No, no. You know they sent out with me. Who do they think? They don't realize who I am. If they would realize my magic eyes, they'd send me out with a whoa person. Don't don't be fooled. Why? Because a lot of times a lot of times, there is a clipa that holds people back from getting married. Sometimes a person meets a bashert. They meet the one who and they talk foolish to them. She ain't no brain. And they could have gotten the whole thing off the ground. They could have gotten married. That's what we always have to remember. We are looking for the next. We are looking for the next person in the Who knows if it's not that person that we've met. Couple got together, they were good friends. Good friends. Friends? Ain't no such a thing as a platonic relationship. Friends means it should grow to be something. Somebody wants to say friend, I got a lot of friends. You don't need boyfriends, you don't need girlfriends. You need a marriage partner. You got to get married. Someone's interested in friends, it's not your man. It's not your girl. You want to have somebody who is interested in setting up a bias level one be Israel. So, this couple they went out friends friends they would say, "Why don't you get married?" No, no, no, we're friends. It's not Marriage is one thing, friends is the other thing. So, they went out as friends. Okay, after a while they sort of split up. They weren't so friends anymore. 10 years later, they both still weren't married. 10 years later, somebody came and said, "You know, I met an unbelievable guy. And this guy, Shimon, I want to tell you, I think he's just what you're looking for." Shimon who? Shimon? Oh, no, no, I know him. We We We were very really close friends. What do you mean you're friends? It's a shidduch. The person got on top of it, believe it or not, would not leave it alone. The couple went out. 10 years later after they first met, they decided to get engaged. I was invited to the wedding. They called me up to the chuppah. As I came up to the chuppah, the caterer was standing there by the chuppah. I'll never forget it. And he said, "You know something? They knew each other 13 years. I didn't know that. He said, "Tonight, I could have been making a bar mitzvah for them." We have a lot of times Hashem sends us a beautiful matana, but we have to know. We have to ask a lot and we should ask das Torah. We should ask the somebody who can answer whether it's true, whether we should leave it go, or whether we should continue. Okay, hishtadlus. Let's talk about it for a minute. Hishtadlus, how much effort do I have to make in order to get married? Okay. What's the effort? The effort is, of course, I have to go to a shadchan. Do you know how many times a person will say, "My parent wanted me to go to another shadchan. I saw enough already. I had enough of this. I'm not going to another person." You can never tell. The next person might be the right person. Maybe up until now it wasn't the right one. This one could be the right one, and it doesn't matter who it is. I want to tell you, I made a shidduch for a person and I didn't even try. I basically what I did was, I had two people that came to an evening shiur, and I told the guy I'm going to help him out, and the girl came and she was from a foreign country and I had nobody to suggest to either one. I'm going to tell you. So I said to the guy, she's from a foreign country. I said to the guy, "Listen, I tell you, I don't think you take the regular kind of girl. You need something like foreign, exotic, something for what this is better for you." He says, "Reb, you really think so? What can I do?" I said, "Yeah, I think so. Go out." So they went out. They went out. I told him when you go out right now because you had a So he calls me up all upset. I said, "What's the matter?" Is she a nice girl? Reb, she's a very nice girl. But she doesn't speak English. I don't speak her language and we haven't said anything. I said, "School of Shalom Bayis, you never get into problem that way." He said, "What should I do?" I said, "Go to Barnes & Noble." All right, get yourself a dictionary with the English and with that and then you can have great conversation. So for the rest of the night they went like this, "Hi." Yeah. How? Bye. You. They got one sentence down. Believe it or not, ma'aseh she'aya they got married. They got married. Did I try anything? I put them together. That was the whole thing. Just put it together. And there were others like that as well. We have to know that hishtadlus means that a person is open, they're willing, they're ready. I am going to do something to better myself. It doesn't have to be hishtadlus that is great. Hishtadlus mu'etet, small, little thing will also help. Smallest amount of hishtadlus, but it should not be hishtadlus. It shouldn't be effort that is desperate. It should be in the proper way. What do I mean? If you remember Yosef Tzadok, right? So, he was trying to get out of the the base hasuri. He was trying to get out of prison. So, he asked the Sarah Mashkim. What did he say to Sarah Mashkim? He said to him, "Please." He said to the butler, "Micha, let's go." He said to the butler, "Remember me. Remember me when you get back to the house of Paro. Remember me and put in a good word for me." Now, we know that the Sarah Mashkim completely forgot about him. Completely. Why? The answer is is because Rashi tells us he believed in a flesh and blood. He said, "Will you call and remember me to Paro?" He had to sit another 2 years in Tvisa, in prison. Two additional years in prison. Can you imagine what that meant to somebody who is a Tzadok like Yosef? And for him it was torture every day in that place was torture. So, what was the problem? Chazon Ish asked the question. What he did was correct. You have to make hishtadlus. What else could he do? He was in the prison. What he couldn't do anything else. He couldn't you know, ask President Trump for a pardon and take him out of the Egyptian prison. He couldn't go and ask somebody who is a you know, with the individuals that go and they try to lobby on behalf of the prison. He couldn't do anything. That was the most he could do. Says the Chazon Ish, "Yesh hishtadlus, yesh hishtadlus. You got to make it in the proper way." This man, the Sarah Mashkim, was a ba'al ga'avah. Ba'al ga'avah is an ego person. Ba'al ga'avah. Ba'al ga'avah, the type of person he is is you sat next to him in the wedding the night before for 5 hours. You thought you made a new friend. The next day you see him walking down Main Street and you go, "Hi, how are you?" Do I know you? Did I ever meet you before? Bal Gaiva, he's so full of himself, he has no room for others. That was the Sar Hamashkim. Not only that, the Sar Hamashkim was very low on the totem pole. With a blink of an eye, he would be back on death row. He had no say in the court of Paro. So, because of that, he had to stay another 2 years in the base of storm. When we make hishtadlus, when we make our own effort for shiduchim, we should be very careful because we want to make an effort in the correct way. We want to go in the right places, we want to speak to the right people. We want to try the right things, al pi Torah. If we're not sure if this is the correct way or this computer is the correct way of doing it or that side or they ask me this or ask me that, ask a sheila, ask a rav, ask a rabbetzin. See if it's the correct way to go or the incorrect way to go. But, hishtadlus is very important. They once asked Rav Shach, they heard that there is a shidduch that is available in Australia. Father heard this. See, ask Rav Shach, is he obligated to travel to Australia to see Rav Shach said, "Yeah. Travel to Australia, see if it's the right person and perhaps that's the right one for your daughter. So, an individual should know that it requires hishtadlus. A person came to me and I've been asked this sheila a number of times. A person had a ticket to go to Eretz Yisrael in between terms, right? It's uh intersession, midwinter break. They got the ticket already to go to they have it lined up. They're going to go. They're going to be in Jerusalem and they're going to be over here and all different places they have it wound up. All of a sudden they got a shidduch. And the guy's in and he's ready to go out right now. But she has a ticket to Israel and the tours and everything set up. So, her father made her call and ask a shaila. Her shaila is do I go to Israel or do I take care of the shidduch? What do you do? One is a person's whole life ahead of them. The other is the plans. It'd be so great to go to Israel, but that's plans for the midwinter break. So, I said would you like to get married? Rebbi, 100% what do you think? I said, so what's the shaila? So, she said, Rebbi, are you telling me to cancel my plans? I said, no. Reserve the ticket. After shiva brachot, go for honeymoon together with the chatan. Now you already have one ticket. No, no, you serious I got to I got to cancel it? I said, of course. What are you kidding me? You'll be back in 2 and 1/2 3 weeks. You want to wait that long? You know what happens when you wait and you got the matzah ready to be baked in the oven? He said, wait a minute, I just got to wait a half an hour. I need to go and outside and get some water or what a little breath of fresh air. You come in, you got a whole thing, beautiful bread, loaf. Throw it out. No way. mitzvah ba'ah leyadcha al tachmitzena. The mitzvah that comes to your hand, don't wait. Do it immediately. You got a chance to do something, don't delay it. That is what we call he started loot. It doesn't have to be major, it just has to be enough that a person says, "I am ready to go. I'm ready to go on it." Hashem helps us in a thousand different ways in order to know it. But, I just want to say, be very, very careful. And I'm going to answer this and I I want to tell you the reason that I'm going into some of the practical applications and the incidents is because I think people need his look. They need great his look. They need encouragement in the whole area of shidduchim because a lot of times someone says, "Yeah, it's going hard and then I heard that story and I heard that bad story and this bad story." So, they on Torah anytime, Torah anytime together with Hashem Zach printed out a sheet about something that happened just this past week. And it was a story that I had said over and they sent it out to everybody. So, immediately somebody wrote and said, "Isn't that an unbelievable thing that happened? But, is that like a school law that doesn't usually happen or whatever it is?" I am telling you in the area of shidduchim, a person can pray school law. A person can learn. A person can sponsor a sheer like this. There is nothing greater in this entire world, nothing greater than the world. These are things that the Torah says that a person is allowed to do. These are things that will help an individual in order that they should be able to come closer to the time of their shidduch. That's why I say it over because I want everybody to have his look. Everybody. Don't worry about trying these things. Say shalom Add that in. Don't go and make a shidduch for another person. It's certainly me that can I get me that. All of these things help and they help greatly. And that's the reason why I say it. So, anyhow, a brocha is also not bad. Alte Becher's had yet. Kala beinacha, the brocha of a simple person, don't think that it's simple in your eyes. There were a group of secretaries in a Orthodox organization, Torah organization, and I came out and one of them, feisty one of them, good-natured, laugh a lot, says, "Rebbi, give me a brocha." I looked at them, they're laughing. I said, "What do you want a brocha for?" I already know it, but I said, "What do you want a brocha a shidduch." So, I don't know. It was near Purim, I was in a happy mood. I said, "You should get an unbelievable chasidishe chassan." This person was far from a chassidic chassan, right? So, she said, "Me? I know." I said, "Don't say it. You can never tell what Borei Olam has for you. You can never tell. You think you know. You think you got it all planned out in your own mind. Who and what and how and the look and the age and the time and the ho ho the bank account the money the you don't know nothing. We don't know anything. Ki lo machshavosai machshavosaychem machshavosaychem. He said, "I bring him everywhere." Machshavosaychem. Because my thoughts are not your thoughts, right? Hashem says, "My derech is not your derech." Do you know how many times a person thought it's exactly and I will tell you a Torah in a moment. So, I told a girl, "Don't you say ever." All of a sudden, she feisty one got all serious. I said, "There's only one thing to say when somebody gives you a brocha, you say Amen. Amen. So, she said it. I walked out from the room. I left. A while later, I get a call on the telephone, maybe uh 6 months. Rebby, this is so-and-so. I said, "Yes." I became a kallah. Mazel tov. It's unbelievable. B'shaa tovah u'mutzlachas. Wonderful. Yeah, but you're not going to believe the chassan. He is the grandson of one of the great chasidic rebbes. He wears a shtreimel, a bekeshe, and she says, "And get this, the socks, too." I said, "It serves you right." You can never tell. She thought she's going to get the chassan, the man on the campus that walks around, the varsity jacket with a, you know, U over there, whatever, Yeshiva Ponevezh, right? Yeah, I said, "You thought." But it didn't happen that way. "Oh, no, I thought he was going to be from there, but he ended up being over there." Oh, no, no, no, I thought he was going to be tall, but he wasn't that tall. "No, I thought he was going to be here." No, from my neighborhood, Borough Park. And nebach, he came from Flatbush. All that things, we never can tell where, when, how, and why. Says the great Vorker, "Why does it say zivugo shel Adam, to make a shidduch is kashe k'krias Yam Suf?" As a difficult as splitting the Red Sea. So, everybody so knows, was it difficult to split the Red Sea? Says the great Kotzker and the Vorker the following, that when Bnei Yisrael were running away, the Mitzrayim were running behind them. Mamash, ready, running, running. Bnei Yisrael were running away. It was unbelievable. As they were running away, they never thought that they could turn back because they were were From the side were wild animals in the forest, they couldn't go in there. That was death. In front of them was the river, the Yam Suf. Never in a million years did they think that the Yam Suf is going to part and they're going to go on a dry land. Dry land parched in the middle of that water. Imagine, it's unbelievable that it was dry land. You think about it for 1 minute. You look at the East River. You go down Harlem River Drive. Can you imagine that that water goes and you can walk on dry land in the middle? That's unbelievable. That is unbelievable. All of a sudden, something they never thought could happen opened up. Bnei Yisrael walked on a dry land. Says the worker, the same thing as the shidduch. No, I thought it was going to be that one. No, I thought it was going to be this one. No, I thought it was going to be from that neighborhood or from this neighborhood or from that job or from this job or I thought he was going to work for He done a brute, but it came a different way. Haha. Not so simple. It happens in a way that we will never know. Hashem says I have a chatan prepared for you. I have a kallah prepared for you. But, the way that it's going to come to you is going to be something special. That's what a person has to be open for. When you go and you hear that there is a shidduch there, you don't start to ask a million questions about it. All you got to know is Me'eis Hashem hoysoh zos, hinei flos beinenu. This is from Hashem. I will try it. I'll make my hishtadlus. I will pray. And if it was meant for me, I will try to hold on to it. But, sometimes a person gets mixed up. They ask me, "What is the ikar? What do you look for? What do you look for in a guy? What do you look for in a girl? What's the main things? What should I be worried about? What I shouldn't be worried about?" If I tell you the things that people sometimes are worried about, they getting lost. THEY'RE GETTING LOST. THEY DON'T EVEN REALIZE WHAT'S GOING on because they're all worried about this trivial incident or this little thing or that little thing, something that is really non-consequential, inconsequential whatsoever, does not have anything to do with reality. But, they're all worried about it. They make it a big deal. Well, let me tell you something. Uh there's a great Reb Meshulam Igra, Reb Meshulam Igra. He has a safer that is so deep, when you read it, it's difficult to understand even a line. Sometimes it's so hard to read, you you're going to close the safer because it's difficult to read. Okay? When he reached the age of shidduchim, so there was a wealthy community member, wealthy man, that wanted to have him. And there was a minig that when you want to have the guy for your son-in-law, you invite him to your house and you give him a seudah. Now, there's all kinds of laws. You're supposed to set the table, but the guy's not supposed to eat until after you're engaged. That's the custom, okay? And sometimes they test you out like that. But, the custom in those days were that you invite the guy and he eats. So, they invited Reb Meshulam Igra, wealthy house, he comes in, the table is set, "Whoa, unbelievable. Everything, sushi, everything, okay?" Set up. And Reb Meshulam Igra sits down. And the girls they're in the room, right? Now, at that time, as the interesting thing, they just came out with coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Now, in our days, you cannot live without coffee. Coffee is like air. You got air, you got coffee. It's an important thing in life. In those days, only the very wealthy people were able to afford the coffee. Reb Meshulam Igra came from a poor house. He didn't know what coffee was all about. So, what did they do? They offered him a cup of black coffee. They put with it also they had the milk, and then with the milk they also gave him the sugar. Reb Meshulam Igra, he didn't know what to do with it. So, he began to think, "What should I do? How does a ben Torah analyze the way that he's supposed to eat? The way he's supposed to drink in a Torah? What does it say? That achila comes before shtiya. You eat before you drink. So, he took the sugar and he began to eat the sugar before he drank. Okay, everybody knows. So, when he was done eating the sugar, then he had to decide what do you drink first? Do you drink the black liquid or do you drink the white? So, there it says in the Gemara that the layla kodem leyom, that the night comes before the daytime. So, what he do? He says, "I better drink the black before the white." So, he drank down the black. And then afterwards, he drank the milk. When he finished, there was some grains on the bottom of the thing. So, he took a spoon from the sugar and he began to eat the grains from the bottom and he finished it up. The kallah, who was watching this whole thing, feinschmecker, when she saw what was going on, she said, "This is ain't the guy for me. He is uncouth, unlettered, not cultivated, a person who has no culture." And she called her father into the kitchen and she began to cry. And he said, "What's the matter, my daughter?" And she said, "Do you see what that chatan just did? Do you see what went on with him? Do you see what he did with the coffee and they ate the sugar and the milk and who knows what he's going to do next over there? Oh, man. The father said, he is a safer Torah katan. He is a small safer Torah. Oh, she said, you know what you do with a small safer Torah? You put it in the Aaron Kodesh. You don't do mishigas with a safer Torah. You don't make a shidduch with it. You put it there. No matter what the father said, of course, the daughter don't want no part of it. And in the meantime, it broke apart over the milk, the coffee, the sugar. Terrible. A while later, the girl found a different shidduch. She got married. And of course, Reb Meshulam Igra, he found another shidduch and he got married. Years passed. 17 years passed. Gematria tov. 17 years passed and that gvir, that rich man, the father of this daughter that refused Reb Meshulam Igra, came to the house where the great rav of Breslau, Reb Yeshaya Pick, was. Reb Yeshaya Pick was there. And Reb Yeshaya Pick is walking back and forth and back and forth. Troubled looking and he said, and he's got a letter in his hand and he's walking back and forth. He looks like he's so troubled. He found something out. So, the gvir gvir said to him, uh can can I help you? Can is there something that I can do? You look very upset, very worried. He says, how could you help already? How could you help me? And he kept walking back and forth with it. You could see the pain on his face. Finally, he said to him, tell me anything at all. How can I help in any way? The rab saw that the man really wanted to help. So he said, "I tell you the truth. I got this letter from an avreich, from a young man, unbelievable talmid chacham, and he wrote me such a chiddush with a question. I got no idea how to answer it. I've never seen the depth of this person, whoever's writing this letter. I cannot ANSWER THE QUESTION. IT BOTHERS ME. I'M SUPPOSED TO BE THE RAV OF BRESTLAV, AND I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT. I HAVE TO PUT MYSELF completely into it. Finally, when he was finished, he said, "You know something, uh I don't know. On the bottom of this letter, he signs his name. I didn't hear of him. Meshulam Igra." When the father hears that, he faints on the ground. Reb Shaya Pick got very nervous. He the whole family came in. They call a doctor. They start to work on him. They give him water. They revive him. Finally, they bring him up. And he tells Reb Shaya Pick, the father tells him the whole story about his family and the daughter and what happened with the coffee. Reb Shaya Pick said, "If that's so, so you should faint again. Go back on the floor." Mi Yodea? How does a person know who they're supposed to marry? It takes daas Torah. Individual has to be able to ask, or else they could be missing a lot. They don't know. I had somebody, and I'm going to say it out, and it's worthwhile to say it out. The night before a wedding, night before a wedding, the parents of the kallah call me up, and they tell me that it's emergency the kallah has to come in and talk to you about something. What could a kallah come in the night before? I got nervous. Me or deia, who knows what it is? So I said, yes, certainly. 10:00 she comes in. And I could see that she had a heavy heart. She's very upset and she's crying and I said, what's the matter? She said, I must cancel the wedding. I said, your wedding's tomorrow. What's wrong? She began to tell me this and that and so forth and I said, you can't cancel the wedding. You have no reason. She said, I'm rebbe, I'm canceling the wedding. I came here to tell you I'm canceling. I said to her, I've got an invitation. The invitation is inviting me to the city to a hotel. I'm supposed to go. I replied, yes. I'm not a shakran. I don't lie. I'm coming to the wedding. She said, rebbe, you're not coming to the wedding. There's no wedding. So you don't have to come to anything. I said, I don't know what you're saying. I have invitation. I brought an invitation from the bulletin board. I said, here it is. I was invited. You don't believe me? I'm coming. She said, you cannot come. For 25 minutes I argued with her that I am coming to the wedding. Finally she said, you're going to come and the door will be closed. So I said, so fine, I'll stay outside the wedding. What do I care? I'm invited. I said, I'm going. I'm going. I'm not a shakran. I don't lie. She said, rebbe, you can't go. You I'm telling you you can't I said, look, I don't know what you're telling me. I was invited to the wedding. I'm going to go to the wedding. And I'm expecting to see a wedding. Whatever you're telling me, I don't know. You should have a lot of bracha in life, but I was invited. 2:30 in the morning, she went home. Her father waited outside the entire time. Her father calls me 4:00 in the morning. Now, why he thought I'm still up at 4:00 in the morning, I don't know, but I'm a holy guy. Okay. He called me up. He said, "Rebby, I don't know what you told her. I'm not going to ask, but she decided she's going to go to the wedding." The next day, I went to the wedding. They were married b'sha'ah tovah. Happens to be this past Sukkos. I saw the couple and their three children, happier than you could ever imagine. However, at that time, whatever the adversary wants to do to wreak havoc in this world almost spoiled that shidduch. And not only that, but sometimes even before it gets off the ground, he already starts to make problems. An individual has to know in this world, we have to be m'vater. We have to be m'vateret. We have to be willing to give up on certain things. Nobody gets 100% could get 99, 99.5, 99.6, 99.7, but an individual has to go with their heart. They have to go with the will and the desire that they want to be bona abaisam b'yisrael. That is our creed. That is what Hashem wants from us. And then, we can see the person that is good. So, what did a lot of people tell? A lot of people come back and say, "You know, uh attraction koach hamshacha, attraction, right? Attraction." So, they came to the great Rabbi, the great Rabbi Zalman Auerbach, and the guy said, "Hamshacha, the attraction, attraction is not there." So, he a very interesting thing when it talks about the dog ish that the husband and the wife cling together, it's talking about after they get married. After they get married, so of course, that is when the time of great attraction, the most attraction, happens. That's an interesting thing. He says, "What is hamshakha? Mashikha is pulling. That's attraction." We only find that the king an act of acquisition by a donkey. A donkey. You pull him. The shore, the ox in the Talmud. You pull him to acquire him. They got to build together. They got to be able to see the good in the other person. The new the good at the chain. They got to be able to see the charm in the other person before they go out. Both of them have to say together the Noach motzei chein be'einei Hashem 10 times. The Noach motzei chein be'einei Hashem. Noach found chein in the eyes of Hashem. That they should find chein. That's what they should be worried about. How they going out all together. So, you go in the thing, right? What does it say? What's the mission to say? Somebody makabel kol adam. The saver panim yafot. When you see somebody, you say, "Hey, how are you? Good to see you." Big simcha on your face, right? So, what do they do? They get in the car, the guy picks up. Good evening. Good evening. How are you? Okay. What's that? Saver panim yafot. A person smiles. Individuals makabel the other person. They make them feel comfortable. They start talking with them. There's simcha in the air. Right away. Okay, where did you go to school? What was your favorite subject? What did you do? How much What's the What what grade did you get in that? Who was your first grade teacher? Okay, where did your parents go to Okay, wait. What is this? Questions and answers." And everything else. Magna Carta, which state, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Pearl Harbor, first session of the United Na- Who cares? Don't worry about the questions in the checklist. There was a guy called me up the other day. So, he wanted to do, how you call it, um uh on a shidduch, he wanted to check out a shidduch. So, he began to ask me questions. So, after about 20 minutes, I noticed that the questions that he was asking, you should excuse me, were a little bit more intelligent than his actual real intelligence. So, I couldn't hold myself back. I said, "Are you reading these questions from a checklist?" He said, "Rebbi, how did you know?" I said, "No, I just had a hunch, you know, it was something like that." The questions on the checklist are not nogea. We want to know how do two neshamos how do two neshamos relate to each other? What common ground can they can they find? Can they build together? Can they get along with each other? Can they say we are both here and we are a work in progress? I'm going to work on my middos and he's going to work on his middos. And you know what? We're going to compromise with each other. That is the way of this world. That is the way of shidduchim. That is the way that people can get together. And I want to tell you, if you're planning, bezras Hashem, your future weddings or future children's weddings, whatever happens, so there's certain guys and you got to make the table settings, the placement of the tables, right? So, you sit down and you have all the people. And you got this guy, you have him right, you pick him out. The guy's name, Moshe, right? Moshe. And you say, "Okay, we can't put him on this table because he doesn't get along with that guy. Can't put him on that table because he's not good friend. Can't put him on that because he used to be a neighbor with him and they had some kind of a sichsuch and And then, by the time you're done, the only place you can put that Moshe is you can put him in the children's stable with the kids. Hey, he doesn't know them, right? Or you get somebody and you say, "Ah, okay, Save Save him. I can put him at any table and he'll be happy. He gets along with everybody. When a person goes out, they got to go out with the right attitude. The saver panim yafo, I am waiting. Tonight I am going to go out possibly with my kallah. I didn't meet her yet. I'm looking, I'm dreaming, I'm thinking about it. Ulay, maybe it is. Tonight I'm going out with my chatan. Or you have some people, he is guilty until proven innocent. If he can pass enough tests and he'll go through enough hoops, so then maybe I'll see. Hey, we're not going to do it good. Individuals should know that there is a certain amount min hashamayim, they have opportunities that come to us. Those opportunities that come to each and every one of us are golden opportunities. Every moment is another chance when an individual can be happy for eternity. It all depends. The saver panim yafo, do they look with eyes of chein? Are they optimistic? Do they want to see the good in the next person? To see the bad, it's very simple. But you know an interesting thing, another few weeks, right, will go past and we will all be looking for chametz at night, right? We're going to be looking. The night of bedikat chametz, we're all going to be searching around. And we're going to take the candle and the feather and the wooden spoon and we're going to look around for it with the candle, right? Looking around for the chametz is really looking around for ra. Yetzer hara, we clean out the yet sahara from our homes. That's what we do the night of the bedikas chametz. As the great vision sort of a why is it that the next day when we burn whatever we found all the chametz food, the crackers, the Cheerios, the challah, whatever it is, and we burn it all, we also burn the candle. Why? Says the vision sort of a whatever went around looking for bad, you should burn that, too. When a person goes out, we want to look for good. We want to see what's good in this world. We want to see the possibility that maybe she is for me. Maybe he is for me. That is the way that an individual should go. If they're careful and they ask does Torah, don't decide on your own. Don't decide on your own. Take it from somebody that can help along. Be open to it even if you're a person that never asks these things. Don't be afraid. Ask. I have to tell you, I was in camp in Pennsylvania, and they asked me to say per caveau. So, there were a few hundred people that came for per caveau, all the campers, and there were some parents that could stay over as guests. We happen to say what does it say shmona esrei? The chuppah, right? So, we happen to talk about it and I mentioned a gov that it doesn't specifically have to mean that the that the chatan is older than the kallah. You could have it that the kallah is older than the chatan. It doesn't have to be that the guy is older than the girl. And I said that. Afterwards, two parents, they were standing on top of me by the time I was finished, and they said, "Rabbi, we have to ask you a question." I said, "I tell you what, could I ask could I do mincha and then we have to go?" "No." You know what I mean by Mincha? No Mincha? Okay, ask me a question. We're very nervous. Right before Shabbat, our daughter, who's a seminary girl, called us from Eretz Yisrael. The shadchan called her and told her she has an unbelievable shidduch that is chashuv. The only thing is the guy was 8 months younger than her. Nebach, younger than her. They said no. That's not the din. They called up the shadchan and they said, "Thank you very much, but our daughter is only going to go out with somebody who is older." Okay. Now they came to the shiur and they heard what I said, that sometimes the female part could come in before the male part and it's possible that the male might be older. So they said to me, "What do you think that we should do?" So I said, "Well, I would call the shadchan back. I would get her Wait, Rebbi, in Eretz Yisrael right now, after Shabbat, it's going to be So I said, "Okay, I'll tell you what to do. You can say Tehillim for the rest of the night. The morning, the first minute that you can call, you call the shadchan and see if you can get it back together." They called up. The shadchan said, "Wait a minute. You just told me before Shabbat that you don't want your daughter should chos v'shalom go out with a guy that's a few months younger. No, no, we changed our mind. Why did you change your mind? Well, we'll tell you honestly, Reb Goldwasser was in the camp and he gave a shiur." Reb Goldwasser? Reb Dov Goldwasser? Do you know if you're telling me that he said it, I'm going to let you slide. If he's If he said that, I'm going to try to get it back on. I don't know to this day who she is. I don't know how she knew me, what the case was. They got it back on and they were married b'sha'ah tovah u'mutzlachat. A person has to be careful. Everything that we do is according to Shulchan Aruch. We get up in the morning, the sleeve that I put on first is Shulchan Aruch. The clothing that I wear, Shulchan Aruch. The materials of my clothing, Shulchan Aruch. When I sit down to eat, Shulchan Aruch. When I go to my business, how much I'm uh charging and what kind of sales I have in my return policy, Shulchan Aruch. When I come home and every single thing during my day is dictated by Shulchan Aruch. The most important parashah in a person's life, the parashah of shidduchim, of marriage and family, has to be according to Shulchan Aruch. In the z'chus of tonight's shiur, we should hear besuros tovot all over the entire world. And all the people that come to Chazak, we should hear besuros tovot by each and every one of them. All the people listen to Torah anytime in the whole world should hear besuros tovot. The entire Chida Bruta IN THE ENTIRE WORLD should have besuros tovot and we should hear the great news of Mashiach Tzidkeinu bimheira b'yameinu. Amen.