Faith

The Path Begins Here

Every true Jewish home begins with faith — faith in Hashem, faith in one's own path, and faith that even when the future home cannot yet be seen, Hashem is already leading a person toward it.

Why are shidduchim* needed at all?

There are roads that begin with a first step, and there are those that begin with a question. It seems to me that the path of shidduchim* belongs precisely to this second kind, because right at its very beginning a question almost inevitably arises which at first glance seems simple, but the longer one thinks about it, the deeper it becomes: why are shidduchim* needed at all?

After all, Hashem could have arranged the world differently. Every person could quite naturally meet the one with whom they are meant to build a family, without proposals and investigations, without long days of waiting for an answer, without anxiety before every new meeting, and without all that difficult process so familiar to everyone in the world of shidduchim*. But Hashem chose for us precisely this path — a path that contains searching and meeting, choosing and waiting, hope and worry, and alongside them, at times, disappointment, pain, questions, and a feeling of complete uncertainty.

What, then, does Hashem want from us along this road? I do not want to rush to an answer, because there are questions whose meaning cannot be contained in a single correct or beautiful phrase. Sometimes they must accompany a person for a long time, journeying with them through meetings and decisions, through doors that open and doors that unexpectedly close, until gradually, out of everything experienced, an understanding begins to take shape that simply could not have existed at the start of the journey. That is why I would like this question to remain with us throughout the entire book, unfolding little by little alongside everything else we will discuss further on.

The period of shidduchim*, in my view, does not actually begin on the day a person is first offered a meeting with someone. It begins much earlier — at the moment a person truly understands that they want to build their own Jewish home. Not simply to marry or be married, and not only to find someone with whom it will be pleasant and calm to live, but, with G-d's help, to create a home in which there will be Torah* and holiness, warmth and love, mutual respect, a shared purpose, and the fulfillment of one's mission. It is precisely then that the preparation begins — preparation not only for a wedding, but for an entire future life.

Naturally, during this period we think first of all about the person we have not yet met. What will they be like? How can we know whether they truly suit us? Will we recognize our other half when we meet them? Will we sense that we have finally arrived where we are meant to be? All these questions are important and quite understandable, but alongside them there is another question we ask ourselves far less often: what do we ourselves want to be like at the moment we meet the person with whom we are to build a home?

For the one we will one day meet is also not searching merely for a spouse — they too are searching for a home. They too hope to meet someone with whom they can speak sincerely, whom they can trust, beside whom they will feel calm and safe, and together with whom they can grow. In truth, none of us is searching for a flawless person, and we ourselves are by no means required to enter the period of shidduchim* only after correcting every weakness and completing all our inner work. If Hashem waited for us to become perfect, none of us would ever reach the chuppah*.

To build a home, a person need not be perfect. But they must be ready to learn, to mature, to change, to ask forgiveness when it is needed, to acknowledge their own mistakes, and, above all, to truly make room in their life for another person. Further on we will speak of character traits, birurim*, meetings, feelings, and decision-making, but before all these things there exists a foundation on which the entire path rests — faith.

When faith becomes personal

When we say the word "faith," the first thing we think of is faith that there is a Creator of the world and that He governs everything that happens. But it is precisely during the period of shidduchim* that it becomes especially clear whether this faith has entered not only our general worldview but also our own, very personal story.

We are speaking now not only of faith that Hashem governs the great world, but of the ability to see His presence in the offer that came, and in the one that for some reason never appeared; in the meeting that took place, and in the one that fell through; in the relationship that began with great hope, and in the one that ended just when we had already allowed ourselves to think that perhaps this time it would truly work out. Are we capable of believing that Hashem is present not only in the periods when everything falls into place and moves forward, but also through those long days when it seems to us that nothing is happening at all?

It is far easier to see hashgacha pratit* once a story has already ended and we can look back on it. Sometimes it is only from a distance that it becomes clear how one event led to another, why a certain relationship could not continue, and how a delay that seemed, at the time, needless and painful, later opened a door whose existence we had not even suspected. But life is lived, for the most part, not at the moment when we already know the ending. It is lived in the middle of the story, in the place where there is not yet an answer, where we see only a short stretch of road before us and do not know what awaits us around the next bend. And it is precisely in that place that faith stops being a beautiful idea and must become something a person is actually capable of living with.

Faith does not mean that we know how to explain everything that happens to us. Sometimes, on the contrary, it begins with an honest admission: I do not understand why this is happening. But from the fact that we do not see the whole picture, it does not follow that the picture itself does not exist. Even a person who deeply believes in Divine Providence may ask herself whether Hashem sees how long she has already been waiting, how much strength that last meeting took from her, how much hope she allowed herself to feel, and how much pain remained after it became clear that the relationship would not continue.

It does not seem to me that such questions necessarily testify to a lack of faith. On the contrary, sometimes they arise precisely out of a desire that faith not remain something we know how to phrase correctly, but become a real inner support even when the heart is in pain. There are moments when a person does not need yet another correct answer, or a phrase about how she ought to look at what is happening. It is far more important that someone be there who is able to remain together with her inside that very question, without rushing to close it and without demanding that the pain disappear immediately.

Because faith is not a button that can be pressed to switch off pain, and it does not require a person to pretend that she feels fine when in fact she is struggling. One may feel disappointed, one may grow tired, one may weep over what one had so hoped for. A person can believe with her whole heart in hashgacha pratit* and, in that very same minute, grieve over a relationship she had wanted to continue. Feeling does not contradict faith; it is part of that human reality within which faith itself must learn to live.

Not every closed door means we made a mistake

One of the hardest experiences during the period of shidduchim* is connected to our constant desire to immediately understand the meaning of every event. If a proposal doesn't work out, we start searching for what we did wrong. If a relationship ends, we return again and again in our thoughts to the conversations, recall every detail, and try to figure out whether there was some phrase that should have been said differently. And if a suitable proposal doesn't appear for a long time, a much more painful question can gradually creep in: maybe the whole thing is me, maybe something is wrong with me?

Of course, there are cases when we truly need to learn from the past. Sometimes a person begins to notice a recurring pattern of behavior, a character trait that needs work, a manner of speaking that would be useful to change, or an expectation that makes it hard to see the person as they really are. We will speak seriously about this in the chapters ahead. But the need to learn from one's experience does not mean that everything which didn't continue was automatically a failure.

Two wonderful, worthy, and serious people can meet and still not be suited to each other. The meeting can go warmly and pleasantly, yet not produce a desire to continue, and the relationship can end without either of the two having made a mistake or done anything wrong. Not every shidduch* that ends needs a guilty party, and not every closed door tells us that we made the wrong decision or that Hashem, even for a moment, left us alone on this road.

The very fact that we don't understand why this or that event happened is only a reminder of the limitation of our own view. We see a specific proposal, a specific week, today's conversation and the pain that is right now in front of our eyes, while Hashem sees the whole road at once. Of course, this in no way removes responsibility from us: we must think, do birurim*, consult, make decisions, and undertake the hishtadlut* required of us. But beneath all these actions remains the fundamental knowledge that building a Jewish home is not a random event in a person's life; it is a deep part of their shlichut* in the world.

If we look at the period of shidduchim* this way, our attitude toward it gradually changes. It can still be difficult, exhausting, and at times very painful, but it stops seeming like just a long corridor that must be passed through as quickly as possible in order to finally reach the chuppah*. The road itself also belongs to our story. At the same time, there is no need to search for a hidden spiritual meaning in every unsuccessful meeting or to turn every delay into a riddle we are obligated to solve immediately. Sometimes something doesn't fit simply because it doesn't fit. But even then, this period of our life does not fall outside hashgacha pratit*.

When Faith Changes the Way We Make Decisions

When a person feels as though their entire future rests solely in their own hands, every decision takes on excessive weight. One meeting begins to feel fateful, one poorly chosen phrase feels capable of ruining everything, and a small mistake feels as though it could cost us an opportunity that will never come again. Then we return again and again in our minds to what has already happened, and ask ourselves whether we should have said it differently, whether we asked the question too soon, whether we ended the relationship too early or, on the contrary, continued it longer than was right.

Such thoughts are familiar to almost everyone who has gone through a long period of shidduchim*, but faith helps us see them in a different proportion. It does not free us from responsibility for our own words and actions, but it frees us from the feeling that the whole story depends on our ability to never make a mistake. Hashem is bigger than our mistakes. A person can say something clumsily and then ask forgiveness, can understand something later and behave differently the next time, can err, draw conclusions, and fix what can be fixed. There is no need to go through the entire period of shidduchim* with a constant fear that one imprecise step can knock us off the path Hashem has prepared for us.

Perhaps it is precisely from this hunger for certainty that our tendency to search for signs is born. When we don't know what the other person is feeling and whether there will be a continuation, the time that passed before a reply after a date, the tone in which "good night" was said, a smile, a pause, or a small phrase at the door suddenly begin to take on enormous significance. This is natural: when we lack clarity, we try to extract it from the tiniest details. But faith is not the art of decoding signs and turning every gesture into a prophecy of the future. It allows a person to remain within reality as it actually is, and to understand that we don't always need to know today how the whole story will end; sometimes it is enough to see what the right next step is right now.

There is another place where faith is especially tested during the period of shidduchim* — comparing ourselves to others. It is almost impossible to avoid this entirely. We can genuinely rejoice in the happiness of friends, siblings, and acquaintances, but sometimes, within that joy, a small ache still arises: what about me? Someone younger is already engaged, someone who started going on dates later is already preparing for a wedding, and for someone else everything looked, from the outside, so easy and so fast that our own road, next to it, seems especially long.

But human life is not a competition, and Hashem does not run the world according to one general schedule by which all souls must reach the same milestones at the same age and at the same pace. The fact that another person's road turned out differently does not at all prove that something went wrong on our own road, and the blessing someone else received does not in any way diminish the blessing prepared for us.

Sometimes, however, prolonged waiting touches an even more delicate place. Faith in Hashem remains, but gradually the person's faith in the good that is within themselves begins to weaken. After yet another "no," after another period without suitable suggestions, the thought may arise that perhaps one simply isn't good enough, and that is why no one will truly be able to choose them.

And it is precisely here that it is especially important to remember that faith in Hashem includes also the knowledge that He did not make a mistake when He created us. To every person He gave a soul, strengths, middot*, and particular qualities that that person will one day bring into their own home. Yes, in each of us there remain places that require work, and sometimes that work is deep and difficult, but those places never make up the whole person. Perhaps we do not yet know what our home will look like or who will enter it together with us, but already today we can learn to see the good that we ourselves will one day bring there.

The path itself is already part of the future home

At the beginning of this chapter we asked why shidduchim* are needed at all, and I do not presume to know all the ways of Hashem. But if we linger a little with this question and do not hurry to give it a final answer, perhaps another side of it becomes visible.

Shidduchim* are not only the means by which a person finds the one with whom they will build a home. They are also a space in which faith becomes deeply personal. It stops being merely general knowledge that Hashem governs the world, and enters into those parts of our own story where we wait, choose, hope, err, experience disappointment, rise after it, and continue on the way once more.

Perhaps Hashem could bring every person straight to their future home, bypassing the entire road between the beginning and the goal. But He gave us the road itself as well, and within it we learn to know ourselves better and to truly meet other people, we learn to listen, to choose, to accept that not everything is under our control, and to keep living even when there is no answer yet.

Faith does not give a person a map on which every turn is marked in advance and it is written what will happen after the next meeting. If such a map were in our hands, perhaps there would no longer be any room for faith itself. It gives something else — a quiet but very deep knowledge that even when we do not yet see where the road leads, we are not walking it alone.

And the home that cannot yet be seen with the eyes is already, little by little, beginning to be built along the way toward it.

בס״ד