In both cases, Mrs. A. and the young lady did not even try to find out what kind of person the young man was. Was he easy going, generous, saw the glass half full as opposed to half empty; was he hard working; punctual; considerate; sincere; self-sufficient or was he self-centered, impatient, expecting meals and laundry on demand when his wife came home from work?
Instead, there was immediate rejection of the shidduch. And the tragedy is that this girl/mother might have thrown away someone who might have been an amazing spouse; or having met and not feeling they were meant for each other, set him/her up with a friend who might be. A lost opportunity for themselves and for someone else.
In the not so distant past, if someone was kosher and shomer Shabbos, that made him/her eligible for a date. Short, tall, fat or skinny, natty dresser or shlump, day school educated or yeshiva graduate, there was no shidduch crisis because there were no nit-picky degrees of separation. If the couple liked each other as people, they continued the relationship and would try to make it work via mutual compromise and respect. Or they parted if the differences were too great and not reconcilable. But at least they gave it a shot, at least they made an informed decision, and did not allow some vague, capricious, preconceived and ultimately self-defeating baseless bias stop them from cracking open the door. Perhaps it’s time to put aside our inflated sense of “specialness” and go back to the old ways, for the sake of our hapless children and Jewish continuity.
