Rabbi Peretz Chen | Avoid heartbreak - get married through a shidduch!

00:00 Hello to you all. Last week, a close friend from the neighborhood told me something very moving. His wife, thank G-d, is pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. And this pregnancy is no small thing. His wife went through a very difficult medical procedure, and it is by no means a given that, thank G-d, she is pregnant—and with twins, a boy and a girl. They have two boys now, so their number of children is about to double. How wonderful! What a joy! Then he said something that really moved me. He said, “You know what puts my mind at ease?” After all, adding a boy and a girl, doubling the number of children, can also be very stressful. Will we have the strength? It costs money, too. He said, “Do you remember when we talked once, and you explained to me that with every child, two channels come down from Above: a channel of livelihood and a channel of inner strength for the parents? So now, with another boy and girl—two more children—we’ll receive two channels of livelihood and two channels of inner strength.” He said, “That puts my mind at ease. I’m calm. I’m approaching this birth with a very, very calm heart.” Of course, I was very happy to hear that. And this class is about that very point: our effort as against the help from Heaven that comes from Above. Because sometimes we need to know the limits: how much effort am I supposed to make, or perhaps none at all? Maybe we should simply rely on help from Above? What is the formula? What is the right balance between help from Heaven and our own effort? How does it work? We’ll also apply this class to another very significant subject in life: finding a match and getting married. How do you go about getting married in the right way, with the right effort and help from Heaven? And all of this we’ll also

02:12 connect, with Hashem’s help, to the weekly parsha and take from it guidance for life. How should we act? How do we strike the right balance between our efforts and G-d’s blessing from Above? I want to start with a point connected to the weekly parsha, Parshas Shelach. It’s simple and very powerful. The parsha speaks about the spies who went to scout out the land before the Jewish people entered Eretz Yisroel with Yehoshua bin Nun. And there is something very, very strange about this story. What’s strange? Anyone who has learned a little knows that there were many miracles when they entered Eretz Yisroel. When they came to cross the Jordan River, a great miracle happened: instead of continuing to flow downstream, the river began to flow upward. The Jewish people then crossed over the area that had become dry land. The Gemara even records two opinions about how high the water rose. We’re talking about an open miracle, a great miracle, an extraordinary miracle. Later, once they had entered Eretz Yisroel and needed to conquer the first city, Jericho, the Prophets tell us that they circled the city throughout the week and sounded the shofars. On the seventh day, Shabbos, after they circled the city seven times, its wall fell by a miracle. So their entire entry into Eretz Yisroel with Yehoshua bin Nun was accompanied by miracles beyond nature. If so, why, when they were preparing to enter Eretz Yisroel, did Moshe Rabbeinu say that the first to go should be the people of Gad and Reuven, who were the strongest? They were arranged according to their strength. What difference does it make who is stronger or weaker? There were going to be miracles! When there’s a miracle, you don’t need

04:29 strength at all. So why arrange them as though they were going to fight a natural war? And even before that, why send spies to scout out the best way to conquer the land? Why? How is that relevant? There are miracles here. Wherever we come from, however we come, whatever strength we bring—there are great miracles here. Why is all this practical preparation necessary? The answer is that, yes, there are miracles, but miracles come after a person makes his own effort. I will do the most I can by natural means. I’ll investigate the best direction from which to conquer the land, and I’ll approach from that direction. I’ll arrange my people, my army, according to their strength, because that’s how things work by natural means. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu sees Jews preparing and doing everything they can by natural means, He says: Ah, they deserve it. They’re making an effort; it matters to them. I’ll draw down blessing to them from Above. That is how it works. We’ll do our part down here, and the blessing will come, with Hashem’s help, from Above. We began with the story about my friend and his wife’s pregnancy with twins. So how will they manage? Their salary probably won’t change, and their way of life will remain the same. Two more children means twice as many children at home. How will they manage? They’ll need inner strength and money, but they will manage, with Hashem’s help. They’ll do wonderfully, with Hashem’s help. And how do we know they will? Because they are doing what Hashem wants. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants every family to have as many children as possible. It is an explicit ruling in the Rambam that even if a person has fulfilled the mitzvah to be fruitful and multiply, and has a son and a daughter, as long as he has the ability

06:40 and the strength to bring more souls into the world, he should continue to do so. That is an explicit ruling in the Rambam. And when a Jew follows it and does what he can, blessing will come from Above. Help from Heaven will come from Above, and with Hashem’s help, the parents will suddenly discover that they have tremendous inner strength. Just think: two more channels of inner strength. How powerful that is! They have the strength to do it. Suddenly, the parents will see that things work out financially in the best possible way. They won’t lack anything. The refrigerator will be full to overflowing, with Hashem’s help, because blessing comes to them from Above when they make an effort down here. That is how these things work. Sometimes, sadly, people base their decisions on tiny, tiny, utterly insignificant considerations. You say, “What? More children means we’ll have to get a bigger car.” So why are you holding back, for goodness’ sake? You can bring more souls into the world. You can create more life in the world. It says that every soul that comes into the world brings the Geulah closer. You’re fulfilling an explicit ruling in the Rambam, as I mentioned earlier, and your little consideration is one more seat in the car? For goodness’ sake! Is the car you have now even from you? It’s all from Hashem. He gives us everything and bestows abundance upon us. He decides what there will be, who will have it, and how much. So the One Who provided you with your current car will, with Hashem’s help, provide you with another one. Of course, do what you can on your part. We don’t sit with our arms folded, relying on miracles. We make an effort, we work hard, we do our part—of course, according to the rules of the Torah and halachah. We know the limits of each thing, and when we do that, we see blessing and help from Heaven

08:41 from Heaven. So what place is there for minor calculations? And that is how life is filled with... with this. I mentioned at the beginning that we would talk about shidduchim, where I think this point stands out very clearly. There is an argument I hear a great deal: What are these shidduchim among religious people? They meet three, four, five, six, ten times and get married. They don’t really know each other. But look, the reality is that it works well. People marry this way and live happily and prosperously, even though they didn’t know each other for years beforehand or live together for years. And all the experts say that divorce rates in the religious and Chareidi communities are much lower than in the general population. Unfortunately, in recent years there has been an increase in those communities too, and there are many explanations for what has happened and why. I recently spoke with a marriage counselor about it, and he explained to me what has contributed to that increase, but that is a subject in itself. Still, among people who follow this path, the rate is much lower. Why? How can that be? The point comes down to two words. There are two words on which everything depends, and those words are siyata d’Shmaya—help from Heaven. I can know... A man can know a woman better than anyone in the world; he can know her for ten years. But without siyata d’Shmaya, it won’t work. What makes things work is not our cleverness or our brilliance; it is siyata d’Shmaya. So when a couple marries according to the rules of halachah, that is essentially what is called a shidduch. By the way, everyone who gets married does so through a shidduch. Even when a friend says to his friend, “I have someone for you,” that is a shidduch. It doesn’t matter whether he

10:56 is religious or not; it’s called a shidduch. But what people generally mean by a shidduch is that a couple who have never met before—a young man and woman—meet for the first time, meet again a few more times, and decide to get married. Because they do this according to halachah and the standards of modesty, they have siyata d’Shmaya. Of course, you can also explain logically why this is so much better. For anyone unfamiliar with the process: before the young man and woman even meet, their parents find out about the other person and their family. The parents ask: What kind of home will my son become part of? What are her parents like? Do we want our son to join a family like that? By the time the young man meets the young woman, they at least know that the family environment is healthy and good. His parents have already established that her home is a healthy, normal home, with sensible people he will enjoy being with. How important it is for him to feel comfortable in his wife’s family home after they marry! They also ask about her character, what she is like, how she gets along with others, and so on. Then, after the parents have checked that everything looks right, the young man himself goes to meet the young woman, and the two decide whether it feels right to them. When they say they want to marry, what a joy it is! They like each other, and the parents can also feel at ease, knowing that the family environment is healthy. Logically, there is nothing better in the world. Nothing better in the world. Sometimes someone meets a woman in a different way and forms a connection with her. Then

12:48 he no longer cares about everything around it. But the surrounding circumstances do matter in life. They matter very, very much. Who are my wife’s parents, and how do they behave? In a shidduch, these are things you look into beforehand, and that is excellent. It’s brilliant. Anyone with good sense, anyone married with some experience, understands how important these things are. But the main thing is the siyata d’Shmaya in all of it. When you do things according to halachah, according to modesty, according to the Torah’s rules and the guidance of the great Torah sages and rabbis, you see blessing. Then this couple lives differently, because there is blessing in their marriage. And when there is blessing, everything works. The Gemara speaks about two shopkeepers who open stores on the same street, selling the same goods. Both are pleasant to their customers; everything is the same. Their circumstances are identical, yet one store has customers, money comes in, and people buy things, while that doesn’t happen at the other store. How can that be? They have the same merchandise, the same attitude—everything is the same. The Gemara says that one has blessing and the other does not. One has siyata d’Shmaya and the other does not. That is all. It isn’t about which merchandise I stock or how much I smile. Those things are important, of course. As we said earlier, I have to make my effort down here. But the main thing is siyata d’Shmaya, the blessing that comes from Above. That is the most important thing in life. The Gemara there also says, “Have you ever seen a fox who is a shopkeeper?” Have you ever seen a fox selling things in a store? No, and yet foxes live and eat. How can that be? They don’t work; they don’t sell things in stores. So how do they live? How do any animals live? Hashem provides for them. Everything comes from Hashem. For us human beings,

14:41 it comes through work—we have to work—but it comes from Him, blessed be He. That is why we need siyata d’Shmaya. That is what matters: having siyata d’Shmaya. So, the first thing we have understood is that beyond my own efforts, what matters most in life is the blessing from Above, not the little calculations about how we will succeed and what we will accomplish. We need to do what is required in the natural course of things. But when we do that while making our efforts according to the Torah and halachah, blessing comes from Above. As we said, that applies to having children. It applies to getting married through a shidduch. It applies to everything. It also applies to our children. As parents, we must make every effort to give them a good education, help them with their studies, and recite Tehillim—simply recite Tehillim every day—that our children should be G-d-fearing, should succeed, should have good character, and, again, most importantly, should be G-d-fearing. We should recite Tehillim for that and shed tears over it. Yes, that is our part. When we do our part, we will see blessing; with Hashem’s help, we will see siyata d’Shmaya. That is what happened during the conquest upon entering the Land of Israel, which is where we began. They made all the preparations in the natural course of things—where best to begin the conquest, how to organize the soldiers—but then they saw the siyata d’Shmaya, the blessing from Hashem that came down upon them. That is the recipe for living properly, for healthy lives, for lives of blessing and great success. Thank you very much. I would be very happy if you shared this lesson. Share it with a friend, give it a like, share it as I said, and leave a comment. That will help the lesson reach more and more people. May you have much nachas, with Hashem’s help. May we merit blessing for the Jewish people; may the hostages return, amen. May the wounded recover soon, with Hashem’s help, and may not a single hair on the heads of the men and women serving in the military be harmed.

16:57 May we merit the complete Geulah and the resurrection of the dead very soon. Amen, so may it be. Thank you very much.