My friend sent me an excerpt from “Risk Factor” by Rabbi Yosef Bensoussan, which appeared in the February 5th edition of Mishpacha. I thought it was amazing, just reading it gave me the chills:
Quiet. Then sniffling. Then tears. A lot of tears.
“It’s so much pressure!” she yelled. “Everyone keeps asking why I’m not married yet. It’s like I’m worthless because I’m single.” She was choking on the words.
Tell her to be happy while she waits, my son had said.
“You said you were depressed. What do you think would make you happier?”
“Getting married.”
“That makes sense. I mean, every married person I know is completely happy and content.”
She didn’t react, so I said, “I’m kidding. You need to be happy no matter what your external circumstances are. If you just wait around for a spouse to come and deliver happiness to you, you’ll never achieve it.”
“I thought all my problems are because I’m single.” She said it slowly, like she was rethinking it.
“No, your challenges right now are because you think your problems stem from being single. I can’t change what the world tells you. But you cannot believe your life is worthless because you’re not married.”
She was quiet, like she wasn’t sure she could believe me.
“You have a right to be happy right now. You have a right to enjoy your life while you’re still single. Don’t let anyone make you feel unworthy because you’re not married. Wait for the right one. And work on your own inner happiness. It will make your marriage much better.”
A few months later I got an email from Rochel. The subject line read Good news. Wow, was she–
I clicked it open.
Dear Rabbi, it read. Thanks so much for the help and direction you gave me when I was feeling so depressed. I wanted to let you know that I thought a lot about what you said and I really tried to work on it. It’s four months later and I wanted to let you know…baruch Hashem, I’m happily unmarried.
Chills, right? Someone really gets it.
There was another similar piece in the Mishpacha.
It’s by C.S., here: https://mishpacha.com/acorns-to-oaks/
I do remember discussing this article way back.
I did not remember the details.
SUCH chills!
Beautiful.
Inspiring.
Great food for thought.
And by the way, I think it’s so, so true that if you’re happy single you’ll be happy married.
And that’s what the research shows, getting married gives us a transient bump in happiness after which we settle back to our happiness set point (which we can change, but probably not by getting married!)
I just looked at the quoted article in the comments. It’s really sweet! I’m posting it below:
Pesach fell out that year on a Sunday night. Which meant — I realized with a jolt late Friday afternoon, about an hour before candlelighting — that I had to pick up the clothing from the dry cleaners right now, because they wouldn’t be open on Sunday!
I left the chaos behind me and drove the five blocks to the cleaners. I was greeted by a looong line of frum people — almost exclusively men — who’d apparently had the same epiphany as me.
What choice did I have? I got in line.
But the kindly, bearded man in front of me (whom I vaguely recognized as Rabbi Shmuel Mayer, dean of Bais Kaila High School of Lakewood) wasn’t having it.
He couldn’t have known about the three young children I had waiting for me at home, or that my husband was battling incurable cancer. Yet he might have sensed my quiet distress, because he turned to me and said, “Why should you wait in line? Give me your ticket and I’ll take your things home. You can pick them up from my house on Motzaei Shabbos or Sunday.”
I wanted to break down in tears right there on the sidewalk — someone cares! — but instead I thrust my ticket at him amid profuse thanks and rushed back home to face my life again.
But something was different. Although nothing had changed, everything had.
Rachel Josephs, Lakewood, NJ
Worth It
Yamim Tovim are the hardest.While it’s challenging to be an “older single” all year-round, Succos and Pesach highlight the differences between me and my siblings. As couples, children, and luggage arrive from around the States and Israel, the conversations quickly move to children’s clothes, tantrum techniques, and labor stories.
A typical scene will include toys strewn all over, children crying, husbands helping, and harried mothers serving their little children before meals start. Emotionally, this was very challenging. It had been difficult seeing my younger siblings get married and move on, and over Yom Tov, reality hit hard.
One year, after a ten-day hullabaloo of meals, cleaning, cooking, wiping tears, and playing games, I was left feeling empty.
“Will I ever be this accomplished?” I wondered.
Don’t get me wrong, I was successfully pursuing a career, touching young hearts every day as I stood in front of my classroom, but for over a decade, I waited and wondered and felt inadequate.
All this changed one Succos, the last one before my zeidy left This World. He came home from shul and shared a compliment he’d received about my teaching from my principal’s husband.
Then he looked me in the eye. “For you, it paid to be freed from Bergen-Belsen.”
My grandfather spoke little about his past, but we all knew he’d suffered immensely. But if Zeidy thought that it paid to survive just for the nachas I was giving him, then maybe, after all, I could accomplish even without a kollel husband and sweet little children.
Zeidy, while you’re no longer with us, your kind words live on, giving me strength and courage.
C.S., Montreal, Canada
Mishpacha Magazine