When I got married, I got married relatively young, and I was learning in Kollel (Torah study institute). I was going to be learning in Lakewood. Actually, first in Israel, then in Lakewood. And I had only one thing on my mind: Is this the kind of wife who wants a husband learning in Kollel for a long time? That’s it. I mean, I wanted my daughter and regular things, but in terms of my life, I was thinking about a partner who was going to want to be in Kollel for a long time. That’s all I was thinking about, because that’s all I could see.
Now I look back, a few decades later, and Baruch Hashem (thank God), we were in Kollel for a long time. But then we went to Brooklyn, and a lot of different things happened in my life—speeches and classes and community, and so many different things. I was like, you know what it happens to be? My wife is the most perfect person to have a husband like that. And if you know my wife, you know it’s true. I had no clue I’d be in a school for years after that. I had no clue I’d be speaking. I had no clue about anything. Hashem made the match not for when I was marching down the aisle, which my delusional young little brain thought Hashem made the match for, but for so much longer than that.
I’ll give you a more recent type of example. A few years ago, my son got married—wonderful girl, beautiful—and then, as you know, a year and a half ago—almost two years ago at this point—my son had a stroke. He’s 25 years old. He’d been married for, I think, three years at the time, and he had a stroke. It turns out his wife is not only an incredible wife; she’s unbelievable at handling the whole stroke situation. By the time I got to the hospital, she was already there. “We have this under control.” I’m talking to this doctor. I’m talking to this doctor. She called us up: “You want to get on a conference call?” I’m talking to this doctor. She’s a young girl. She had the whole thing handled. I was like, “One second, Hashem. When you made this match, you knew he would have a stroke?” The answer is yes. He didn’t know. She didn’t know. The matchmaker for sure didn’t know. Her parents didn’t know. His parents didn’t know. But He knew. And at the end of the day, Hashem is the one who makes the match.
And so when you’re getting too offended by the matchmaker, you’re forgetting: Hashem is the one who’s making the match. And maybe Hashem sent this person to push you a little bit because this is the one Hashem wants for your future. Or maybe the opposite. Maybe you’re getting too worked up and saying, “No, no, Hashem wants this person,” and then the matchmaker needs to learn the lesson—the opposite, too. Don’t be too pushy. Hashem is making the match, not you. So you say what you think is appropriate to say. But these people are delusional. The girls, whatever age, and the boys, whatever age, think, “This is such a good match. How could they let it go?” They’re delusional people. Don’t be Hashem. You could talk to them. You could try to convince them. Maybe you could make them realize what Hashem made us realize: you’re not the best person in the whole wide world. And it’s not like there are a thousand beautiful options for you out there. Like our parashah says, Hashem tells the Jewish people—Moshe (Moses) tells the Jewish people—when you enter into Israel, don’t think you’re conquering the land because of you. And when you, a word, don’t look around and think everybody’s perfect. We all have to be mal orlat halev (circumcise the foreskin of the heart). We all have things to work on.
So I think the moral of the story is this. The moral of the story is that Hashem created this incredible messenger that our generation needs, maybe more than any generation did. And that is a person in between who could take a complicated girl and a complicated boy with a complicated father and a complicated mother, and a complicated girl with a complicated father and a complicated mother, and even more complicated grandma sometimes, and put these two people together and come up with a suggestion and make these two people realize that every now and then they get it wrong. And every now and then they are a little pushy. But when they do get it wrong and they are a little pushy, just say, “You know what, if it’s okay, please don’t talk to me that way. If it’s okay, please don’t push. If it’s okay, please preserve my dignity in the process. If it’s okay, the suggestion you gave actually hurt our feelings because you make it seem like that’s the only person we could get.” So you’re allowed to push back. But at the end of the day, you’re not pushing back on a matchmaker. At the end of the day, you’re pushing back and you’re looking up and saying, “Hashem, you’re the one completely in control.”
And every match throughout the history of the world, from Adam HaRishon (the first man) till now—whether they met or whether a matchmaker had a suggestion, or maybe there was some shadchan (matchmaker), whether it was in Deal or Brooklyn or Lakewood or Chicago or L.A., or in history, in the past—every single match that’s ever been made has been made by Hashem, not just thinking about today, but also very much anticipating tomorrow, the next day, and a hundred years from now. So the process is grueling. And you’ll feel it’s grueling if you look at it as a process that’s governed by people. But you’ll feel it’s uplifting and even empowering if you acknowledge it’s a process that’s governed by God.