They didn't want my daughter, but I knew the shidduch was bashert
T
he other day, I was sitting at a simchah beside a woman from ~my neighborhood who has a 26-year-old single daughter, and she was telling me how hard it is to get a yes from a good boy. “Just yesterday another boy said no to my Yocheved,” she lamented. “And this boy sounded so perfect for her! But I guess it’s not bashert. Besides, if they don’t want me, I don’t want them.”
I suppose this woman expected me to validate her high-minded approach, or at least cluck my tongue empathetically and murmur something about how impossible shidduchim are for girls these days. Instead, I responded by telling her a story.
Rivky Kleinhart was the youngest of 11 children, a beloved bas zekunim. Her father had learned in kollel for about ten years after his marriage and had then become a third-grade rebbi, while her mother worked as a preschool morah. When the Kleinharts started marrying off their children, when Rivky was just a toddler, the need for more money became acute, and Rabbi Kleinhart decided to try his hand at business.
To everyone’s shock, Rabbi Kleinhart’s first business venture, a wholesale paper-goods supply company, proved to be a resounding success. After several years, he sold the business for a handsome profit, and with the proceeds of the sale he was able to not only marry off his children and help support them, but also to invest in the stock market. His investments prospered, and by the time Rivky graduated elementary school, her father was a wealthy man. At that point, he decided to become a kollel yungerman once again, managing his investments bein hasedarim and spending the rest of his day learning.
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