How to Not Despair in Dating, Part 1

Hodaya asks: “Hello. Maybe you can strengthen me with words that make sense to the mind — but also reach a hurting heart. I’m an older single approaching age 30. Although I believe that everything is for the best, I sadly feel that all my prayers and tears have been in vain — that I’m a lost case and perhaps I’ll remain single forever. I’m growing stronger in my observance, so why do I see all my friends getting married so easily while I, specifically, have been delayed for so many years?

Unfortunately a troubling thought sneaks into my heart against my will: I ask myself, if God forbid, I had never returned to religious observance, is it possible that I would already be happily married somewhere else by now? And if the Holy One truly loves me, why doesn’t He listen to my many prayers? Each time I meet someone I’m sure and I hope that this is it, and then my heart breaks again. Should I keep praying for my match? I would appreciate words of encouragement and good advice for my situation. Thank you in advance!”

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Hello, Hodaya. You are indeed asking painful questions from an aching heart, and I hope I can help with the right advice.

Although I am far from being an expert in these matters, I will try to answer to the best of my ability and also share ideas and advice I have heard from my teachers.

First let me remind you that God loves you very, very much. He knows your pain and understands your heart better than anyone, for He created your mind, your heart, and your soul. There is and will never be anyone closer to you than the Creator, who is always with you. From this, trust that He knows what is good for you and wants your good.

There is no such thing as “chance” in the world

To accept your situation with faith, you must first know and internalize that the hardships you face regarding finding your match were decreed for your soul even before you came into this world — so our Sages taught (Sotah 2a; Niddah 16b).

Every soul is unique and different, with a long past of lifetimes and rectifications (gilgulim and tikkunim) which we cannot know. We have no understanding of Heaven’s hidden calculations from previous incarnations. Of such matters the Sages say: “Do not seek what is beyond you and do not investigate what is concealed from you; contemplate what you have been permitted; you have no business with the hidden” (Chagigah 13a).

Recognizing that there are prior heavenly calculations for each soul before it descends into this world, teach us two lessons of faith:

First lesson: There is no point comparing yourself to your friends. Just as their faces and personalities differ from yours, so too their lives differ, with trials and challenges unique to each of them. They are required to repair different things in this world, because their heavenly accounts are not the same as yours.

In hospitals you’ll find people with much harsher decrees, and in such cases no one asks God why they aren’t in that person’s situation… We simply feel compassion and understand that those individuals were given trials and rectifications different from ours. By the same honest measure, we shouldn’t look at those who received more than we did and ask why we weren’t given what they have.

Each person must look only at his or her own plate. There are lives easier than yours, and lives harder than yours; but you are asked to live your life. Believe that the path God placed you on stems from a special plan designed for you. In line with that plan, you were given inner strengths and abilities unique to you, suited to the personal rectification of your soul.

Accepting suffering with faith

In this world we are like small children who must trust their Father in Heaven in every situation, for He knows better than they do what is good for them — even when He takes them to receive an incomprehensible injection from a doctor. Should the child cry to his father, “But you didn’t take my brother and sister to the scary doctor for a painful shot — so why me?”

The toddler’s intellect is limited; he must trust that his father knows what is best. All the more so with the Creator, who knows everything — past, present, and future, and never makes a mistake.

In painful times, think of God as a surgeon whose actions are carefully calculated to benefit you by repairing your eternal soul — even though the operation is painful. Who among us wouldn’t prefer a painful surgery over, God forbid, losing an arm or a leg? In the same way, God sees the spiritual blemishes attached to our souls in this life or previous ones, and He does everything for our good to guide us to spiritual wholeness in the World to Come — which is eternal, and whose reward is beyond price.

Would you, at this moment, be willing to forfeit your eternal World to Come and receive in exchange someone else’s short and comfortable life here — while that person receives the eternal reward you earned through your efforts and suffering for God with strength? Despite your pain, I am sure you value your eternal life more than this temporary world — especially as a ba’alat teshuvah who knows the courage it takes to withstand the tests of our generation.

In the end we all grow old and leave this world, taking nothing with us except mitzvot: “When a person departs from this world, he is accompanied by neither silver nor gold nor precious stones and pearls, but only by Torah and good deeds” (Avot 6:9).

You can’t “escape” decreed suffering

The second lesson of faith we learn from our Sages, is that one cannot “escape” the suffering decreed for one’s soul, as those hardships were assigned personally even before birth.

The Sages said that even the smallest annoyances, like “putting on one’s shirt inside out”, are afflictions measured out by Heaven (Arachin 16b); how much more so the greater ones.

Since the difficulties regarding your shidduch (match) were decreed for your particular soul before you came into the world, even if you had not merited to keep Torah and mitzvot, you would still have suffered these very same hardships, and likely greater and more numerous ones. Torah always benefits us both physically and emotionally, and eases suffering.

It is a fact that there is no shortage of older singles and divorcées in the non-observant public, where relationships are often built on externalities and career rather than inner values, and certainly without Torah guidance. A lack of modesty and separation in workplaces can lead to serious transgressions and family breakdown; in less severe cases, to marital coldness and loss of love over time.

Your chances of marrying your chosen partner and maintaining a successful marriage are always better within the Torah world. Even when there are decrees and delays, your emotional state will certainly be easier within a Torah environment, where you’ll receive stronger support and guidance in coping with hardship.

Remove these doubts from your heart and trust that God gave Torah and mitzvot to benefit us both in this world and the next. Those who act against Torah suffer more than those who keep God’s commandments, whatever their situation. Especially when harsh decrees and delays were assigned to a soul, the suffering is doubly heavy outside the world of Torah and its guidance.

Your prayers are your spiritual repair

Know that prayer is part of the spiritual rectification required of a suffering person — to repair the flaw attached to the soul in this life or previous ones that leads to such hardships.

None of your prayers and tears were in vain. God gave you these tests because part of your rectification in this world is to pray to Him and believe in His power to save you. God dwells in our hearts and is the One prompting us to pray. Thus, when we pray, we are first and foremost fulfilling His will for us.

Every prayer you have offered has elevated your soul, performed spiritual repairs it needed, and brought you closer to Him. They accrue spiritual merits whose magnitude in Heaven cannot be imagined.

Every prayer, every charity you gave, every repentance you made, every good deed, are recorded and remembered for good and will stand in your merit forever in the World to Come. None of it was wasted, lost, or forgotten before Him: “Blessed is He in whose presence there is no iniquity, no forgetfulness, no favoritism, and no bribe, for all is His” (Avot 4:22).

The Mabit (16th century Rabbi in Safed) writes in his work Beit Elokim: “…The purpose of prayer was not that it be answered, but to teach that there is no one in the world worthy of our prayers except God, and to recognize that a person lacks everything in this world and there is none who can fill his lack but Him. He recounts his deficiencies before God to demonstrate this truth; the reward ultimately comes — but the prayer is not for the sake of the desired outcome alone, lest it seem that if one knew he would not be answered he would not pray.”

Prayers as a “savings account”

You should also believe that each prayer lightens the suffering decreed upon you. Without your prayers, your situation would be emotionally, mentally and even physically harder than it is today.

Prayer always helps to ease and sweeten suffering, to give you strength and resilience to stand firm in the test, to bring good people and good counsel into your life, to grant moments of joy and other pursuits that take your mind off the pain, and of course to mitigate the decree itself.

If it was decreed that you marry after a certain number of years, then because of your prayers that time can be shortened by a year, two, or more, and you will gain those happy years as a result of your prayers. Without them, the match would have been delayed longer. Believe and trust that prayer brings your good closer.

To avoid despair, try thinking of your prayers as a long-term investment — as if into a savings account whose returns are seen only after an extended period.

Who is a greater example than Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher), the greatest of prophets, who prayed 515 prayers to enter the Land of Israel? He stopped only because God told him to cease praying on that matter: “But the Lord was angry with me for your sakes and would not listen to me. And the Lord said to me: Enough for you; speak to Me no more of this matter” (Devarim 3:26).

Moshe had reached the number of prayers needed to break the decree; one more prayer and he would have been answered. Only because, in the hidden realm, it was not good for his mission or for Israel, did God require him to stop. Moshe knew that prayers add up, and no prayer is wasted.

Have we prayed more than 500 heartfelt prayers for our situation? Even if we have, has God descended from Heaven to tell us to stop? We must conclude there is no reason to despair of continuing to ask.

Prayers are preserved in Heaven as our advocates

“In the future, all these prayers will come before God and turn into great and mighty lights in which the holy people of Israel will delight, those who do His will. Sometimes a prayer stands outside because the prosecutors do not allow it to ascend, but at a favorable time this prayer will push its way upward and ascend; for the speech of Israel’s prayer does not go to waste” (Midrash Pinchas).

Due to the importance of this topic, I will continue answering you in the next article and, with God’s help, offer several practical pieces of advice and chizuk.