Part 2
Rav Moshe then debunks certain unnamed authors of seforim who claimed that the Shach in Yoreh De'ah 244:13 forbade a younger brother from getting married first. “This is a total mistake,” writes Rav Moshe. The Shach was referring specifically to a case in which two brothers had both finalized a shidduch and the only issue was who would have the honor of having the wedding first. In this case, the older brother would take precedence, even if the younger brother was more learned.
Rav Moshe then proves his point from the Gemara in Kiddushin 64B that I cited earlier. We learn from there that if a father has both adult and minor daughters who are unmarried, he has a greater mitzvah to marry off the minors (“enlightened” people won't understand this), because his adult daughters share in the responsibility for themselves. If it were true that it was forbidden or otherwise wrong for a younger daughter to get married first, the father would have a greater obligation to marry off the eldest first – and that is clearly not the case.
It is only when the father betroths one of his daughters to someone without specifying which, and he has either multiple adult daughters or multiple minor daughters, that the assumption is he has the oldest in mind. There is simply no basis to argue that a younger sibling who is already an adult must wait for an older sibling to get married.
As for the older brother being distressed, writes Rav Moshe, “On the contrary, it is forbidden for him to be distressed due to the prohibition of jealousy.”
We are not to be held hostage to the emotions of other people, particularly when these emotions are inappropriate. Obviously we should be sensitive to people's feelings, but when asked if a younger brother should delay getting married and even forfeit a shidduch because of the “pain” of his older brother, Rav Moshe would have none of it.
Rav Moshe then added that the father has every right to assist the younger brother. If the father were concerned that the older brother might become physically sick over this, the father would be advised not to assist. However, the younger brother was not prohibited in any way from moving forward with his life because the older brother was upset and claimed it would make him sick.
The questioner had raised one final concern: perhaps the younger brother should refrain from getting married because it would embarrass his older brother, which is a severe prohibition. Rav Moshe replied that here too the younger brother was not inflicting shame on his older brother, but the older brother was feeling ashamed on his own. Furthermore, if the older brother wanted to marry someone of lower social status – as Chazal advise – he would be able to do so, “so how it is appropriate for him to hold back his brother with the claim that it is embarrassing for him, when he wants to be haughty and wait until he finds a woman of stature that he wants?”
Rav Moshe concludes: “It is unreasonable to forbid someone from doing his affairs and taking care of himself with the claim that someone will be ashamed because of this, that he was not successful like him. Therefore, I see no prohibition, nor even anything inappropriate that the younger one should get married first. On the contrary, he merited the great mitzvah of getting married and having children, which one of twenty years is obligated to do, and he does not need to seek spiritual merits to be saved from punishment (for not getting married young), as Rava said and they taught in the academy of Rabbi Yishmael.
“And this is clear according to the law.”
It is simply incredible that this teshuva of Rav Moshe Feinstein is not widely known. For all that has been written and said about the shidduch world, and all the hand-wringing about younger singles waiting for older siblings, I have never seen it cited. It's an open and shut case. Younger singles do not have to wait for older singles, nor should they. They do not have to ask permission to date, or feel guilty, nor should they.
Obviously, they should be sensitive to people's feelings, but ultimately it is incumbent on older singles to overcome feelings of jealousy and embarrassment, and not hold others emotionally hostage. The notion that older singles have the right to make younger siblings wait, or that younger singles should put their lives on hold out of a sense of obligation or guilt, or even ask for permission or apologize, is perverse and antithetical to the Torah.
Moreover, it is reminiscent of Molech, in which some children are sacrificed to (supposedly) protect others. That sort of idolatrous thinking has made a comeback in our days, and has pervaded the Orthodox world as well. For all the talk about the so-called shidduch system being “the Torah way” and protective of people's feelings, it is in many ways corrupt, cruel, and destroys people's lives.
If so many Orthodox Jews approach shidduchim with such warped notions about something that is clear as day, and so many rabbis support this erroneous behavior, there is no doubt that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Let's stop making excuses and rationalizing what is wrong.
It never had to be this way, and it doesn't have to continue to be this way.
What are you willing to do about it?
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