Q:
What do I tell my friend who’s already getting old but every girl he goes out with, he has a complaint about how she looks? This one’s too fat and this one he doesn’t like her face.
A:
If you want to get married and you’re older, you have to make up your mind that you’re going to lower your requirements. Because the Princess Charming that you dreamed about all your life will not come to you from Mars anymore. No. Once you hit a certain age, you cannot marry beneath a certain age. And so if you can find a woman who is responsible, who has the same ideals in keeping Torah as you do and she is devoted to the ideal of a family life, even though she may be fat and not beautiful, grab her before somebody else does.
I’ll give you an example. There’s one woman I know, one of the very finest women. One of the finest women there are! So someone might say, “Oh, but she has a face like a horse and she has legs like an elephant.” So what? She’s a wonderful woman – a loyal wife and a housewife and sensible. And her husband is happy. She always encourages him. And he appreciates her. He has the good sense to appreciate her.
So listen to Shlomo Hamelech who knows all about it. He had a thousand wives. He knows! שקר החן – How false is gracefulness, והבל היופי – how vain is beauty (Mishlei 31:30). It’s nothing! Beauty is nothing.
A man told me once, when he was a boy he wanted to marry a certain girl. But for some reason he couldn’t. He didn’t see that girl again until fifty-five years passed. And then he saw her again. And he said, “Baruch Hashem, I didn’t marry her.” Nobody remains beautiful for long. But character, אשה יראת ה’ היא תתהלל – a woman that has yiras Hashem of character, that’s the one you have to look for (ibid.). יקרה היא מפנינים – she’s more precious than diamonds (ibid. 3:15).
Here’s a woman, she’s a little overweight, but she’s worth her weight in diamonds. Put her on the scale and put diamonds on the other side, you’ll have to pour buckets of diamonds before it tips the scale. She’s worth it. She’s worth it. It’s very hard to find a woman who has very good character, but they exist. And they may not look so; the label is not so good. The face, that’s the label, may not be good, but the contents are very good.
And therefore, Shlomo Hamelech is the one we have to listen to.
TAPE # 724 (January 1989)
Q:
If a ben Torah has seen a girl five or six times and she seems to be qualified only he doesn’t find her attractive enough what should he do?
A:
If he is already twenty-three years old he should propose immediately. Because I know what’s going to happen. He’s going to become forty years old and he still won’t find anybody attractive.
TAPE # 760 (October 1989)
