Who am I to challenge the gedolim of our generation? I say this with complete sincerity—I have the deepest respect for our rabbanim and roshei yeshiva, whose wisdom and guidance shape our communities. The ongoing initiative to address the shidduch crisis is undoubtedly well-intentioned, driven by a genuine concern for Klal Yisroel. And yet, I cannot stay silent. Because while I respect our leadership, I also respect the thousands of bnos Yisroel who are waiting in pain, their lives effectively put on hold as the crisis worsens. And instead of fixing the root of the problem, we are now telling these girls to wait even longer. The proposed solution to the shidduch crisis is to delay girls from entering shidduchim for an extra year. Let’s be clear about what this means. We are preserving the status quo for boys while telling young women to hold their lives in limbo for the system to “balance itself.” But balance at whose expense? The emotional toll of this waiting period is devastating—helplessness, uncertainty, and frustration. Why is the onus always on the girls? Why should they be the ones making sacrifices? Let me ask a simpler question: Why does a 24- or 25-year-old bochur need to marry an 18-year-old girl? Would it not make more sense to align the ages of boys and girls entering shidduchim, rather than pushing girls back another year? This isn’t just about numbers—it’s about fairness. We have built a rigid, artificial system where boys always have younger options, while girls are forced into an impossible situation. And that leads us to the real issue, one that nobody seems willing to confront. Why do so many boys refuse to date girls their own age? Why has it become the norm for a 24-year-old bochur to only consider an 18-year-old girl? Why is a 21- or 22-year-old girl considered “too old”, while an 18-year-old is seen as ideal? Let’s stop pretending this is just a numbers problem. This is a cultural problem—a mindset that has been ingrained into the system for so long that we don’t even stop to question it. We have created an environment where bochurim feel entitled to the youngest match possible, as if anything beyond that is a downgrade. And here’s the most baffling part of it all: These are boys who have spent years immersed in limud torah and developing their middos—yet when it comes to shidduchim, their primary concern is that a girl shouldn’t be “too old”? Where is this coming from? How does a system that claims to produce Bnei Torah also produce a generation of young men who will outright refuse to go out with a girl just a few years closer to their own age? What does it say about our values when the same boys who spend hours learning about chessed, anivus, and yiras shamayim refuse to even consider a 22-year-old girl—but will happily meet an 18-year-old? This mindset is deeply problematic, and it is fueling the very crisis we claim to be solving. By encouraging boys to constantly choose younger, we have manufactured a system where women in their early twenties—perfectly wonderful, smart, kind, and growth-oriented women—are overlooked simply because of a number. And our solution is to push girls to wait even longer? This is not a solution. […]