Why Shidduchim Feel So Hard: A Higher Perspective
Question:
I feel like the shidduch world is rigged. I go to shadchanim and walk away feeling misunderstood. Some seem to push ideas that don’t fit me, some feel motivated by money or their own agendas, and sometimes I feel like the whole system runs on pressure, half‑truths, and games. Why is it like this? Why can’t shidduchim just work naturally and honestly?
Answer
There is a foundational teaching of the Alter Rebbe that sheds light on exactly this experience. It explains that unlike most things in life, shidduchim do not come through the ordinary hands of nature. They come directly from God, because shidduchim are considered extremely lofty, sublime, and above the natural order.
To show this, our sages tell of a gentile queen who tried to demonstrate that matchmaking is simple. She lined up one thousand male servants and one thousand female servants and tried to pair them off “naturally.” Not a single match worked. Her failure was meant to reveal that shidduchim cannot be forced into a neat, predictable system. They operate on a plane that transcends human calculation.
For this reason, making a shidduch is compared to krias Yam Suf, the splitting of the sea — an act that broke the rules of nature entirely. The teaching is that the right match comes from a place beyond logic, beyond planning, beyond human systems.
So why, then, do shadchanim sometimes feel confusing, imperfect, rushed, or frustrating?
Because when something comes from above nature, it often does not travel through this world in a smooth, natural way. The process can look messy. People may misunderstand each other. Communication can be imperfect. Sometimes things are presented indirectly, or information is held back, or negotiations become complicated. These aren’t ideal behaviors — but the teaching explains that this is part of the inherent difficulty of trying to bring something supernatural down into the realm of human nature.
At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge something else:
Even though some shadchanim may act unprofessionally or insensitively, many do their work lishmah. Many genuinely care, invest deep effort, and carry emotional weight on behalf of others. Their work is not simple, and they often get caught between families, expectations, and pressures far beyond their control. Their imperfections are human, not malicious.
But the deeper comfort is this:
Your shidduch does not depend on any person’s flaws or mistakes.
Even if the process feels chaotic, the match itself comes from a place far above all of it.
Just as the sea split in a way no one could have predicted, the right shidduch will come to you even if the path toward it feels unnatural, indirect, or confusing. The teaching reminds us that the “system” may feel broken, but the One guiding it is not.
Source:
Mamarei Admur Hazakein Mamarei Chazal p. 90 “To understand the idea that a match is difficult like the splitting of the sea, and the story of the Roman matron who had a thousand male servants and a thousand maidservants, and Rabbi Yossi told her that she would not be able to pair them off — and so it was, as is well known. The explanation of the debate between her and Rabbi Yossi was as follows: She wished to argue that a match operates through nature, just like business dealings or other worldly matters that follow natural rules — that if one acts according to the natural order, one will succeed. The idea of business dealings and similar matters is that they operate within nature. But in truth, shidduchim (matches) are above nature, meaning they are not clothed in nature at all. And that story (with the Roman matron) was meant as a demonstration: for if matches were governed by nature — meaning that when two people have compatible dispositions, or when their temperaments are entirely mismatched, one can nevertheless find a balanced middle ground — then among a thousand male servants and a thousand maidservants she surely could have found pairs with matching temperaments. The fact that she could not match them at all shows that because the Heavenly Voice declares “the daughter of so‑and‑so is destined for so‑and‑so,” the match is made not through natural causes. The Bas Kol proclaims and decrees the pairing, rather than the matter being directed through natural reason. For this reason, many shidduchim end up being completed through various forms of distortion or misrepresentation by the shadchan, and not purely through straightforward truth. Why is it not done truthfully, like business dealings? For the verse says “When a man takes a wife…” — yet the explanation is that since matches are not clothed in the garments of nature, natural causes do not help; on the contrary, they interfere. Only through the opposite of the natural order is the match brought into being — namely through error, misunderstanding, or misperception. For the constellations are the root of the natural order, the source from which human intellect and natural causes receive their influence in every detail. And it is known that angels are merely messengers, and anything that is not given to be carried out through messengers — such as shidduchim — cannot be directed by the constellations. Therefore, the match cannot be completed through intellect or through the natural order, but only through a confusion of intellect, for the intellect has no power to finalize it. Even though an intellectual error seems low in comparison to true intellect, since the root of shidduchim is above intellect, it cannot clothe itself in anything except something that opposes the intellect and confuses it, as explained above. And this is what is hinted in the phrase “He Himself makes matches” — meaning, not the agents of influence such as angels or constellations, but He Himself. This refers to the proclamation of the Bas Kol, like a royal decree issued personally by the king. In such a case, the servants cannot “dress” the decree in their own understanding or carry it out according to their own reasoning. By contrast, when a matter is handed over to a messenger, the messenger carries it out according to their own wisdom. And this is the idea here. This is why a match is as difficult as the splitting of the sea. For the splitting of the sea corresponds to the attribute of Malchus, and the splitting itself represents a level higher than the natural chain of spiritual progression…
