How Lakewood's "Freezer" Fatwa Goes Against the Torah and Against All Gedoilei Hador ...

  

Rabbi Yair Hoffman

There are several thousand more young women than young men currently in shidduchim. Several thousand more young women than young men — in the wealthiest, most educated, most resourced generation of Torah Jewry in American history. This is the documented conclusion of an extensive research survey conducted throughout the litvish yeshivah community in the United States, with the input of leading shadchanim and roshei mosdos.

True – the girls that are hurt are not the wealthy ones, they are not the Roshei Yeshivah einiklech, they are the vast hamoin am.. the daughters of the yungeleit, the struggling baal habatim, and so many others. We have girls who have not received a single shidduch call in months — if not ever.

The Torah commands us, “Lo Sa’amod al Dam Rei’echa” — do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor. The gedolei hador of the previous generation declared in writing that it is assur for anyone who can help to stand passively by. We cannot ignore the needs of half of Klal Yisroel. The time to act is now.

Chochma BaGoyim Taamin

The Midrash in Eichah Rabbah (2:13) teaches us: “Im yomar lecha adam: Chochma baGoyim — Taamin. If a person tells you that the nations of the world possess wisdom — believe it. Torah baGoyim — al Taamin. But if they tell you that the nations of the world possess Torah — do not believe it.”

We are instructed to take Chochma seriously. The empirical sciences, mathematics, economics, the study of how systems behave — these are chochma. And Chazal tell us: taamin. Believe it. Use it.

Our gedolim have applied this principle throughout the generations

Three of the world’s foremost experts in the science of matching markets and queue theory have produced findings that apply directly — with surgical precision — to the shidduch crisis and to the structural damage caused by the Freezer. The Torah tells us: taamin. Listen to what they have found.

Nobel Laureate Professor Alvin Roth, Stanford University

Winner of the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his foundational work on matching markets — Professor Roth devoted his career to studying the precise kind of system our shidduch world represents: a two-sided market where two groups must find each other, and where price alone cannot clear the market. He uses marriage itself as his primary model.

In his landmark paper “Jumping the Gun: Imperfections and Institutions Related to the Timing of Market Transactions” (American Economic Review, 1994), Roth documented a phenomenon he calls “unraveling” — the destructive timing failures that occur in matching systems. He found that timing problems:

“…play an important and persistent role in a wide variety of settings” — explicitly including “marriage in a variety of cultures.”

— Alvin Roth, “Jumping the Gun,” American Economic Review, 1994

Roth further showed that when one side of a matching system is held back and then released in a synchronized wave — precisely what the Freezer does to bochurim — the result is “congestion”: a catastrophic overload in which a sudden surge of participants meets an accumulated backlog they cannot process equitably. In his research on the market for clinical psychologists, Roth documented that congestion left thousands of participants “stranded” without a match — assigned to no one — not because of a shortage of partners, but purely because of the structural timing failure.

The parallel to our situation is not metaphorical. It is exact.

Professor John D.C. Little, MIT

Professor John Little of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published in 1961 what is now called “Little’s Law” — the foundational theorem of all queue theory, cited in virtually every textbook on operations research, supply chain management, and systems analysis. It is one of the most proven and universally applied mathematical theorems in modern science.

Little’s Law states with mathematical certainty:

“An arrival rate exceeding an exit rate would represent an unstable system, where the number of waiting customers in the store would gradually increase towards infinity.”

Professor John D.C. Little, MIT, “A Proof of the Queuing Formula:       L = λW,” Operations Research, 1961

And the most devastating aspect of this law — the part that applies most directly to our situation:

“The relationship is not influenced by the arrival process distribution, the service distribution, the service order, or practically anything else.”

— Little’s Law, as stated universally in operations research literature

In plain language: once a timing imbalance is introduced into a matching system, the backlog will grow — inevitably, mathematically, and regardless of the goodwill, effort, or intentions of any participant in the system. No amount of harder work by shadchanim, no increase in dedication by families, no additional effort by the bochurim themselves will overcome a structural timing distortion. The math is the math. The Freezer introduced the imbalance. Little’s Law tells us: the queue will grow.

Professors Alvin Roth and Xiaolin Xing, on Congestion and Stranded Participants

In their jointly published research, Roth and Xing documented what happens when a large matching system attempts to process too many participants in too narrow a window of time:

“Congestion is an issue whenever a large number of offers have to be made [simultaneously]. The system… stranded [thousands of participants] on waiting lists… assigned to no one or to options for which they expressed no preference.”

— Roth and Xing, as documented in Roth and Niederle, “Matching,” Stanford University/NBER

This is the precise mechanism the Freezer creates. By holding back an entire cohort of bochurim and releasing them at once into a pool of girls that has been accumulating for months, the system is flooded. Bochurim cannot adequately evaluate the full pool. They gravitate toward the newest, youngest entrants. The girls who have been waiting longest — those who entered the system months or years earlier — are stranded. They are not passed over because of any failing of their own. They are stranded by a structural timing failure that science can identify, name, and measure.

The Structural Cause: How the Pipeline Breaks

To fix a problem, we must understand it. The primary cause of the crisis is well-known: bochurim generally marry girls a number of years younger than themselves. Since the Jewish population grows every year, Baruch Hashem, this age gap means more girls enter shidduchim each year than boys — and many girls are inevitably left behind.

But there is a second, compounding structural factor: the timing distortion caused by the BMG Freezer. Any bochur who arrives for the winter zman, beginning Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, must wait three and a half months until the Fifteenth of Shvat before he may begin dating. He signs a written agreement to this effect. The stated purpose was noble: to allow bochurim to become acclimated to their new yeshivah and learn without interruption.

But the road to structural damage is often paved with noble intentions. Here is what the Freezer does to the pipeline:

1. While boys are frozen and unable to date, girls continue entering the system unimpeded. The pool of waiting girls grows month after month.
2. When the boys are finally released, they do not encounter one group of girls — they encounter multiple years’ worth of girls simultaneously.
3. Because of the deeply rooted norm that bochurim marry younger girls, they gravitate toward the newest, youngest entrants.
4. The earlier groups of girls — who have been waiting longest — are bypassed again. Their backlog does not clear. It deepens with every cycle.

The Freezer does not merely delay dating. It synchronizes male entry, prevents earlier participation, amplifies the age gap, and causes each group of boys to encounter multiple groups of girls at once. Each of these four effects independently harms our bnos Yisroel. Together, compounded over thirty years, they have produced the crisis we see today.

The MDSD: Thirty Years of Incremental Damage

There is a concept we must name: the Male Dating Start Date, or MDSD. Over the last twenty-five to thirty years, the age at which American litvish bochurim begin dating has crept steadily upward. What began with a few months’ restriction has become a norm where young men begin dating at 23 or 24, while our young women begin at 18 or 19.

Think of the leading cause of highway traffic congestion — rubbernecking. A car stopped on the shoulder, completely off the road, creates no physical obstruction. Yet each driver taps his brakes ever so slightly to look. That almost imperceptible slowdown cascades backward for two miles, bringing thousands to a standstill. No single driver caused the jam — yet the jam is real, the delay is real, and everyone downstream suffers.

That is precisely what happened to our shidduch system. Each incremental delay — a few more months here, a slightly older standard there — compounded upon the last. Over thirty years, the Male Dating Start Date jumped by years. And because our population has, Baruch Hashem, grown exponentially, each added year of delay leaves exponentially more young women without prospects. This may even constitute a violation of v’Asisa HaTov v’HaYashar — the Torah’s requirement that we do what is right and good.

The Halacha: An Unambiguous Record

The halachic record on this among the gedolei hador is clear. The Chazon Ish, Rav Shach, Rav Elyashiv, Rav Shteinman, Rav Auerbach, Rav Kanievsky, Rav Gershon Edelstein, Rav Yisrael Yaakov Fisher, and lbc”l Rav Moshe Sternbuch — all ruled that a yeshivah Freezer policy constitutes a condition that contradicts a Torah precept and is therefore null and void. The principle invoked by each of them is the same: masneh al mah shekasuv baTorah — one who stipulates against what is written in the Torah, his stipulation is negated.

The Chazon Ish

During the lifetime of the Chazon Ish, a similar arrangement existed in Eretz Yisroel, where bochurim signed agreements not to date during the zman. The Chazon Ish ruled explicitly that a bachur may disregard such a signed agreement — because the yeshivah is guilty of masneh al mah shekasuv baTorah. A condition that contradicts the Torah obligation to marry is null and void, regardless of the signature. This ruling is recorded in Maaseh Ish, vol. 1, p. 290, and vol. 2, p. 206.

Rav Elazar Menachem Shach zt”l

Rav Shach zt”l was asked about Freezer policies on three separate occasions. All three times, he paskened that the bachur should disregard the restriction. This author personally spoke at length with one of the individuals involved. Rav Shach’s words were direct:

“You cannot make a bas Yisroel wait for three months, and if a good shidduch comes your way, it is incumbent upon you to begin dating.”

These were not theoretical words. Rav Shach was speaking about a real bas Yisroel who was waiting. His burning concern for her is palpable across the decades.

Rav Chaim Kanievsky zt”l

Rav Chaim Kanievsky zt”l was presented with a precise, practical question: a bachur must choose between a yeshivah where he would learn better but faces a four-month dating restriction, or a yeshivah with no restriction where he would learn less optimally. Rav Chaim responded in his own handwriting:

“Any bachur — in any yeshivah — is not obligated to adhere to any such rule restricting dating because it is likened to masneh al mah shekasuv baTorah — placing a condition on something written in the Torah, and such a condition is negated.”

Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman zt”l

Rav Shteinman zt”l wrote in a letter:

“Although the common practice is to delay dating until at least twenty, this is only if the bachur himself wishes to delay, but we may not force him to do so, and it is prohibited for a yeshivah to stop a bachur from dating.”

Rav Gershon Edelstein zt”l, Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky shlita, and Others

When the Mashgiach of Ponevezh sought to restrict the Tshalmers — young men from Yerushalmi families who traditionally married at 19 or 20 — from dating early, Rav Gershon Edelstein zt”l ruled that it would be forbidden to do so. [Heard directly by this author from Rav Edelstein’s gabbai on 17 Elul 5772.]

This author has it on good authority that Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky shlita personally called one of the Roshei Yeshivah in the United States and pleaded with him to remove the dating restriction, to help alleviate the suffering of so many bnos Yisroel. At an Agudas Yisroel symposium, Rav Elya Ber Wachfogel shlita stated that if the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah were alive today, the first matter they would address is the crisis facing our young women.

An extensive sefer on this topic — Torah B’Taharah by Rav Kalman Krohn zt”l (1947–2018) of Lakewood, NJ — was published with the approbation of many gedolim. Rav Kalman writes from the depth of his heart, imploring yeshivos to immediately rescind their Freezer policies, stating that in our time and generation there is no heter whatsoever for such a policy

It’s Been Done Before: Takanas Shum

There was a previous shidduch crisis in Jewish history. Young women were not getting married. The greatest Rabbis of the generation convened, assessed the structural cause, and enacted a solution. It worked.

The Crusades, illness, and the devastation of medieval Europe produced a heartbreaking reality: when a young husband died, his wife’s entire dowry passed to his family. Parents, fearing this loss, stopped providing dowries — and without dowries, young women could not find shidduchim. The Gedolim of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz — the communities of Shum — gathered in Troyes in 1160. Among those present were Rabbeinu Tam and the Rashbam, grandsons of Rashi, and the Raavan, one of the early Baalei HaTosfos. Over 250 Rishonim attended. Their takanah reversed the dowry law for the first year of marriage. The crisis resolved. It is codified in the Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 53:3.

They identified a structural cause. They convened. They legislated. They saved our daughters.

We need a Takanas Shum 2.0.

Conclusion: The Halacha Is Clear. The Science Confirms It. The Obligation Is Now.

The Midrash Eichah Rabbah told us: Chochma baGoyim — taamin. And the chochma of the world’s leading scientists in matching markets and queue theory tells us, in precise mathematical terms, exactly what our gedolim ruled through Torah logic alone: the Freezer policy is causing structural, compounding, self-reinforcing harm to our bnos Yisroel. It is not a contributing factor. It is a mathematically inevitable generator of backlog.

Nobel Laureate Alvin Roth identified that timing failures in matching markets cause participants to be permanently stranded — not because of numbers, but because of structure. MIT’s John D.C. Little proved with mathematical certainty that when the arrival rate of one side of a system exceeds the exit rate, the queue grows toward infinity — and that this result is unaffected by effort, intention, or goodwill. The chochma of the nations confirms what our greatest poskim already knew.

The halachic record is unambiguous. The Chazon Ish, Rav Shach, Rav Elyashiv, Rav Shteinman, Rav Auerbach, Rav Kanievsky, Rav Gershon Edelstein, Rav Moshe Sternbuch, and others all ruled: the Freezer is a condition that contradicts a Torah precept. It is void. At 23 or 24 years of age, the requirement to marry is paramount to the kedusha and tahara of Klal Yisroel. The logic is simple: a signed paper stating a bachur will not don tefillin for three and a half months is worthless. So is a signed paper stating he will not pursue marriage.

Some have argued that curtailing the Freezer saves only a few months — too small to matter. This misunderstands how structural damage accumulates. The rubbernecking driver barely touches his brakes. Yet two miles behind him, traffic stops. Remove the obstruction and the cascade reverses. A consistent structural correction, applied now, will change the pipeline over time. Begin. We are obligated to begin.

As a first step, we humbly and urgently call upon the yeshivos to eliminate the Freezer entirely — or at minimum to reduce the restriction so that bochurim traveling home for Chanukah may date. Let them build homes of kedusha and tahara. Let our daughters stop waiting.

V’ahavta l’rei’acha kamocha. This is a mitzvah. It is also a chiyuv. And now — with the voice of Torah and the voice of chochma l’havdil – speaking in unison — we have no excuse to stand by.