The Price of the Right to Learn

"I study at a prestigious yeshiva and I genuinely want to dedicate the first years after the wedding to learning Torah. My family isn't wealthy, but I have excellent recommendations from leaders of the generation. And so, I'm offered a shidduch with a girl from New Jersey. I liked her very much — modest, smart, sharing my values.

But when our parents sat down at the negotiating table, a revolting haggling began. My father hinted that, since I'm a 'top-tier student,' the bride's family should fully take on the rent of our apartment for 3 years and pay us a monthly stipend, so I wouldn't be distracted by earning a living. The girl's father — an honest working man with three more younger children — turned pale and said he physically couldn't manage such expenses. The matchmaker on my family's side immediately whispered to my mother: 'Let's pull out, they have no money, we'll find Binyamin a wealthier family.' I was so ashamed. The great mitzvah of learning Torah had turned into a tool of extortion and a commercial contract in which the young man is sold to whoever pays more."