July 9, 2026
A couple once came to me for advice, explaining that they have several children who are older and still not married. "We're embarrassed to go anywhere," they said. "We know that everyone's looking at us, everyone's feeling sorry for us and talking about what's wrong with us and our children." My response to them was clear and simple. I said: "Get it out of your head. No one's looking at you or talking about you. You're making yourselves upset and anxious for no reason. Go out and enjoy. Stop worrying about what other people are thinking or saying. They have their own problems to worry about. They're not talking about you." I explained that any normal adult who's been through life knows that some folks have a harder time than others – in shidduchim and in everything else. Any normal believing Jew knows that Hashem decides who should get married when, and we do not know and are not supposed to know how He decides these things. So many of the things we worry about, that hold us back and that weigh us down, are simply nonsense. Ideas that our imagination came up with but have no basis in reality. Parashat Maseh begins by listing the 42 places where Beneh Yisrael encamped over the course of their journey from Egypt until their final encampment before crossing into the Land of Israel, a list compiled and recorded by Moshe Rabbenu himself. For the most part, these verses just tell us that Beneh Yisrael journeyed from location X and encamped in location Y. The Torah does not tell us