The sefer Me’Orei Ohr relates the following true incident:
A girl in Bnei Brak got engaged. The father of the kallah went to look for an appropriate apartment for the new couple. Lo and behold, he found the perfect apartment in Bnei Brak. It was a beautiful apartment. The price was right. It had everything that they could want. It would be a 50-50 partnership so the father of the kallah called the father of the chosan and invited him to come to see the apartment.
The mechutan came. He liked the apartment and he was ready to join the deal. The last step was to get the kallah‘s buy in. This, after all, was the place where the new couple would live. The kallah saw the apartment. She was happy. It was everything she had dreamt of. Fine. They walked out of the apartment and the kallah said to her father, “I can’t do it. I can’t take this apartment.” The father was flabbergasted: “But you just told me inside that it was a beautiful apartment. The price is right. Why can’t you take the apartment?”
The kallah explained that she couldn’t take the apartment because she had a friend with whom she went to seminary who lived in that same building and she was not yet engaged. Not only was she not engaged, but she had an older sister, who was also not engaged yet. “If I will move into this beautiful apartment with my beautiful chosan and beautiful parents and beautiful machutanim and everything is wonderful, every time this girl sees me, her heart will drop, and even if her heart will not drop, the heart of her older sister will drop! I can’t take this apartment.”
Her father said, “That is a beautiful thought, but come on – you need to be practical!” These people are ehrliche Yidden, so what did they do? They went to Rav Chaim Kanievsky to pose the question to the gadol hador: Is the kallah right? Should they give up the apartment just because it will make her seminary friend and the friend’s older sister feel bad? Rav Chaim Kanievsky sat there and thought and thought. This was not Rav Chaim’s normal mode of operation. He was usually very quick and terse with his answers. But this shailah gave him great pause. Finally, he deferred the question. He said, “Ask Reb Aharon Leib Shteinman,” as if to say “This shailah is above my pay grade.”
The father of the kallah and the mechutan then went to Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman and they told him over the shailah. They also told him that Rav Chaim deliberated at length and could not come to a resolution. Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman also thought at great length and finally he advised them not to take the apartment. It was not worth causing pain to another girl, and especially to the older sister.
The two mechutanim, who were businessmen but were also ehrliche Yidden, were not about to argue with the gadol hador. They then asked, “Is it okay if we buy it as an investment and at the appropriate time, we will have what to do with it?” Rav Shteinman gave them the okay to buy it as an investment.
They made arrangement for the young couple to live elsewhere, and then on the very night that this kallah got married, the older sister of her seminary friend became a kallah. Then, within a few months, the friend also became a kallah. Both sisters got married and then after both sisters got married, the original couple moved into that original apartment...and lived happily ever after. (R’ Frand)
