Wednesday, November 7, 2007
A Preview of Coming Attractions
A lot of comments on this blog and on other blogs have to do with shadchanim. Obviously if you are looking for a shidduch or if you are married, you have one viewpoint on shadchanim. Ever stop to honestly look at shidduch making from the perspective of the person who is making the shidduch? I'll be posting very soon on shidduchim from the shadchan's perspective. I know your viewpoint--maybe you should look at things from mine just once.
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9 comments:
Can't wait to hear a good tonguelashing about how impossible I am. ;-) hey, people who would be best friends under ordinary circumstances often clash on the battleground...
Oh, if it comes out quite long, can you break it into parts? It's difficult to get through posts over 400 words in one sitting.
Would anybody ever say the following:
A lot of comments on this blog and on other blogs have to do with being a meshulach. Obviously if you are looking for charity or if you are a meshulach, you have one viewpoint on tzedakah. Ever stop to honestly look at tzedakah from the perspective of the person who is writing the check? I'll be posting very soon on meshulachim from the giver's perspective. I know your viewpoint--maybe you should look at things from mine just once.
G,
For brevity's sake, let me answer this way. You are committing a logical fallacy known as "False Analogy." In short, the fallacy is saying that one thing is like another, that what applies to one thing will thus apply directly to the thing being compared, when no such comparison can be made. Although there is one point of similarity between giving tzedaka and redding a shidduch--they both may result in a mitzvah being done--they are too dissimilar in all other ways to be used analogously otherwise.
Thanks for the lesson.
I disagree.
In both cases one person is performing an act so as to help out the other. It is rather bold of the one who is performing the act of chesed towards another to ask that person to "try and see things from my perspective".
G,
I recently edited a book that Judaica Press published on priorities in tzedaka. Page after page of references where it states that members of Klal Yisroel must give tzedaka--a mitzvah a'sei. There are machlokes on the idea of "maaser" but not on the notion that we are required to give tzedaka. The act of helping someone to find a shidduch is purely voluntary. The Talmud and the numerous commentaries on the Talmud have a great deal to say about the obligation to give tzedaka and not a whole lot to say about an obligation to help make a shidduch for someone. In enumerating the ways to give tzedaka, the highest way is when the person giving the tzedaka has no idea to whom it may be going, and the person receiving it has no idea from whom he received it. There is no question that a person cannot tell the recipient of tzedaka "let's look at this from my perspective."
Shidduch making works far differently. The shadchan and the person looking for a shidduch have to be in contact with each other--I don't think I have ever heard of an "anonymous" shadchan. In a very real sense they are "partners" in an enterprise. When the enterprise is not successful or develops "bumps" it is important to get all the partners' input so as to correct any problems. I would hope that you would agree that it is important to get "both sides of the story" before coming to a conclusion. On the blogs I have visited I am surely seeing one side of the story--the dating experience as seen from the single's perspective. I have also read the complaints that people have against their shadchanim, regardless of who or what that shadchan is. Surely logic and fairness would require that someone ask for and listen to the shadchan's "side."
You're getting lost in the details. Chesed is chesed, you do it because you want to and take what comes.
If the preview is getting everyone this excited I can't wait to see the movie.
G,
So if I follow your statement to its logical conclusion, if I want to do this chesed, red shidduchim, I have to be prepared to take anything that comes? So if someone impugns my mother when a shidduch I red doesn't result in a marriage, I have to take that? And if someone uses language that belongs in the gutter, I have to take that? And when someone lies to me, and I catch them in the lie, I have an obligation to just take it? And if I have a set of rules I work with--like no phone calls after 11:00 pm--and someone willfully breaks those rules, I have to take it? At what point are you willing to concede that wanting to do a mitzva doesn't mean you "have to take what comes" or are you willing to concede that?
Some of those yes and some of them no. The original point here was that shadchanim get a bad rap and that maybe we should take a look at those on the other side of the equation. To that I maintain that the one who choosing to do this act of chesed does so knowing that they ar einvolving thenselves in a stressful environment. It is upon them to more open and more understanding and if needed to be the one to "look the other way". Does that mean that they should allow themselves to be abused, no it does not. It does mean that they need to be above reproach and not necessarily expect the same in return in every case.
--While your examples are "logical conclusions" if taken literally I find it hard to beleive that they would be the standard things that one would need to put up with. Do they happen, no doubt.
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