Q&A: Covert Exploitation
Covert Exploitation
Question
A woman in the neighborhood sometimes volunteers to watch children at a playground. From knowing her, I assume that she would not be willing to watch a non-Jewish child. There is one non-Jewish child, and to the best of my knowledge the volunteer does not know this. Am I obligated to tell the volunteer? Is the child's mother (a non-Jewish woman) obligated to tell the volunteer? Does the question depend on whether, in my view, the volunteer's unspoken condition is legitimate or illegitimate?
Answer
Certainly you have no obligation to tell her, regardless of whether that principle is proper or not. If it is important to her, she should check. To be sure, beyond the letter of the law there might have been room to tell her if the principle itself were proper. But in my opinion that is not the case here.