Q&A: Inquiries in Matchmaking — and Defamation
Inquiries in Matchmaking — and Defamation
Question
With God's help,
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask: I came across a puzzling phenomenon and wanted to know whether it is permitted from the standpoint of Jewish law and morality.
Is it permissible to investigate a young man in a very serious way, both in the content of the questions and in the sheer amount of inquiry:
- Pointed questions — less "whether" and more "where," "how much," and "how does it show itself." Also cross-checking previous information — "I heard such-and-such" — against the information you gave, and trying to reconcile the two.
- The number of people involved — an obsessive search for friends and people who met him and taught him, from high school, yeshiva, and on and on.
when the young man being investigated is completely unaware of it and did not give his consent to this inquiry.
Personally, it sounds far-fetched to me that when there is no concrete knowledge that the young man is interested in the match (and in practice has given his consent), it would be permissible to investigate him like this.
The thing is that I became aware of a rabbi who is also an important "educator" who did this, and I wanted to ask whether it is permitted.
P.S.
I’m one of the people he asked, and because of all the overly clever questions, I think I ended up making my friend sound not so great, even though in reality he’s really excellent. For example, let’s say he came out sounding kind of stupid because I didn’t know how to give an example of how his wisdom is expressed. And when I thought about it, I realized I can’t find such examples for other normal people either, aside from various geniuses or oddballs. Whereas he’s just normal.
Answer
First, it would be worthwhile to speak with the person making the inquiry and let him know that the picture he received is inaccurate.
As for your question itself: a person’s consent is not needed in order to inquire about him. But of course the inquiry is subject to the laws of malicious speech. His consent might perhaps permit even things that would otherwise be forbidden.
For this purpose, there is no difference between a general inquiry and asking for examples. But there is also no point in overdoing it. The couple need to decide whether they want to build a home together, not all sorts of matchmakers. The matchmaker is only supposed to do an initial check of compatibility.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t think that’s a meaningful distinction. If the young man is not interested in the match, that may be something else, because then there is no constructive purpose here. But when a match is being put together, relevant facts should be verified.
I don’t understand. The idea in Chafetz Chaim is that you inquire for a constructive purpose, and not in order to speak defamation.
But suppose someone has private "information" about someone else. Then he is only allowed to provide it when "do not stand idly by your neighbor's blood" applies — for example, in order to warn him not to make a deal that would be unfair to him.
But when it is not yet even certain at all that the other side is interested in the deal (and presumptively one should assume they are not),
say, is it permitted to inquire about the reliability of a business owner in order to become his partner, even before the business owner has announced that he is looking for a partner or approached him?
Especially here, where this is apparently someone who is a middleman trying to broker a deal that is not his — can he make such inquiries?