Matchmaker, Matchmaker?
Posted by lchaimlover on June 20, 2007
You didn’t really think that after a post about dating Jewish, I wouldn’t have something to say about Matchmakers, did you?
“Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a match,” words that are humorously familiar to every Jew. Once upon a time in some shteitl, a little grandmother would make shidduchs among the good little Jewish boys and girls. These things were of course too important to be left to themselves. This was the person you were going to spend the rest of your life with, make a family with. As time went on, these things gave way to the boys and girls matching themselves, no help.
Wedding Scene from Fiddler on the Roof
Yet today…while there is no grandmother to play the pat, we still have our matchmakers. Jdate, Frumster, Eharmony, and many others have become the new way to make shidduchs. We enter in all the relevant information and out pops a match. If that one doesn’t work, we peruse the pictures and profiles until we do find one that seems like a close fit. Then we “date” and discuss our likes, dislikes, values, and other important tidbits that make a good match.
I once inquired of a Chabad rabbi how he had met his wife. He had been introduced to her through a friend who thought they would be a good match, they “dated”, had the important discussions, and then within a few months were married.
At the end of the day, how is Jdate so much different then a matchmaker? These sites constantly promote how their sites made so many marriages. Do we feel more comfortable with a website making the decision because it gives us the illusion of making a choice? I have yet to meet an Orthodox couple who had what we would think of as an “arranged” marriage. They always had a choice, they just had better guidelines. What’s so bad about that? Aren’t we always looking for a better way to figure out the dating scene?
In an age when there is no such thing as dating any more, just hooking up, seeing one another, or committed, it makes me wonder if the good old days were really so bad? I asked a friend if she thought Jdate was like a matchmaker; her answer: “Really, do you think Jdate is that good?” Apparently, I’m not the only who wonders about “the good old days”.
Oyster said
Oh, this is actually a big misconception that was fostered by FotR. The role of the ’shadkhan’ (Yiddish for match-maker) in traditional Ashkenazi Jewish life was a male-only role. Women never were the ‘match-maker’ contracted out by fathers to find matches for their children. If you read the works of Shalom Aleichem, which describe 1800’s Jewish life in Eastern Europe, a shadkhan was a profession, like a real estate agent, that negotiated a match between two different families, and collected a “finder’s fee”.
Oh yeah, and the Yiddish word ‘yenta’ doesn’t mean match-maker, it means an old kvetchin’ woman. That’s another misconception that comes from FotR.
lchaimlover said
In contemporary Orthodox culture, it seems to be friends, male and female.
Oyster said
Yup, it’s more like an organized “setting one up” with those you know, rather than a top-down arranged marriage. And that in and of itself I find to be a Good Thing ™. Only in the most hard-core haredi communities (think modernity and Israel rejecting factions) do they still have arranged marriages.
Adamama said
what’s good about a matchmaker (and you need a good one because its a business deal-some charge $1000 if it works) is that it is an objective middle person who hopefully has your best interests in mind (to get married, in our commitment phobe culture) often they don’t care if its the right person. the last one I dealt with told me,don’t get caught up in the person’s haskafa (philosophy) if you are attracted and respect him, marry him. what I like is having a middle person to check in with and get coaching. to say this is what I like and this is what I find challenging, and the matchmaker can communicate it. oy, its not easy, it does help having a mutual friend who recommends someone highly to you.
even in the haredi world, its not arranged,the children have free choice, a lot of the time spent searching for the one, the parents have already chosen someone suitable. unfortunately, a lot of young kids don’t always marry for love, and its more of business a deal with the parents. how much can they pay for an apartment.