THROUGHOUT THE AGES Jews have used the services of matchmakers; indeed, only rarely were marriages arranged without them. The finding of a suitable spouse for a son or daughter was a difficult matter, and not only because of the great expense entailed in conducting the wedding ceremony and providing the dowry. Parents made high demands in respect of any prospective spouse for their offspring. Lineage was important, and after the writing of the marriage terms the two sides would sit and tell of their respective illustrious ancestries. The character and personal attributes of the bride and groom were also scrutinized most carefully: in most cases the family of the groom sought a God-fearing bride and a proper dowry, and the family of the bride a Torah scholar. The payment of the dowry imposed a heavy financial burden on the family of the bride, and the prospect of a daughter's remaining a spinster for lack of an adequate marriage portion forced many fathers to take up the wanderer's staff in order to collect charity. Providing a dowry (known as hakhnasat kalah) was considered a religious obligation of the first order, to which even the miserly were willing to contribute, and over which many good souls expended much time and energy. Fulfilling the obligation to marry off orphans was considered especially virtuous, and thought to be efficacious in warding off plagues.

Under such conditions the institution of matchmaking flourished. To prosperous families the matchmaker would offer ‘princes, of magnificent Torah scholarship, and of fine lineage’, ‘lords, rabbis, princes’, and ‘renowned scholars’, and received a hefty fee for each acceptable match actually concluded. The heads of yeshivas also played their part in matchmaking, since the wealthy would look for scholarly sons-in-law who would be a credit to the family; sometimes they offered their help out of piety and goodwill alone, at other times in return for payment. But in many cases, and especially for the simple folk, it was the tsadik who acted as matchmaker, troubling himself on their behalf without expecting anything in return.

Some tsadikim even engaged in the labour of collecting money for the bridal fund.