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As the point of this article has been made and in compliance with a large number of our readers, this article has been archived. The original version is available for reading upon request.
There are still some of the main points of the article detailed below.
The purpose of the original article was to shed light on the efforts of some groups in our community and to help express a large majority’s opinion of those efforts. Now that a new reasoning has come to light, there is a chance that it will be employed and utilized to help our community in the shidduch sphere. We are sorry for those who were offended by the article and we would just like to point out that the purpose was not to bash those seeking to aid the community but to just guide them in a direction that many members of the community deem more suitable for our society as a whole.
Thank you for reading.
-Editor
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A plan to help our singles in the community:
Gather together all of the best shadchanim and hire them as full-time employees. Regular, 9-5 employees. Pay them a salary, whatever makes sense, say, 65k to 80k per year. Give the shadchanim office space, phones, computers, give them all the tools they need to succeed in shidduchim. These shadchanim will be considered regular employees, they can even be assigned quotas and have goals set to determine a certain amount of dates per week they must “set up” etc. Let them work solid week after week to help marry off the singles in our community.
If these shadchanim make a successful shidduch and the parents want to pay them for the shadchanus, great! Let them pay! But it isn’t required, as they are already being paid by the caring wealthy people (and supported by the rabanim, of course) of our community! Paying these salaries should not prove too difficult for the outspoken wealthy families in our community. Hopefully. I am certain that others would be more than willing to donate money to such a lofty cause.
If more money is donated to this cause? Great! Hire more full-time shadchanim! The more the merrier!
A program like this not only ensures that there are top shadchanim working tirelessly to aid our community, but it also ensures that:
- They are fairly compensated for their time, work, and effort.
- Everyone in the community has access to top shadchanim.
- Shadchanim are no longer incentivized to set up rich families with other rich families over families of lower socioeconomic status.
- Families are no longer pressured into paying “high-end” shadchanim more than they can, for shidduchim they present to the family.
The Bottom Line:
Hire full-time shadchanim and pay them regular salaries. If others want to donate to the cause, let them, but it cannot be required of them.
The Thinking Yid 
Just a Brilliant piece!!!
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I have a couple of thoughts on the original article.
1) America is a country that places all its value in money. Money is everything. If you want good health pay for a great doctor. Happiness? How about a Paisach hotel vacation. Good education? Pay $30,000 for the “best” schools. Money is “god”. Therefore, if you have money you are “god’s” profit (pun intended). This has roots in Christian “Profit Gospel” (That god gives people he favors great wealth and power). So we turn to the most wealthy among us to tell us how they see the world hoping that we can share in their wealthy by idolizing the prophets of “god”.
2) Wealthy people don’t live like we do. They don’t understand the value of money. Therefore, they think everyone can put a small amount of money ($10,000) towards something they care about (their own shidduchim).
3) Now to the actual FWHSS idea: It is not well thought out. It creates an incentive for a person to be even more selective of who they go out with because it creates a huge risk. $150 in the garbage if you are nice and give it a chance, $300 if you’re not decisive, and $500 if you have a good time at the beginning. Rather you’d cut the shidduch off if you’re not 100% sure. I don’t know about you but how many people are 100% sure after the 1st, 3rd, and some even after the 5th date! It sounds crazy! Shadchanim know what success is. They don’t need an extra $500 to show them. (They will still get shadchnus at the end if the shidduch goes through.)
4) Many singles don’t have large salaries and money is tight making access to shadchamin cost prohibitive under this plan. The last thing anyone want is to make it too expensive to find a shidduch.
5) It also creates perverse incentives for shadchanim. The more mediocre shiduchim you create (5 and out) the better you are. They will just put pressure on the people who the set up to keep going out even if it’s not good for them. They can just wait to tell them till after 5 that it’s a bad idea. These people trust there shadchanim for advice. The shadchan is the bridge between both sides and hold all the cards. Giving them bad financial incentives is a terrible idea.
6) As to the author’s idea: We clearly have a problem with setting people up. The shadchamin are not the only problem. People have terrible expectations about what a marriage is, what to look for, what is good and bad etc. (Author 004 already addressed this in his piece “WHY THE F.W.H.S.S. WONT WORK!”). Giving shadchanim a full-time job and giving them goal and standards (like 30 minute meeting for initial visit etc.) is a great idea. You need time to get to know someone in order to set them up.
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