RELATIONSHIPS November 27, 2006 Issue

THE SOUL-MATE SEARCH

JEREMY CARPER

SEEMS EVERY TIME I fire up my computer to check e-mails or search the Internet, I encounter ads telling me how to find my soul mate, or at least a companion for lunch. Since I long ago happily found both in my wife, I'm not interested in following this path. But I am struck by the insistence that computers, with their immense sorting and collating power, will find just the perfect match.

There seems to be a deep demand in our world to satisfy a need for lasting companionship, and an acknowledgment that people need some kind of help beyond themselves. Sometimes computer matching services do bring happy results, but in other cases people have found they just seemed to drag in more layers of frustration.

In many traditional societies, matchmaking has been decided by family councils, or professionals like the famous Yenta in Fiddler on the Roof. One of the great love stories of the Bible tells how Isaac met Rebekah through the intermediary of his father's trusted servant. That both parties felt complete confidence in this man shows their implicit assumption that he would be operating in their best interests. (The account begins in Genesis, chap. 24.)