Halachic ruling: If you are a young man looking for a shidduch and are being treated with medicine for mental health issues, it is your duty to make the shadchan aware of your health situation. The same goes for a girl being treated with medication for mental health issues.
This Halachic ruling was stated last night by Rishon L’Tzion and Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yitzchok Yosef in his weekly shiur, broadcast live last night at the Kikar HaShabbat website.
During his address the rabbi broached the issue of matchmaking, and said: “People inquire if the young man is 100% normal; the answer is usually, ‘sure, of course he’s normal.’ If you know that he takes medication, you are obliged to report it. If you don’t share your information, you are causing a young woman to fall into a marriage with a person who is on medicine. May G-d have mercy – he has mental issues.”
The rabbi emphasized that the same is true if the girl is being treated for metal health issues.
The rabbi continued: “Rabosai we see this in Beis Din – there are many cases where either the husband or the wife is crazy, and someone covered up the facts during the shidduch process. The person who withheld the facts is responsible and will bear his sin. You should have told the facts – in a shidduch it is a mitzvah to report this; say that this person takes pills.”
The rabbi shared an incident which took place a mere week ago: “A Bais Yaakov graduate married a man who was being treated with mental health medication. After the wedding he decided to stop taking his medication. He neglected to share this monumental decision with his wife, or anyone else. He suddenly began to exhibit strange behaviors, acting mad and jumping around.
When the wife discovered that he was on metal health medication, she left home, and in a short while she found out that she was pregnant. She wanted to abort the baby, fearing that the fetus had inherited the father’s mental illness. The woman came to me for advice: may she abort the baby? The fetus is a few days short of forty days! I allowed the abortion; poor woman, she was fooled into such a situation!”
Question to the Rabbi? Are you completely normal? How about your family? Some people should be on meds and are not. Others are on meds and function just fine.
How can you judge? Yes couples should be honest and open. But you speak of mental illness like some from the Dark Ages.
And to abort a baby who did no harm?? Unbelievable. Some answers are forthcoming.