Parshat Chayei Sarah is the first recording in the Torah of a match made through a middleman, a shadchan. Eliezer, Avraham Avinu’s trusted servant, is entrusted with the mission of going to Charan and finding there a wife for Yitzchak, Avraham’s son. The Torah repeatedly inform us of Eliezer’s trustworthiness, that Avraham entrusted him with all he owned and with running the entire household. The Torah seems to emphasize that in spite of this, Avraham still demanded that Eliezer swear to be true to this mission. How do we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory ideas? Why did Avraham feel the need to extract an oath from his faithful servant? Why did Eliezer himself need to swear?
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