Long-Term Guest: Yichud
Question
My wife and I have little choice but to have a childhood friend of hers stay with us for the next several months. She is coming to town to receive life saving medical treatment and needs to stay somewhere. There are no other options for her, it’s a long story why. The problem is that I work at home and I am normally home by myself all day. My wife works outside the home and is away most of the day. This means I would be home with no one but this woman all day. My wife is the one who arranged this and she is pressuring me to overlook yichud laws because she feels this is a great mitzvah we are doing. What is the proper way to handle this?
Answers
While I appreciate your wife’s desire to help her friend in her time of need, it does sound to me as if there may be a Yichud issue. Personally, I think that the best thing to do is to ask a local authority to come to your home to see if there are any ways to arrange things so that it might be possible for you to work at home while your guest is present.
Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team