A Jewish Matchmaking App Blending Tradition With Modern Values

The Short Version: The dating app Met@Chabad aims to help Jewish singles grow spiritually, physically, and emotionally before pairing them with a suitable match. Guided by modern dating practices as well as Chabad values, Met@Chabad matchmakers set out to pair clients with long-term romantic partners. Met@Chabad coordinator Dassi Gansburg told us that, in the end, the app wants to help Jewish singles marry and start a happy, fulfilling life together.

Visit Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and you’ll be at the center of Chabad’s Orthodox Hasidic movement. Everywhere you look, the Chabad community is busy connecting at educational seminars, networking events, and Chabad houses, which are also called Jewish community centers.

Connection is, in fact, central to the Chabad movement. “Chabad is unique among Hasidic groups for its eagerness to engage with the broader Jewish community,” notes the website My Jewish Learning.

Met@Chabad helps Jewish singles form meaningful romantic connections.

Dassi Gansburg, a Met@Chabad coordinator, laid out what the app hopes to achieve. “Our goal is to reach out to every Jew and help them in any way we can and to let them have a meaningful, fulfilling life,” she told us. A strong, healthy base for marriage is among the best routes to a meaningful life. Anyone with a Chabad affiliation can use the app to develop a “marriage-focused state of mind,” the website explains.

Chabad, a prominent Jewish sect, has a community that’s flourished worldwide. It recognizes how beautiful diversity is, and how differently each of us experiences love.

A Matchmaking Process Built for Jewish Singles

Met@Chabad walks Jewish men and women through matchmaking and dating, meeting them wherever they stand in their religious values.

“Everyone has their life planned out, their five year plan, and they’re looking for the ‘insert spouse here’ option,” Dassi told us. As you’ve likely guessed, just slotting any old person into a husband or wife role isn’t always a smart move. A great first step toward finding your life partner is reaching out to a matchmaker through Met@Chabad.

The app builds stronger romantic connections by factoring in a person’s values. Strong bonds, after all, tend to form between like-minded people. And as Dassi explained, shared values are key to a happy marriage, which is Met@Chabad’s ultimate aim.

Met@Chabad can help you meet someone who shares your values.

“So the advice I have — and people will disagree — is to get married younger, because you don’t know yourself when you’re younger. But that’s the beauty,” Dessi suggested. 

Growing alongside your partner, rather than on your own, may have its advantages. “You grow together … the person will be there in any capacity that they can.” Ideally, the partner you pick isn’t someone who just looks good on paper, but someone who suits you and your personality.

“If you’re not a happy person, marriage is not going to make you a happy person. But what marriage is going to do is help you live a happier life,” Dassi told us. Put another way, a happy life means seeking divine purpose together with a like-minded spouse.

“When someone completes you, it’s not someone who’s going to make you happy. A happy person will become happier, and a successful person with the right partner will make that person even more successful,” Dassi pointed out. 

The notion of someone completing you, two souls coming together to form a whole, is rooted in the Torah.

“We believe in the concept that the man and the woman were created as one, and they were split, and when they come back into marriage, they reunite,” Dassi explained. Still, today’s Chabad matchmakers know traditional values don’t always add up to perfect relationships in real life. “Because they’re two halves of a soul, obviously there’s gonna be differences [between them],” Dassi said.

“There’s a joke that marriage is an amazing institution, but who wants to be in an institution?” Dassi noted. Met@Chabad provides educational content on why marriage matters, and its matchmakers are backed by dating coaches and a range of health experts.

Met@Chabad Coaches and Matchmakers Support You From the First Date

“People are thirsty for advice. What is the life hack?” Dassi said. Sadly, there may be no life hack for true love, but a Met@Chabad matchmaker can still guide you through every stage of dating, all the way from the first date to the chuppah (or altar).

“We do bring different doctors and psychiatrists and dating coaches,” Dassi told us. “We have people who are able to help our matchmakers.” Its well-rounded style of matchmaking, which looks after a person’s mental and emotional needs along with spiritual ones, is something you’ll only find at Met@Chabad.

Met@Chabad’s team of matchmakers backs up each client’s religious values by getting in touch with the client’s local spiritual leader.

“Before we plan the [matchmaking] event, we are going to call the Rabbis and Rebbetzins in that location and see what the people there need,” she told us. If the singles there need encouragement to marry and settle down, matchmakers adjust accordingly. If a small Chabad community struggles to make romantic connections, dating coaches tackle those challenges directly.

Before hosting singles events, Met@Chabad matchmakers check with your community’s Rabbis and Rebbetzin.

Matchmakers set up both mingling events and one-on-one dates. “Our Rabbis and Rebbetzin are trained to coach you through the process,” Met@Chabad’s website says. “They will support you through dating, taking the marriage leap, wedding blues, setting up your home, the honeymoon phase, and beyond.”

That makes Met@Chabad’s experts part life coach, part spiritual guide, and part matchmaker. Each kind of expertise works on healing a different relationship: the one with yourself, the one with God, and the one with your romantic partner.

Dassi, a Met@Chabad coordinator, told us what people should know before they sign up for the app or a matchmaking event. “We do verify that a person is Jewish,” she explained. Often, people join Met@Chabad because they want a romantic connection with someone in the secular Jewish or Chabad community.

Educational Events Can Deepen Religious and Romantic Bonds

Met@Chabad’s in-person events mix socializing with learning, and matchmakers hold them together. As participants mingle, matchmakers watch the room and make mental notes about potential matches.

Participants who want help can turn to a matchmaker, who’s right there to point them the right way. “There are many people who are not just going over to a person to get their number. So, they go to a matchmaker. And the matchmaker will coach them on how to come off nicely and decently, because pick up lines don’t work. Let’s just do real authentic hellos,” Dassi explained.

Met@Chabad’s matchmaking events have something for every personality type.

The Met@Chabad app and in-person educational events are both places to meet Chabad singles.

“We had a few breakout rooms where the mingling was happening, and there were a few dating coaches at tables leading different discussions,” Dassi described. “This way, people felt freer to just walk in there.” 

Matchmaking done this way takes the pressure off and adds a learning component, too. Even if someone leaves an event without a date, they’ve picked up some skills, and maybe more faith in their own dating abilities.

“We’re constantly making new dating courses or relationship courses for Rabbis to teach around the world,” Dassi told us. The courses generally focus on discussions about goals, needs, and values that singles can have. Every course should leave you able to “see how other people view relationships,” Dassi said.

If the best matchmakers can stay on top of both traditional and nontraditional dating opportunities, clients can too. The key, Dassi told us, is keeping an open mind and staying focused on your dating goals. “It’s about keeping [dating goals] on your mind, and having your friends be matchmakers for you. It’s about creating a world where you think about another person and see how you can help them.”