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The Short Version: The goal of the dating app Met@Chabad is to help Jewish singles improve themselves spiritually, physically, and emotionally before connecting them to an appropriate match. By keeping Chabad values and modern dating practices in mind, Met@Chabad matchmakers work to find lasting romantic partners for their clients. As Met@Chabad coordinator Dassi Gansburg explained to us, the app’s ultimate goal is to help Jewish singles get married and begin a happy, fulfilling life as a team.
Take a visit to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and you’ll find yourself in the heart of the Chabad Orthodox Hasidic movement. All around you, the Chabad community is busy making connections at networking events, educational seminars, and at Chabad houses, also known as Jewish community centers.
In fact, connection is the cornerstone of the Chabad movement. “Chabad is unique among Hasidic groups for its eagerness to engage with the broader Jewish community,” according to the website My Jewish Learning.
Dassi Gansburg, a coordinator at Met@Chabad, explained the app’s vision. “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. And one of the best ways to achieve a meaningful life is by creating a solid, healthy foundation for marriage. The app helps anyone with a Chabad affiliation foster a “marriage-focused state of mind,” according to the website.
As a prominent Jewish sect, Chabad’s community has thrived all over the world. It understands the beauty in diversity, and in how we all experience love differently.
Met@Chabad guides Jewish men and women through the matchmaking and dating process. It meets them wherever their religious values lie.
“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 probably have guessed, simply filling the role of husband or wife with any ol’ person isn’t always advised. Connecting with a matchmaker via Met@Chabad is a great first step to finding your life partner.
The app strengthens romantic connections by taking one’s values into account. After all, strong connections are usually formed by like-minded individuals. And as Dassi explained, sharing values is essential to a happy marriage — Met@Chabad’s ultimate goal.
“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.
There may be a benefit to evolving alongside your partner instead of on your own. “You grow together … the person will be there in any capacity that they can.” Ideally, the partner you choose isn’t someone who looks great on paper, but who is good for 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. In other words, a happy life is one spent searching for divine purpose alongside 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.
This idea of someone completing you — of two souls joining together to make a whole — has roots in 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. But modern Chabad matchmakers understand that traditional values don’t always translate to perfect real-life relationships. “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 pointed out. Met@Chabad offers educational content about the importance of marriage. Matchmakers are supported by dating coaches and a host of health experts.
“People are thirsty for advice. What is the life hack?” Dassi said. There may not be a life hack to true love (unfortunately), but at Met@Chabad, a matchmaker can still be your guide through each step of the dating process, from the very first date to the altar (or chuppah).
“We do bring different doctors and psychiatrists and dating coaches,” Dassi told us. “We have people who are able to help our matchmakers.” Creating a well-rounded approach to matchmaking — one which addresses the mental and emotional needs of an individual as well as the spiritual needs — is unique to Met@Chabad.
Met@Chabad’s team of matchmakers support religious values by establishing contact with each 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 Chabad singles need encouragement to settle down and marry, matchmakers will respond in kind. If the small Chabad community has trouble making romantic connections, dating coaches will address these challenges head-on.
Matchmakers will organize mingling events as well as individual dates. “Our Rabbis and Rebbetzin are trained to coach you through the process,” according to Met@Chabad’s website. “They will support you through dating, taking the marriage leap, wedding blues, setting up your home, the honeymoon phase, and beyond.”
In this way, Met@Chabad’s experts are a blend of life coaches, spiritual guides, and matchmakers. Each expertise aims at healing different relationships: Your relationship with yourself, with God, and with your romantic partner.
As a coordinator at Met@Chabad, Dassi shared what people should know before signing up for a matchmaking event or the app. “We do verify that a person is Jewish,” she explained. One of the main reasons someone may join Met@Chabad is because they want to form a romantic connection with someone else in the Chabad or secular Jewish community.
In-person Met@Chabad events combine socializing with education. Matchmakers are the glue of these events. While participants mingle, Matchmakers observe the crowd and make mental notes of potential matches.
And when a participant asks for help, a matchmaker is there to push them in the right direction. “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.
There are opportunities for every personality type at Met@Chabad’s matchmaking events.
“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.”
This approach to matchmaking not only depressurizes the situation, but adds an educational element. Even if the participant walks out of the event without a date, they’ve gained some skills, and maybe even confidence 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. These courses usually center around discussions singles can have about their values, needs, and goals. At the end of each course, you should be able to “see how other people view relationships,” Dassi said.
If the best matchmakers can keep tabs on traditional and non-traditional dating opportunities, then so can clients. The key is to stay open-minded and to focus on your dating goals, Dassi told us. “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.”
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