One of my favourite things about Judaism is that we are wonderfully vague about what happens after death. Other religions seem to have a fairly clear plan. There are diagrams. There are rules. There are levels. There is, apparently, some certainty.
Judaism’s position can largely be summarised as: “Who knows?” Which makes it all the more remarkable that somebody appears to have established a rewards programme. According to a piece of Jewish folklore, if you successfully bring together three married couples, your place in the World to Come is assured. We may not know whether there is one but apparently there is already a points system. Nobody seems entirely sure where the idea comes from. The source is hazy, the theology is debatable but the marketing is excellent. The reason I find it so persuasive is that I have successfully matched five couples.
Five marriages. All still married. Children, schools, holidays, family WhatsApp groups, arguments about where to spend Pesach. Entire universes of Jewish life created because at some point I inserted myself into somebody else’s business. Which, now I think about it, may be the most Jewish sentence ever written.
I became a matchmaker entirely by accident. Or, more accurately, through a chronic inability to mind my own business. Years ago, I was sitting next to a colleague from chambers at a wedding. He was funny, handsome and kind and still single. Now, not every unmarried person requires intervention but occasionally you meet somebody and think; this has gone on long enough. I’d been sitting next to him for perhaps ten minutes before I texted a woman I knew. “You’re meeting your future husband.” Not “you might like him”. Not “perhaps there’s potential”. Not even “would you be open to being introduced?” Just: “You’re meeting your future husband.” I suppose it was a bit of chutzpah yet a year later they were married beneath a chuppah in Cambridge and few months ago I attended their daughter’s bat mitzvah.
Another couple met because I happened to hear, in passing, that a rather fabulous woman was single. Within minutes I was on the telephone to an old university flatmate. They married the following year. My favourite success story involved two close friends who disliked one another so intensely that introducing them felt less like matchmaking and more like international diplomacy. For years they rejected the idea. For years I persisted. Today they have three perfect children and one of the happiest marriages I know. I occasionally consider sending them an invoice.
The Jewish matchmaker occupies a very particular place in Jewish life. In other cultures, introducing two strangers can be considered meddling. In Jewish tradition it is practically community service. If a Jewish person knows two suitable single people and fails to introduce them, there is a genuine sense that paperwork should be filed somewhere. I imagine an entire celestial department staffed by disappointed grandmothers demanding explanations. Why wasn’t the call made? Why was nobody introduced? What exactly were you doing with your time?
The truth is that modern dating has become oddly lonely. Wonderful people become discouraged. People who would make terrific partners somehow remain single. London is full of extraordinary Jewish women wondering where all the men have gone. The men, meanwhile, appear to have been raptured. Or are playing paddle tennis. Or are explaining that they are “not really looking for anything serious right now” at the age of forty-three. The imbalance is so dramatic that a single Jewish man over thirty-five now occupies roughly the same position as a Georgian townhouse in Islington. The moment one appears, six sensible women and at least two ambitious mothers are already arranging viewings.
Which is why I increasingly think friends and family should take introductions more seriously. They often see things we cannot. They know when we’re dismissing perfectly lovely people for ridiculous reasons. In fact, if my mother is reading this, she is probably less interested in the article than in whether there are any suitable Jewish scaffolders among the readership.
For those who are looking, there is something rather beautiful about the idea that a community should help. After all, we help people find jobs. We recommend schools. We suggest doctors. We tell people which accountant to use. Yet somehow when it comes to relationships, we become strangely shy. As though introducing two compatible adults is an outrageous intrusion rather than a perfectly normal act of kindness.
Most introductions won’t work. Some will be disasters but every now and then, if you’re very lucky, you’ll sit in a synagogue years later, watching a child celebrate a bat mitzvah, and realise that an entire Jewish future grew from a conversation that lasted less than five minutes. If that’s not a glimpse of heaven, I’m not entirely sure what is.
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