I’d actually made one shidduch before I started — my sister to my best friend — but the irony was that once I was officially a shadchan, the first few shidduchim I made were not for Lakewood bochurim, but for Ner Israel guys I knew from my wife’s hometown of Baltimore. The pool of girls I knew of was originally small, comprising some who my wife knew, and others from our family connections.

Once shidduchim started happening, I started to get phone calls from girls’ parents. All it takes to spread a shadchan’s name is word of mouth, because when people come to a vort they ask who the shadchan is, and then the calls start coming. There weren’t too many shadchanim then, but the yeshivah world was also much smaller.

Back then, there was no such thing as a shidduch resume. I had colored sticky notes all over my office with names on them, and if someone gave me a yes, I had to write down all their basic information myself. I don’t think that the dating process itself has changed though, although it’s impossible to generalize, because every couple is different. Today there are so many more people who need to get married, but there are not that many more shadchanim. I understand that people are reluctant to get involved in redting shidduchim, but they have to understand that every shidduch is a miracle. A shadchan has to have a certain flair for people, but Hashem really makes the shidduch. And our success rate is how many people we try to help, not how many shidduchim we make. I will never forget the guy whose daughter got engaged at twenty-nine. In the end, I didn’t make her shidduch, but the father said to me, “You were my wife’s Prozac over the past years, because you kept trying.”

Resumes have made things easier, but at the end of the day, the shadchan still needs to sell a shidduch — a job, an achrayus, and a privilege.

Rabbi Meir Levi is a well-known Lakewood shadchan.