JERUSALEM (RNS) — As Valentine’s Day approaches, conversations around love and dating tend to revolve around chemistry, romance and physical attraction. But Aleeza Ben Shalom, a Jewish matchmaker and relationship coach who has facilitated the marriages of more than 200 couples, argues that daters need to focus less on lust and more on shared values and goals and the kind of life they want to build together.

While Ben Shalom — the author of three books about finding your bashert, or soulmate, and the star of the 2023 Netflix reality series “Jewish Matchmaking” — shares this message with all her clients, it takes on extra meaning when prospective partners describe themselves as religiously observant or spiritually inclined. For these daters, Ben Shalom told RNS that the way they practice their religion and express spirituality plays a central role in determining who may be a good match.

“I start with faith-based issues, and then within that, find someone who is an appropriate fit — and then find the personality, the looks, and everything else that’s in alignment with who you are,” said Ben Shalom, whose clients have ranged from secular to “very, very religious.” If the faith-based part doesn’t match, “the personality doesn’t matter, the looks don’t matter, everything else doesn’t matter.”

For example, instead of asking someone who is Jewish whether they are secular or Orthodox, she’ll have them consider their observance practices. That’s because a dater who has no interest in keeping kosher or strictly observing the Sabbath would have a hard time creating a happy life with someone who does. The same would be true of less-observant Hindus, Christians or Muslims dating a person whose life revolves around their temple, church or mosque and who wants to give their children a rigorous religious education. 

Even before the first date, single folks should think seriously about their priorities, she said. Where they want to live, the kind of community they want to belong to, and how they plan to raise their family “are massive decisions when somebody lives a faith-based life.” And unless the partners share similar lifestyles, goals and dreams, “love isn’t enough” to sustain a relationship in the long term, the matchmaker said: “It comes down to, even though I love you, I’m not going to be able to live with you.”

Ben Shalom, who now lives in Israel, was raised in Pennsylvania and became religious when she was 24 years old. She recalled that when she first became religious, she contacted a Jewish man who also identified as “spiritual” on a dating site. However, she soon discovered that he was not religiously observant and had no interest in becoming observant.

“This means we are totally incompatible,” he replied to her, she remembered. She appreciated his candor and began to look for a partner who more closely matched how she observes Judaism. Eight months later, she was married.  

And while no two daters live the same exact lifestyle or have identical goals, Ben Shalom said, shared values give them “a trajectory.”

“It’s like synchronized swimming,” she said. “Chemistry is a moment. Synchronized living is chemistry for a lifetime.”  

From her years of matchmaking and reflecting on her own happy marriage, Ben Shalom said the couples who succeed tend to be kind, not rigid, and put effort into verbally communicating with their partner. 

“Kindness is the glue in a relationship that holds it together while we’re figuring everything else out,” even during the rough patches, she said. “Flexibility means I know who I am, but I have the ability to be who I am and shift to what’s going on in my relationship.”

For example, when Ben Shalom’s matchmaking business unexpectedly turned into an international phenomenon, it was flexibility that enabled her and her husband to navigate the new reality. “Our agreement has always been that one parent would be home to raise the children, and we always thought it would be me,” she said. “When all this happened, my husband said, ‘I can be a stay-at-home parent.’”

Ben Shalom said verbal communication is what couples tend to struggle with the most. “To communicate to your partner in a loving, sensitive, give-you-the-benefit-doubt kind of way is very hard, especially when you’re feeling really heated about something,” she said. Fortunately, people can improve their communication skills, she said, likening it to learning another language.

And while many religious or spiritually inclined single people worry that prioritizing faith or values is old-fashioned and will limit their chances of finding love, Ben Shalom disagrees.

“It limits your options, and that’s a good thing,” she said. “I want 90% of your dating pool to be filtered out. I really only want you to deal with the top 10% of people that are relevant. It’s a lot like finding the right employee for a job. Does an HR person want to choose from 1,000 applicants? No.”

And if she could redefine Valentine’s Day, Ben Shalom said, she would shift the focus away from red roses and candlelit dinners toward doing something good for someone else — regardless of whether one is single or part of a couple.

“Go volunteer, go to a soup kitchen, go walk dogs in a shelter,” she said. “Go do something. Love is an action. Love is a verb.”