Proclaiming Justice with Laurie Cardoza Moore

Aleeza Ben Shalom: The dating apps turn every dater into their own matchmaker. You're supposed to have 90% no's and just narrow it down to the top 10%. October 7th woke up the Jewish world. Sometimes we call people October 8th Jews. We have different religions, we have different cultures, different practices, but we believe in God, we believe in community, we believe in family values. And as we know, the last thing in creation after Adam is Eve. And that was the very first match made by God.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: I'm Lori Cardoza-Moore and this is Proclaiming Justice podcast.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Hi, I'm Lori Cardoza-Moore and this is Proclaiming Justice. Today we have a very special guest. We have invited Alisa Ben Shalom. She is the author of Matchmaker, Matchmaker and the Netflix show Jewish Matchmaking. Matchmaking is made a comeback and Alisa is helping bring people together to find their soulmates. Alisa Ben Shalom, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited about learning more about the amazing work you're doing around the world in bringing matches, bringing souls together. Alisa, welcome. It's so good to see you, to have you on our program today. You are an amazing woman.

You are world-renowned for this amazing ability that you have that obviously God has given to you to connect people, to bring families together, to bring to bring Shalom Bayit or peace in the home. And so I wanted just talk a little bit about you because a lot of people know you from your Netflix program. How did you start this Jewish matchmaking program? Did you did you always know? Did you grow up knowing that this is what you wanted to do one day or did life just happen?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I was very focused on getting married and building a family. Everything else I was like, I don't really know what I want to do. But get married, have a family, that's the number one thing that's important to me. And so I did that. In my mid 20s, I found my husband, we got married and had a couple of kids. And then I was home with little children and I said, I need to do something. I need to have some, you know, adult conversation and interaction.

I need to give back to the community. What can I do? And a girlfriend said, oh, I'm a matchmaker on a dating website. Maybe you want to try that. I said, yeah, I've always dabbled in it, but I didn't know it was a thing to do. So I signed up to be a matchmaker on a dating website. I started matchmaking, calling singles, coaching, working with them, and it just was organic. It just started to move and to flow. And the Netflix show I I'm I've never done production. I wasn't in theater. I'm not a theater kid.

Um and I heard about it many years after being in matchmaking. My matchmaker friend said to me, I uh I was just interviewed for a show. I don't want to do it. I gave the producers your number. You're really good on camera. You've got a lot of wise things to say. I told them they're going to love you. And they called me and said, we want to interview. We want to have a Jewish matchmaking show. There's a show Indian matchmaking. And so they said we're doing a spin-off. Let's do Jewish matchmaking. And that's how they found me and we started doing interviews.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That is fantastic. Um you know, what surprised you most about being involved in this global series? What were you expecting? Did it meet your expectations?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: What surprised me most is how universal matchmaking is in that people are looking for love. They want to find their partner. They want to build a home. They want to have a family. They want to grow personally. And in the modern world, we're really struggling. And I was surprised at how far reaching this was because it really was global. Um since the show came out for the last two years, I've been flying around the world and I get stopped at airports, on the streets of New York City and they're like, I know you. You're the Jewish matchmaker.

I said, yeah, they're like, I'm not Jewish but and I'm in a relationship. But we loved your show. We watched my boyfriend, my girlfriend and I, we watched it together. And and they just they find me and they just I said, how but how did you know it was me? So some lady said, I heard you laugh because I have uh I guess a very a very clear distinct laugh. Somebody told me they recognized me because on this show I wear this necklace, which is a special necklace. Um little bit of history from my mom and my grandma to remember them.

And they're like, oh, I saw that I knew it was you.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Oh wow. So tell me, did you feel pressure to to to balance entertainment with authenticity? You know, how did how did you balance that?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: I think moving into the entertainment world and not having any experience with that was something very new. And my husband and I spoke about it. We spoke about it with our rabbi, with our other mentors and said, how do we not lose our family and everything that I prayed for and worked so hard to build and how do I also go out there and help the world? How do I help singles find their soulmate? How do I make a global impact and really make a difference in this world, not just um a mommy from home and I'm doing good things in the world and but I want to be mommy from home, do amazing things and I want to go into the world and I want to do that as well.

So it it's been a little bit of a juggling act. My husband and I um have agreed in terms of travel, how much travel we we as a family can handle. It was really hard on the children in the beginning. And now we have a little bit of a routine. I mean, for two years I would be home for three to five weeks and then I'd get on the road for a week or two

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Right.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: for a full two years. So I hardly unpacked before I repacked. And now I just spent the whole entire summer at home with the family, which was incredible. We've gone um on vacation together for Passover and and so we're trying to do really um heavy family intense times together. And then also make time for me to go change the world.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Yeah, and it's so important because we live in a culture and I really think the culture is globally. I think it's a little different, you know, from different uh cultures. But I think especially in the West, we have lost the important meaning of family. And um a lot of it has to do with what society, you know, like for example, you taking the time to figure out how am I going to balance my the this mission, this goal that I know I've been called to, which will actually help prepare the world or or um help the world.

It'll prepare um people to really think more um solidly about entering into a marriage relationship. So um you know, let's talk about tradition and the spiritual depth. Where does the Jewish match matchmaking originate from? Is it, you know, where does it biblically come from? Where is tradition part of the the story? Tell us about how Jewish matchmaking um can affect and change the world, even people of different um faith or or no faith at all.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: So Jewish matchmaking started way back in time. If we go all the way back in the Bible, when we look at the creation of the world, right? We have all the things in the world that are created. We have the heavens and the earth and the waters and the animals and finally we have Adam in the world. And Adam goes around and he looks at all the animals. They all have partners like where's mine? The elephant has an elephant, the giraffe has a giraffe and who do I have?

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Good point.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: And there was this conversation with God like, no, where where's my person? Um and as we know, the last thing in creation after Adam is Eve. And that was the very first match made by God in the world. And so

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That's a great example.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: So that's the first match that happened. And then uh we look at the Bible again and we see Abraham sent out Eliezer on a mission. You go find a wife for my son, right? Yitzhak needs to get married. Isaac needs to get married. You need to find a wife for him. And and Eliezer goes out and says to God, I need a sign, right? I need to know who this person is. And so the one that will give water to me and to feed all of my camels, I'll know she's generous and she's a loving person.

This is a good person.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Right.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: And she embodies kindness. And so we see this throughout the Bible, all these different examples of matches being made. So in Judaism, we have a very strong tradition of matchmaking in in our culture.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That's very exciting. Um yes, that is true and I thought about that before this interview. I was thinking about the biblical stories of those matches that were made. You know, what's what is the deeper meaning behind matchmaking beyond the simply beyond simply finding a spouse?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: I think behind matchmaking is giving at the highest level. When we have two people that are, you know, brought together, forget about children for a minute, just the couple themselves. The greatest way to build yourself in the world is to to give. Um in Hebrew the word Ahava, which means love. At the root of that word Hav, it means to give. So literally we have the formula for developing love. And the more that we give, the more that we develop love. And this works both in the sense with other people, but it also works with God in our lives.

And by giving, we're developing more love and we're growing and we're connecting. And and I think at the root of that we become the best version of ourselves.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: So we live in this app-driven culture. And how do you feel that the apps, the dating apps affect what you are doing?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: The dating apps turn every dater into their own matchmaker. On one hand, this is fabulous. It gives you an entire database of people to look into, to get curious about, to try to set up a date. On the other hand, it turns you into a matchmaker. So if you don't know much about doing it or if you're not used to doing it, you can burn out very quickly. You can get very frustrated if you don't understand the, I'll call it statistics of dating, which is basically if we had 100 people in front of you, 90 would probably be really wrong.

10 okay. And of those 10, maybe two you'd be really excited about. So some people get very frustrated that the apps aren't producing any results. I said they are producing results. Sometimes it's a no. That's okay. You're supposed to have 90% no's and just narrow it down to the top 10% that might be relevant for you.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That's a good point. Some of your clients um are Christian, which is really interesting. How do you approach matchmaking across the faith lines?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: We have had um Christian clients come to us. We collaborate with matchmakers in across the globe, I would say. So we have matchmakers in the United States, we have matchmakers all over Europe. Um we really any anywhere that you have people living, that's where we have matchmakers. Um and we can't do it alone. Often we will refer people to the right matchmaker. If it's coaching or something about a relationship, we can support anybody. But in terms of a network or our database, we're interlinked with the Jewish community. But we have a broader network with all of our Christian matchmaker friends.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That's fantastic. Um do you think Jewish values around family resonate with non-Jewish clients in a unique way?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that Jewish values are very much family values. And I think that whether it's Christian values or even somebody that's secular that wants to build a family, you understand that there's certain principles around that. And I think Jewish wisdom has a lot to share about that. The first just concept is that the couple themselves, that's the most important unit. You know, we go on to have children, we build families, we're all excited. But we hope you should grow up, leave the home, build your own family. The unit between the husband and the wife, that is really the most holy and the most important union that we have.

And if you are in a good place with your spouse, you will be able to raise a good family.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Very good. Um have you seen matchmaking as a way of building bridges between communities that share these same similar values?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: So what's interesting is um the Judeo-Christian values are so in alignment that when we talk about faith-based families and getting married and marrying young and building a family and having children, we are all in alignment. I think that um people that are are faith-based, I would say like a faith-based Christian, I would have much more in common than just any, you know, non-religious person in the world because we're very much aligned. We have different religions, we have different cultures, different practices, but we believe in God, we believe in community, we believe in family values. And all of those things are completely in alignment.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That's amazing. So I'm this leads me into the next question because as you know, part of our mission as an organization as proclaiming justice to the nations is to combat the anti-semitism. So I want to ask you as a Jewish figure in the public eye, have you encountered anti-semitism in the work that you do?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: I encounter very little anti-semitism. And I'm not sure if it's because I put so much love into the world that that's what I get back as well. But online I encounter anti-semitism. So I I actually just today was looking through and you know, I review different posts and comments and you know, they comment, you comment back and then I see there's a whole string of comments uh that are very inappropriate and anti-semitic. Um what's very interesting is that we've learned to leave it there and just let it be because it actually drives traffic to what you're doing.

Um and it increases the numbers of viewers. So even though it's not great, we also don't want to erase it because we don't want to pretend like it doesn't exist. So we we've learned to just leave it there and let it be unless it's wildly wildly inappropriate, which borderlines on that.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Yes.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: Whenever I've been greeted by people anywhere in the world um even like I I'll arrive in a new country and they'll check me and they'll say, oh, what do you do? Matchmaker. Matchmaker, help my buddy in booth two. So I've been greeted very warmly and I think people are really fascinated. I always have concerns because I'm not just the matchmaker, I'm the Jewish matchmaker, right? So I'm branded as a Jewish. It's very clear in who I am and what I do. But um I'm trying to think there was only um that I I haven't you know what?

I I haven't even had any issues with as we say poo poo poo. I haven't had any issues with um events being canceled or things like that or countries not allowing me to come in or um I I haven't faced those challenges.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: I honestly think, you know, because of like what you said previously, the love because you're giving love back, you're connecting people. And that will come back to you. So you you're probably helping I I see what you 're doing because it's so positive and it's so impactful. You're actually challenging without even saying a word. The the mentality of people who may have their harbor anti-semitic views. So it's just it's amazing to see the work that you're doing again, the global reach that you have, the cultures that you are affecting and helping to make the world uh a better place.

Um I want to move on to October 7th and our culture today, today's world. How has October 7th and the rise in anti-semitism worldwide affected you in your work as a result of October 7th? Is it again, you know, you're not seeing um you know, the impact to you personally for the work that you do um because October 7th really changed a lot of things. Changed the world really.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: October 7th woke up the Jewish world. Um sometimes we call people October 8th Jews, right? Where they weren't connected to their Judaism, but on October 8th they were immediately tapped in and said, my Judaism matters to me. And this October 7th was 6 months after my show came out. So the show was on a high of wow, Jewish matchmaking. This is exciting. And people are like, oh, that's cool. That's interesting. And then October 7th happened. And we had another wave and a flood of people that said, well, I was thinking about dating and I was thinking about dating somebody Jewish.

I wasn't only dating Jewish, but now I'm really committed to it. I don't think anybody will fully understand who I am unless they're also Jewish, unless we are also on the same page about Israel and and that we could build a family together. So we have seen actually a massive influx of people coming in. And it was it was actually uh like a refreshing and a a wonderful surprise.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: So you talk about connecting Jews, connecting back with Jews and really seriously considering their relationships. What about other faith groups like Christianity? You talked about us having a very similar um uh relationship values, um culture, you know, that we share. What about Christians? Do you see more Christians as people that are interested in getting involved with matchmaking and getting your help, your assistance? And when you do, do you encourage them also to marry within their faith background?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: I absolutely encourage them to marry within their faith because you build a stronger community when you do that. And building stronger community builds a stronger world. And so finding somebody whose faith-based and has a lot of similarities is the best thing that you can do for your relationship. Um we have also had an an influx of Christians reaching out who said, we love your wisdom. You know, Alisa, we feel that your wisdom is universal. It's um Jewish wisdom, but for the world. And we very much relate to it. And can you guide us? So in terms of coaching, supporting, talking about what are your values?

What do you want in a partner? How are you going to build a family? How are you going to do uh how are you going to go about the dating process so you can get the results that you want? So coaching, supporting people through the process um from any background is something that we're very good at. And then when it comes to matchmaking, we recommend the Christian matchmaking sites. We recommend the Christian matchmakers that are internetworked and depending on what the background is because I think just like Judaism, we have many different types of Jews.

I think there's many different types of Christians. And we're trying to find the niche matchmakers in each area to service everybody who's looking for someone.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That's fantastic. So um do you see that the act of matchmaking helping to strengthen Jewish families um and make them more resilient to the adversities that we face in life?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: I think that matchmaking is to me at the base and the fabric of society. I think that the a stronger better world can result because we make matches. We've seen an uh a delay in marriage. We've seen an a massive increase in divorce. And and so if we're not getting married until our 30s and then there's a higher rate of divorce, we are missing whole generations of people that that we used to be able to bring into the world to strengthen our communities. And so to me matchmaking is a way to enter into world peace, is a way to strengthen ourselves and increase increase a higher level of awareness in the world of doing good.

And good starts at home, good starts with building our families, building our communities. And and then giving back to the world.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That's beautiful. Um what message of hope would you share with Jewish and Christian audiences right now about considering doing the matchmaking? Maybe it's a parent, you know, their children are getting getting close to the age where they're going to be looking to get married. What would you what would you share with the audience from a Jewish community or from the Jewish community and the Christian community about how important this matchmaking is and how can people get involved?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: So I think that matchmaking is by by me it's the most important thing. That's why I'm doing this. For parents, you cannot want it more than your child wants it for themselves. And the best way to help motivate them to want it is to be in a healthy marriage and to be happy within that marriage. Not every day is going to look that way. But to show people what a beautiful example it is to be in a relationship. Uh I would lovingly lean into maybe you want to you know, set yourself up, have your friends set you up, take a look wherever you are in life and and look around for somebody and ask people in your community to support you.

And the message to Jewish and Christian audiences around the world is there's somebody out there for you, right? In Judaism, we believe that there's a soulmate that comes into this world for you, but there's not just one. There's like like we think of soul, soul as one, you know. It's not just one. You marry one person at a time, but you have the ability to get married. If you're divorced, you can get married again. If somebody passes away, you can get married again. You have the opportunity to have a soulmate and to make a soulmate.

You get married, it's in that moment you've created your soulmate. Right? Something happens, you can get married again. You get married again. Now you have a second soulmate.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That's fabulous. So let's in our closing, let's talk a little bit about your show. How can for those who are watching today who are not familiar with you, how can they watch your show? And you've got this wonderful matchmaker matchmaker book that you've written. Tell us about this and how can they get a copy? Because I I see this as a book of wisdom. It's coming and I I'll bet you you're going to get a lot of people ordering this book because they find themselves maybe personally in that situation or like I said, they have children um that are coming of age to consider getting married.

Um I think what you're doing is amazing. And I think that right now because of the world, because of the evil that is so, you know, pervasive and um the division, the broken marriages, the broken families, um broken children all affected because of the that soulmate, making sure we find the right soulmate. So how can people learn about you and get a copy of the book, watch your show? It's very exciting.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: Thank you. So the book you can grab on Amazon or any of your favorite booksellers. It's available and easy. It will ship right to you or you can pick it up at the bookstore. Um the show Jewish matchmaking is on Netflix. So you do have to have Netflix to watch it. It's eight episodes and there's so much Jewish wisdom in there, but it's plain language. It's just Jewish wisdom for the world. Um there's a lot of humor and a lot of banter also, a lot of interaction, a lot of play. And uh for anybody that wants to reach out, you can find me online at Alisa Ben Shalom, Instagram, Facebook, every every platform, LinkedIn.

Um and my website is marriagemindedmentor.com. It's it was named that because I am marriage-minded, the people I work with are marriage-minded, and my greatest gift is to mentor people and bring them to the place where they know how to find the right person. You get married and know how to stay married also.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: So in closing to the audience, maybe there's someone out there that is here listening to what you're saying. What would you say to those people who are looking to find? They haven't considered maybe, you know, matchmaking. Um what would you say to that individual who may be considering or wanting to get married, looking for that soulmate? What words of wisdom and encouragement would you give?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: To anybody who is looking to get married, I am going to offer you a blessing. May you find the right person. May it happen this year and may you both have clarity that this is the one and move forward and build your lives together.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: You're inspiring. What an encouragement. You're an amazing woman. God has blessed you with this amazing ability and the world needs it more than ever. So I wish you every blessing and every success in your endeavor.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: Amen. Thank you.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Thank you for being with us today.

Aleeza Ben Shalom: Thank you for having me.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Thank you again for joining me on this edition of Proclaiming Justice. Please share this podcast with your family and friends. For more information about how you can get involved, please visit our website at pjtn.org. As a PJTN watchman, you can help us keep up the fight to preserve our freedom for our children and their children for such a time as this.