Find love in six to eight weeks.
Learn to date without the heartache.
That’s not as impossible as it sounds, according to Rabbi Yaacov Deyo, founder of the Speed Dating phenomenon.
His new book, “Speed Dating: The Smarter, Faster Way to Lasting Love,” attempts to help singles find meaningful relationships without wasting too much time and investing too much emotion.
“SpeedDating is not about speed relationships, it’s about saving the romance for the right relationship,” explained Deyo, who co-authored the book with his wife of seven and a half years, Sue. “There is a myth out there that it can take up to two years to figure out if you’re with the right person. We’re just speeding up the evaluation process.”
Deyo will discuss his book on Sunday, April 21 at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.
“The book provides clear definitions on the basics of love and what being in love truly means,” Deyo said during a phone interview. “It provides ways to evaluate deal-breakers and to ask yourself what your true desire might be.”
Deyo, 39, admits he isn’t a relationship therapist. He is not specially trained in sociology or psychology.
Truth be told, he has, of all things, an economics degree.
So why should Jewish singles trust Deyo’s advice on finding lasting love?
“Because it doesn’t come from my head,” he said. “It all comes from the Torah. The Torah is infused with many principles on how relationships can be conducted in a successful, loving way.”
In their book, the Deyos basically “fleshed out” some of those principles and applied them to modern-day dating.
For example, said Deyo, at one point in the Torah Rachel laments that she doesn’t have any children, asking her husband: “Give to me children?” The Hebrew word for “give” is heveh, while the word for “love” is ohev. “Based on the roots of these words, this suggests very strongly,” said Deyo, “that giving truly creates love.”
To make his point, he noted that parents love their children unconditionally because they “spend thousands of hours giving to them day and night.”
Even to a lesser degree, someone who gives money to a homeless person for seven straight days, he said, would feel “compelled to ask that person their name” because of the bond created through giving.
Another important principle in the Torah, he continued, is “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
“The limit on how much you can love someone else is how much you love yourself,” he explained. “Do you think you’re worthy of loving? This is important if you’re going to love another and should be examined before you get into a relationship.”
Deyo is an Orthodox Jew and a teaching rabbi who serves as education director of Aish HaTorah in Los Angeles, an international Jewish outreach group. He created SpeedDating in 1999 through Aish because he sensed the need for a better way for Jewish singles to meet.
“My students were calling me for advice whenever they got dumped. I ended up talking to a lot of people.”
SpeedDating allows Jewish singles to meet with a number of potential mates in a short period of time. If any of the connections click, they can move on to real dates. The program is offered throughout the nation and at Bay Area locales including the JCC in San Francisco as well as at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills. San Francisco was the third city in the country to launch SpeedDating, and the JCC was the non-AishHaTorah venue, according to Yossi Offenberg, who directs the program here.
Singles can also log onto www.aish.com/speeddating and find romance right from their keyboard.
“Singles usually meet in bars and clubs or through friends, but you know it can be a brutal scene,” he said. “SpeedDating is a low-pressure way. We want it to be a win for everyone who goes.”
The success rate at each event, said Deyo, is more than 50 percent and the phenomenon has caught on well beyond the Jewish dating scene.
As a result, Deyo and his wife decided to put some of the principles leading to its success on paper; they ended up writing the book.
“We believe that dating is just the due diligence a person goes through to find a relationship — please God, a great relationship,” said Deyo. “We just wanted to find a way to get them there with less pain.”