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The Advertising Standards Authority, the ASA, has just banned an online dating agency from claiming it has a scientifically proven match-making system. In an advert headlined “step aside fate, it’s time science had a go at love”, the dating service claimed to be able to ‘decode the mystery of compatibility and chemistry so that you don’t have to.’ The ASA said that there is no proof that those who used the service were more likely to find lasting love than those who didn’t, and ruled that the advert was misleading. Match-making is a tough business. The Talmud relates how a Roman matron once asked a rabbi how God occupies his time. ‘He is busy pairing couples’ answered the rabbi. ‘Seriously?’ Scoffed the matron, “anyone can pair couples, I’ve got a thousand male slaves and a thousand female slaves, I will show you how easy it is to pair them up.” “It might seem easy to you” replied the rabbi, “but I can assure you, it is as difficult as splitting the red sea.” The matron paired up her slaves, but the following morning she was inundated with complaints from the misaligned and unhappy couples. “You are right” she confessed to the rabbi “I had no idea how difficult matchmaking could be.” That even God should find match-making taxing, indicates that when it comes to matters of the heart, there is no simple algorithm. Sometimes all the externals match up and yet that elusive element we call chemistry is absent. Other times we can’t figure out how an apparently grossly misaligned couple find themselves deeply in love. No algorithm can account for that. Furthermore, traditional match-makers recognise that achieving a compatible match is only the first step towards an enduring relationship, requiring much effort on the part of the couple to achieve love. The Bible in describing Isaac’s courtship with Rebecca, states that he brought her home, took her as a wife and loved her. The sequence makes it clear that in the bible, love is not the prerequisite for marriage but rather its successful outcome. Love is not static, you don’t fall in love with someone and remain perpetually in that state. As anyone in a long term relationship knows, love is hard work. The root of the Hebrew word for love Ahavah, is hav which means to give. Falling in love is something that happens to us, but being in love is the result of an active process in which we continually give of ourselves to our beloved. And it is in giving and sharing that we discover just how deep our capacity for love can really be.