New Yorkers make the social pages for many reasons, but getting married is one of the most common. I headed to Manhattan Jewish Experience Monday night, where more than 19 couples were celebrating their recent engagements and nuptials.

No longer being single in New York is reason enough to throw a party, but these couples had another reason. “You are preserving the greatest culture mankind has ever known,” the founder of Manhattan Jewish Experience, Rabbi Mark Wildes, told the lovebirds.

“It’s painful to see the number of intermarriages. You are the ultimate antidote,” Rabbi Wildes said. He founded Manhattan Jewish Experience in 1998 to help connect young Jewish professionals to their religion – and to one another.

The organization sponsors social, educational, and religious events. Late last year, Rabbi Wildes told the Jewish philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, an investor in The New York Sun, that the MJE had played a role in 18 marriages. Mr. Steinhardt challenged the rabbi to identify 19 additional couples, after which he would make a substantial gift to the organization.

Rabbi Wildes didn’t have to look hard and answered the challenge. Mr. Steinhardt hasn’t yet determined the specifics of his gift to Manhattan Jewish Experience, but he was impressed. “It’s extraordinary. People come here and get married. It really goes against the Jewish grain,” he said.

With Mr. Steinhardt present, Rabbi Wildes asked two couples to tell the stories of how they met.

Shawna Kalish, a 27-year-old designer, and Al Masry, a 34-year-old lawyer, became engaged May 4, on Ms. Kalish’s birthday. They plan to marry in April 2006 in Miami.

The couple met after Shabbat services about three-and-a-half years ago. Mr. Masry remembers the exact beam Ms. Kalish was standing in front of when he saw her for the first time. They got to know each other that night walking to a Shabbat dinner. “And he walked me home too – from 103rd to 72nd Street,” Ms. Kalish said.

Jacklynn and Evan Shweky also met on Shabbat and were married May 23, 2004. Mrs. Shweky had accepted an invitation to a “small Shabbat dinner” hosted by one of the rabbis at Manhattan Jewish Experience, Rabbi Jonathan Feldman.

“I was there to have dinner, to celebrate Shabbat,” Mrs. Shweky, who had recently ended a long-term relationship, said. “I wasn’t looking,” she said. “We’d all sat down. And then this man walked in late. I felt the energy in the room change – he was so upbeat,” Mrs. Shweky said.

They didn’t meet that night, but observing Mr. Schweky convinced Mrs. Shweky she was ready to date again. She logged onto Jdate.com and started going through the 23 men she had set aside out of 685 profiles she had read. “As I scrolled, I realized that Evan was on my favorites list,” Mrs. Shweky said. “I called Rabbi Feldman to tell him,” Mrs. Shweky said. “And he said, ‘That’s interesting, because Evan just called me and asked me for your number,'” she said.

The Shwekys feel indebted to Manhattan Jewish Experience. “MJE was a big part of our dating,” Mrs. Shweky said. The couple gave MJE their chuppah – the wedding canopy under which they were married – with the hope that other couples will share their joy.

The couples hummed in approval before receiving their mandate from Rabbi Wildes. “Please help us create more marriages. Go upstairs [where a few hundred singles had gathered for the Manhattan Jewish Experience Monday Night Lounge] and help these people get acquainted. There is nothing more sacred than getting Jews to marry other Jews,” Rabbi Wildes said.

Mr. Steinhardt instructed the singles to marry. “Being married and having children is a great joy. I’m directing this to the Jewish men here. You really should do it,” he said. “Get married, make Jewish babies, and worry about important things.” He offered an incentive to the singles gathered – one he has issued numerous times to other groups of Jewish singles. “If any of you meet for the first time tonight and get married, I will pay for you to go on your honeymoon in Anguilla,” Mr. Steinhardt said.

“I think it’s very inspiring. It’s a needed push in the community,” said Brent Botner, a financial adviser who is engaged to a nursing student, Adriana Nodar. As the sunset faded to darkness, the singles mingled and made dates. Hope was in the air.