A rabbi anxiously walked into a bar.

Andrew Scheer, the rabbi in question, was about to have a first date with Avital Zipper. Mr. Scheer’s vocation was frequently a deal breaker once a woman learned of it.

“I love being a rabbi — it’s a great honor — but I would have to dance around what I did for a living and when I told them. It was like they were 12 years old again and speaking to their rabbi at their bat mitzvah,” said Rabbi Scheer, 31, who is Modern Orthodox, grew up in Woodmere, N.Y., and is a Jewish chaplain for the Veterans Affairs New York Harbor Healthcare System and the New York City Department of Correction.

“The girls I was meeting were lovely, but they were expecting a doctor or lawyer,” he said. “Being a rabbi really impeded my dating life.”