ChabadNewOrleans Blog

Malkie and I are very touched by the overflowing of good wishes in response to our son Sholom’s recent engagement to Etty Sosover. We look forward to being able to reciprocate on your happy occasions.

Has it ever happened that you achieved some major success and you are still left feeling a little empty? Have you ever made a significant purchase that you thought would bring you much happiness, but you are left feeling unfulfilled?

Why do we experience that hollow feeling when we check all the boxes — career, family, accomplishments — and still wake up asking: "Is this it?"

Here's what we don’t realize: The emptiness isn't because something's missing. It's because we've been looking for meaning in all the wrong places. We chase achievements, distractions, and the next thing that might finally make us feel complete. Jewish wisdom has been saying for centuries that meaning isn't something you get, it's something you discover.

That's why I'm teaching The Kabbalah of Meaning starting October 29 on six Wednesday evenings where we'll tackle the questions that keep you up at 3 am:

    • Why does success sometimes feel hollow?

    • How do I find purpose in the mundane, daily grind?

    • Is there meaning in the things I didn't choose?

    • What connects all the scattered pieces of my life into something coherent?

This isn't about learning mystical concepts or ancient texts.

It's about looking at your actual life — your relationships, your work, your struggles, your ordinary Tuesday morning — and discovering the meaning that's been there all along.

Doctors and Mental Health professionals, this course offers CE credits for you. Earn your CE credits, while learning Torah.

You can learn more about the course and register at www.chabadneworleans.com/jli.

Chabad of Metairie – Rabbi Ceitlin will be offering this course on Tuesdays, beginning November 4. More info at www.jewishlouisiana.com/jli.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin

We spent the past month praying and wishing one another to be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life. Mission accomplished. Now what? What are we doing with this life with which we were endowed?

During the prayer for rain we declared “L’chaim v’lo Lamavet – for life and not for death.” Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, the Rebbe’s father emphasized that what we are trying to say is that life is more than just the absence of death. Rather life, is meant to be purposeful, meaningful, and valuable.  

Similarly, the blessing that we recite over every holiday and new Mitzvah, begins with Shehechiyunu – Who has given us life. The life that is given to us by Hashem is meant to be purposeful, meaningful, and valuable, infused with G-dly purpose, Spiritual meaning, and Divine value.

How do we discover that G-dly purpose, Spiritual meaning, and Divine value? This will be the subject of the upcoming JLI Fall 2025 course entitled, The Kabbalah of Meaning, that begins after the holidays. Over the duration of this course, we will explore what we need to pursue to discover the inherent meaningful purpose with/for which we were created.

In Louisiana everyone likes a little bit of lagniappe. This course offers CE credits for doctors and mental health professionals. To learn more about the course, which will run on six Wednesdays starting October 29, www.chabadneworleans.com/jli.

For the Metairie course, which will run on Tuesdays, www.jewishlouisiana.com/jli.

I hope that you will consider joining. Try the first class with no commitment required and see if you would like to join for the rest of the course.

I look forward to exploring this integral topic together with you.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin

On the first day of Sukkot, my family was walking home from Synagogue past the Willow School. We overheard some kids remarking to each other, “Why are there so many people dressing like Abraham Lincoln today?” The next morning, Malkie was walking to the Synagogue with a few of our children. When they passed the Willow School, a little seven-year-old girl pressed her face against the fence and asked in a small voice, “Are you Jewish?” When Malkie replied, “Yes,” the little girl piped up and said, “I am Jewish too.” Malkie said, “Today is Sukkot, Happy Sukkot.” The little girl replied, “Ok, I am going to back to play with my friends.”

What prompts a seven-year-old to initiate a conversation with strangers through a fence and volunteer that information? I would argue that it was an expression of her core Jewish identity. She just wanted that connection in the moment in a way that she herself couldn’t really understand.

Two years ago, on the morning of Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah in Israel, a cruel assault was launched against the Jewish people and against Jewish identity. The terrorists and their useful idiot supporters who began protesting immediately, while legitimizing the attack against Jews, want to see Jewish identity wither away and disappear forever.

They chose the wrong day for an attempt at eliminating Jewish identity. Simchat Torah is, in fact, the day that a Jew’s identity is as potent and powerful as it can be. What we celebrate that day is our existence and our relationship with G-d. Coming on the heels of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot, Simchat Torah is the climax of tapping into our core Jewish identity.

They tried to steal that holiday from us. They tried to turn the apex of joy into the depths of shock and mourning. But they cannot. Just as all the nations who tried before them for millennia. The last line in the saga reads, “Am Yisrael Chai - the Jewish people live on.”

As we look forward to the return of the last hostages, with G-d’s help, we prepare to celebrate our Jewish identity on Simchat Torah once again. What a celebration this will be. We celebrate the survival of the Jewish people against all odds. We celebrate the thriving of Jewish life. We celebrate the love and embrace that we feel from Hashem. We celebrate the imminent arrival of Mashiach and the complete and final Redemption.

Join us as we dance for them and with them. Am Yisrael Chai!

Happy Simchat Torah
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin

PS We express a heart Mazel Tov to Rabbi Mendel and Chaya Mushka Ceitlin and Rabbi Yossie and Chanie Nemes on the occasion of Heschel Ceitlin’s Bar Mitzvah.

We express heartfelt condolences to Dr. Tere Vives on the passing of her mother, Tere Aceves. May Hashem comfort her among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.