ChabadNewOrleans Blog - Chabad-Lubavitch of Louisiana

Is Hope An Illusion?

Thursday, July 23, 2026 - 6:35 PM

Reading the story and the liturgy of Tisha B’Av, a word that kept popping up is “Hope.” There is the passage in Jeremiah with the voice of Rachel crying for her children going in to exile and G-d says to her “Refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears… there is hope for your future and your children will return to their borders.” This word is evoked repeatedly in our liturgy and our teachings.

Is hope an illusion? Are the promises of a return and the rebuilding of our people and our land just there to help us get through challenges? Were the prophets just stringing us along so that we can stand up again after being knocked down by yet another persecutorial enemy? Are the sages of the Talmud in on the conspiracy when they speak of a future Redemption? Did the Rambam, Rashi, the Arizal, the Baal Shemtov and all the others who speak of hope for the future, just come along for the ride in hoodwinking our people into believing in a Mashiach who will never come?

Years ago, I met an older man in Shreveport along with two friends and he told us about his encounter with the Rebbe. He shared how much he admired the Rebbe for what he did for the Jewish people. Then he concluded, “I just don’t understand why he insists on the ridiculous notion of Mashiach’s coming. Even the Rambam and the sages just used Mashiach as a way of offering hope to Jewish people during challenging times.” 19-year-old me was bursting with incredulity. How could an intelligent man accuse the Rambam of being a charlatan?

53-year-old me still insists that hope is not an illusion. I believe with complete certainty that words of the Rebbe and all those who preceded him, all the way back to the prophets and Moses, are an articulation of the promise of Hashem, which is the absolute truth.

Can we prove it? I believe that we can. The greatest proof that hope is real and that our future is G-d’s promise of Redemption, is the fact of Jewish survival. Today we mourned the destruction of our Temples by the Babylonians and the Romans, two mighty empires who dominated the world scene in their day. Where are they now? Where is Pharoah’s Egypt? Where is the Greek empire of Antiochus? Where is the Persian empire of Achashverosh? Where are the mighty crusaders? Where is the caliphate? Where is the Spanish kingdom of Ferdinand and Isabella? Where is the third Reich? Where is the Soviet Union?

But we, the Jewish people are alive and thriving. Am Yisrael Chai. We are a sliver of the world’s population. We always have been. And yet, here we are. In fact, humanity is quite obsessed with us, despite our diminutive proportions. We have survived every effort to eradicate us. We have survived one attempted genocide after the next. We believe with complete faith in the coming of Mashiach. Though he has tarried, nevertheless, we wait every day for him to come and fulfill the hope of Hashem’s promise. May this take place speedily. Amen

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin

Building the Temple in 2026

Friday, July 17, 2026 - 1:12 PM

According to our Jewish calendar, the Temple is top on our mind this week. Our Holy Temple was built by King Solomon, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; rebuilt by Ezra, and destroyed by Titus nearly 2,000 years ago. Who is meant to build the Third Temple? How can we build it when there is another entity that presently occupies that sacred space?

There are those who argue that we must drive the narrative. We must do whatever we can to facilitate the physical construction of the Third Temple. Most of our great Rabbinic authorities disagree with that approach. While they discuss whether the Temple will be built by humans under the auspices of Mashiach (the opinion of Maimonides), or whether it will descend miraculously from heaven (the opinion of Rashi and others), both sides maintain that we cannot begin that construction process before its time. But, why not? Why shouldn’t we do what we can? Are we just meant to be passive observers of our own destiny?

Let us take a step back and understand what the Temple is, and this may offer some insight into the above dilemma. The Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple) was a physical place that served as a spiritual inspiration for the Jewish people and all of humanity who sought to take advantage of that spirituality. It was a space where G-dliness was openly revealed in various ways. One came to “see, and be seen by G-d.” Of course, there were physical parameters to the building that are very detailed. There were protocols for conduct in and around the building that are very detailed. But underlying this “Temple of Matter” is the “Temple of Spirit.” It is the connection point between G-d and humanity. This “Temple of Spirit” was maintained and sustained by the proper behavior of the Jewish people. With the decline of their behavior, the “Temple of Spirit,” and by extension, the “Temple of Matter” became vulnerable to attack from outside forces.

So, while the Babylonians and the Romans may have destroyed the first and second “Temples of Matter,” we Jews were responsible for the destruction of the “Temple of Spirit.”

This, my friends, is the secret to our role in its rebuilding. We must rebuild the “Temple of Spirit” and then the “Temple of Matter” will be brought back as well. Every Mitzvah is a brick in the temple. Every time we study about the Temple, we are engaged in the construction of the Temple. As we make our world more worthy of hosting the “Temple of Spirit,” we bring ourselves closer to the day when our “Temple of Matter” will once again grace the top of that beautiful mountain in Jerusalem.

As for the current occupant, Mashiach will be such a persuasive spiritual leader that those involved will voluntarily make way for the proper occupant of that sacred space without a drop of blood needing to be shed.

May we witness this wonderful phenomenon speedily!

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin

Holy Imperfection: The Redeeming Quality of our Pathetic State

Friday, July 10, 2026 - 1:35 PM

Many people ask, how is it that there are folks who deliberately lead lives that go against the Torah and yet seemingly enjoy a healthy and happy life. Rabbi Shneur Zalman, in his treatise on Teshuva in Tanya, frames the questions more specifically. In the Torah there are transgressions for which there are court administered consequences. Then there are those acts for which the Torah prescribes Karet – excision of the soul. What is Karet? The sages explain that the person’s life force flowing from the soul diminishes to an imperceptible trickle, and they must therefore die at an earlier age (50-60). That soul then experiences the tormented afterlife of being excised from heaven. Yet, the Alter Rebbe asks, we find that there are people who have violated those transgressions and live long lives, far beyond the prescribed age.

He explains that the description we offered applied only until the destruction of the Temple, when the world was more spiritually sensitive and people’s connection with their soul’s G-dly energy was direct. Therefore, once the life force stopped flowing from the soul, it was impossible to continue living. However, with the decline of the world’s spiritual state, the energy of the soul does not directly vivify a person. Rather, the soul’s energy is rerouted in an indirect manner, and the person is not as dependent on the soul’s energy for survival. That “slow drip” indirect flow of a person’s life force can carry on long after the excision of the soul was decreed. The imperceptible trickle of Divine life force is sufficient to keep a person alive for longer.

So, our state of existence is so pathetic and so removed from spiritual sensitivity that even “death” doesn’t care to claim us.

Now for the silver lining.

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter was walking home from the Synagogue late one night and saw a light burning in the tailor’s home. He peeked in and saw the tailor at his bench mending clothing. Upon inquiring from tailor why he was working so late, the tailor replied, “Rabbi, as long as the candle burns, one can still mend.” The Rabbi said that this was a deep message about life. As long as the candle (of G-d - the soul) is burning (the person is alive), one can still mend. If we are still alive, we can do Teshuvah and mend our flaws.

So the extra years of “slow drip” life that we have these days, despite the sins we have committed, afford us an opportunity to mend our ways and become people worthy of a reinstated connection with Hashem. In fact, through Teshuva, our connection with Hashem is not only reinstated, but it returns in a more powerful manner than before the sin.

This indeed is a redeemable quality, one that leads us to the ultimate redemption speedily!

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin

One Nation, Under G-d, With Liberty and Justice for All

Friday, July 3, 2026 - 11:33 AM

This weekend we mark 250 years of the United States of America. While there is plenty to kvetch about, there is also plenty to kvell about. Many of the founding principles took a long time to come to fruition for all, and some are still a “work in progress,” for which hard work is required to achieve progress. All in all, the 250-year experiment has been good for the Jews. True there is an ever-present proportion of American population that believes in antisemitic sentiments or engages in antisemitic activity, which has become more prevalent recently. Still, we are still way better off than our ancestors who lived under the Nazis, the Soviets, the blood libels and pogroms of Europe, the Inquisition, the Moslem Caliphate, the Crusaders, the Romans, The Greeks, the Persians, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, just to name a few. We are also better off in the USA than Jews living in most, if not all the gentile world in 2026. So, we have what to be grateful for!

Let us take a step back and consider why America has been such a good place for the Jews in exile. Ideals such as freedom of religion, opportunity, liberty, equality, and other freedoms granted to us by the Constitution, have shaped an environment in which we could thrive.

At the core of it all is the fact that the USA was founded on a belief that these freedoms and rights are endowed to us by our Creator, as referenced in the Declaration of Independence. To quote the pledge of allegiance, “One Nation, Under G-d, With Liberty and Justice for All.” I believe that the only way to ensure liberty and justice for all is to acknowledge that we are one nation under G-d. The idea that EVERY human being is created in the Divine Image and therefore deserves human dignity and equality in the eyes of the law, is the most compelling engine fueling the right of liberty and justice for ALL.

G-d declared to Abraham (Genesis 12:3), “I will bless those that bless you.” Historically, the nations that hosted the Jewish people throughout our diaspora, did well until they started persecuting their Jewish subjects. Let us hope that as America continues to figure itself out and works through the issues facing American society, it remembers this important ideal.

As a Jew, my most fervent wish is for Mashiach to come immediately. Until the fulfillment of that hope, I am grateful that we have a country that offers us these freedoms and opportunities. May G-d bless America on its 250^th anniversary to continue functioning as a “Malchus shel chessed” government of kindness and compassion, to serve as a model to rest of the world of what it means to be “One Nation, Under G-d, With Liberty and Justice for All.” To quote G-d Bless America, composed by Jewish songwriter Irving Berlin, “stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from Above.”

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin