This just happened!

 

This time the meaning behind the story was pretty much immediate.

 

In the merit of honoring Shabbos to the fullest!

 

An interesting thing happened to us this Friday that I thought it may be worth sharing with our readers.

 

Things sometimes go wrong, or so it seems, at the worst possible moment. We had such an experience this past week! Our oven decided to quit on us right before Pesach!

 

We have a service contract with Sears and the earliest possible day for them to come and look at the problem was on Thursday afternoon. You know the routine: they tell you that you must wait for them any time between 8:00 and 12:00.

 

The problem was, no one was going to be home during that time. Sara was teaching and the boys and I were going to be away for the day in New York.

 

Thursday night was the 11th day of Nissan, the 110th anniversary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s birthday, and we joined thousands of Chasidim who came to mark this special day in 770 and the Ohel in New York.

 

With Pesach only four days away I could not afford to lose the appointment with the technician! It was not easy to find someone to babysit the house for us until Sears would show up. One of my friends did do me a big favor and came to the house, but then called me at 1:00 P.M. to tell me that the technician never came!

 

Later, on the answering machine, Sears left a message that they were sorry but they overbooked and they will come the next day, that is, on Friday between 1:00 and 5:00.

 

I was kind of annoyed, especially with the trouble I had gone through to get someone to wait for them for a half a day. I was wondering why this was happening! But with all the pressures of the upcoming Yom Tov I could not dwell too long on it and just forgot about the whole thing. 

 

At least I did not have to worry about someone being home on Friday, for I knew that all day long we would be cleaning for Pesach and preparing for Shabbos. I removed it from my mind and forgot about the whole thing.

 

On Friday, ten minutes before 1:00 in the afternoon, Dr. Alan Schaffel, a congregant and friend, called me with a shailoh (question needing a rabbinic ruling). Now, Alan is pretty much a level-headed kind of a guy with a pleasant outlook on life and never gets too excited or upset.

 

But as soon as I picked up the phone I could hear how distressed he was. He said to me, “Rabbi, I got a big problem. Our oven broke and we have to cook for Yom Tov on Sunday, but without a working oven we won’t be able to cook!”

 

He explained that he called Sears and they said they could come on Shabbos! He said, “Rabbi, is there any way I can allow them to fix the oven on Shabbos? They can also come on Monday but that will not give us enough time to cook all the food for Pesach.”

 

I thought about it for a moment and said, “I’m very sorry, but you should not really have them come on Shabbos. His response to me was, “Well, if this is the ruling, we will have to manage. The sanctity of Shabbos is more important.” (I was just about to invite their whole family and their guests to our home for Yom Tov.)

 

As soon as I hung up with Alan, the Sears technician called me to tell me he was going to be at my house in five minutes. Now I was beginning to understand why they did not come the day before, so that I could send them over to the Schaffels’ house to fix their oven and solve their predicament as well.

 

I said to myself, a moment ago the Schaffels decided to take care of the Shabbos—and the Shabbos is taking care of them.

 

So I called up the Schaffels, who live around the corner from us, and I said, “Listen, is there someone home? I will try and send over the technician to your house to fix your oven so you can have a happy Pesach and do all your cooking on Sunday.”

 

Alan said, “This will never happen! There isn’t a chance in the world! They have their rules, you have to book them through the main office, and there is nothing the technician can do on his own. We have been on the phone with Sears for hours and if my wife can’t get anywhere with them no one can!”

 

I said, “Let me just try to make sure someone is home I will send him right over.”

 

Sure enough, the technician looked at our oven and said it needed a part and he can’t fix it before Yom Tov! Sara knew there was a reason why he is there, so she said to the technician, “Please, you must do us a big favor and go to our friends’ house. They are under such stress; they need their oven fixed so they can cook for the holiday.”

 

And you guessed the end of the story: the technician went over to the Schaffels’ house, he fixed their oven, and he told them that although he is not Jewish, he once attended a seder where something went wrong with the oven. He saw firsthand the stress, and luckily he was able to help them then, and he was happy to be able to help the Schaffels now. So in this season of miracles this is our very own little miracle in Sharon, MA.

 

Now I know you may want to know what ever happened with our broken oven. Thank G-d, we have another working oven that we are using for Pesach.

 

Leshanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim—Next year in Jerusalem!