It so happens that our big double-door kitchen fridge went on the blink and died earlier in the week. It served us well for close to ten years, but it’s a workhouse and we use (and abuse) it a lot. After a repair diagnosis came up with a very costly fix for an already older fridge, we decided to bite the bullet and buy a new one instead. It arrived noon-time just before our “Tzfat-Shabbat”, the weekend before Thanksgiving 2025.
So what’s the connection? What’s the lesson? What does the timing teach us?
A good functioning fridge is all about maintaining atmosphere within. There’s a “Goldilocks Zone” to keeping things fresh, not too cold so that it will freeze and not too warm that it will spoil. And to keep that temperature consistence no matter what comes it’s way, even if it gets real hot in the kitchen, or no matter how many times we keep opening and closing that door. The door needs to seal tight, the evaporator and condenser need to work together, none of the refrigerant can leak…
Usually at Chabad we think of warmth when it comes to atmosphere, but for the sake of the analogy here, and thanks to the Divine Providence of our old fridge failing and new fridge arriving this week, we’re going with cool as the ideal, the target desired Goldilocks Zone.
If you’re thinking of a city with atmosphere, where there’s just something in the air, Tzfat (Safed) in Israel’s north has to rank high up there. It’s an artsy place, it’s mystical, it’s full of history. It’s heyday was a couple of decades in the early 16th century when some of Judaism’s greatest minds and spirits coalesced there after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. Somehow, despite subsequent earthquakes and disasters and wars and economic conditions and all the tumult and upheavals of time and modernity, Tzfat still maintains that mystique. It still has that charm, that sense of spirit and the spiritual, it’s a mystical place. That’s maintaining an atmosphere.
This mission of maintaining atmosphere is important to us at Shabbos House Chabad. There are optimum conditions and various factors in play when it comes to fostering a Jewish campus community, with all of its moving parts and changing chemistry of people coming and going each year. There are balances that need to calibrated, negative energy to be evaporated and refreshing coolant to flow and invigorate throughout. We have to constantly monitor the temperature, and seeing what can be done (and what can’t) to make the conditions better and more conducive.
This is not only true of community, but also of families. Any group you are part of, all parts and pieces of that group – be it a family, a fraternity, housemates, a community – everyone contributes and impacts that atmosphere, for better or for worse. And for those who care about the overall climate, that overall temperature, for the atmosphere in which they and others can best survive and thrive, all that matters. A lot!
And we’re in the shadow on Thanksgiving this 2025. We might be the Shabbos prior, but it seems that for many, Thanksgiving extends further back and includes two weekends. So not too early to mention Thanksgiving. Atmosphere is one of those things that play in the background, it’s often invisible or less tangible, we often take it for granted because it’s always working, always on. Until it isn’t. We don’t realize how much goes into to creating a healthy atmosphere. And that and all that goes into it, is something to be especially thankful for!
And now that we missed our fridge for close to two weeks, we’re thankful to have a working one again!