A long-anticipated repair finally was completed at Shabbos House in the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah, so there certainly has to be a lesson in that! After all, this is a time to fix & patch things up, to make broken things whole again (best we can).
One thing about this particular fix is that we have been waiting quite a few weeks on a hard-to-get part & available service-people and during all that time a daily alert-alarm would go off reminding us of the need to fix this.
During weekdays it was easy enough to go to the panel & press “Acknowledge” but we couldn’t do so on Shabbat! The need for this (expensive) fix got more urgent as we approached the holiday season. Thankfully, non-Jewish friends were helpful enough to know to come each Shabbat at the appointed alert alarm time to press the button (which we couldn’t do on Shabbat or holidays) to “Acknowledge”.
We asked the alarm company if this alert could be disabled until the repair, but they said it would be illegal to do so. So this daily routine, remembering the problem & acknowledging it, continued, once each day, day after day – for weeks!
Once we were notified the part was arriving and they were scheduling the repair, only to be called back that the wrong part arrived! Lots of calls, back and forth, but the alert-alarm was unrelenting, persistent and consistent, every day at 11am until “Acknowledge” was pressed, then it was silent, but only until 11am the next day when it went off to remind us again.
Of course, in life there are many problem situations which persist and don’t go away. They can even be out of our control, awaiting a part or service we can’t make/do ourselves. Sometimes one of the only things we can do is to Acknowledge, to recognize, be aware, not forget: This needs a fix! It would be easier, more convenient & comfortable to silence that alert. But we can’t. It’s important for us to know & remember, even that one time each day, that this isn’t OK as is, that even if we can’t do anything now, it does have to get done, eventually, somehow!