Last week we spent Shabbos in the dark. The chandelier bulbs popped.

After Shabbos I call two official electricians but they’re on vacation.

Then I call Rafael.

Rafael fixes everything!

“Be there in two hours” he says.

The great part about calling Rafael is that if he says he’ll be there in two hours he’ll be there.

Two hours later the bell rings.

Rafael is at the door with his plaid granny cart. I think there’s one of everything in the world in there because every time he needs something he just reaches in and pulls it out.

He pulls out a pack of eight new bulbs and puts them on the table.

Then gets upon a ladder in the middle of the dining room and as he’s standing up there on this little plank of wood he goes into a shtickel dvar Torah: “It’s truly amazing how Hashem keeps us balanced from second to second though we are always on the verge of falling down.”

He continues to check some things up there. Pokes around with a little screwdriver. As he pokes he talks about negatives and positives and how we have the same kind of mechanism in our hearts. He goes on to comment about how there are negative sides to joy and positive sides. And negative and positive sides to sadness.

The positive side to joy is when we feel close to G-d. The negative side to joy is when we feel close to things of This World.

The positive side to sadness is when we feel we lack closeness to G-d. The negative side to sadness is when we feel we lack things of This World.

He says that Hashem breaks things or doesn’t give us certain things so that we come closer and restore our connection to Him.

I always admire fix-it people. They’re like superheroes.

The dressmaker the handyman the cobbler — they’ve got the secret.

It’s an amazing thing to fix something to restore it to its purpose.

People say there’s great pleasure in creating something new but lately I’m finding a greater pleasure repairing the old.

If we have a broken heart it can be healed.

We’re even given a whole new year to repair our old selves.

I’ll tell the truth; I was always a “thrower-outer.” I thought “If it’s broken it can’t be fixed.” I even threw parts of myself out with that theory.

But I don’t believe that anymore. I’m seeing things fixed that I never dreamed could be repaired.

It’s even a great joy just sewing on a missing button.

You have a shirt and you can’t wear it. Why? Because it’s missing a button. A button. One button holds back an entire shirt from being worn. A whole outfit.

Sounds simple. But sometimes it’s not.

Maybe you don’t have thread or a needle. Or a matching button. Or you don’t know how to sew not even a button.

I put off and shelved a lot of important things because I didn’t believe they could be fixed and I was completely in the dark on how to go about it.

But then I see how the fix-it man how someone or something can just come along and in a split second hook up some negative and positive wires and voila — light!

Rafael finishes the job and gets down from the ladder.

He packs up his cart while reiterating “G-d breaks things so we can call on Him to repair.”