This Unknown Setting Made Us Think Our Fridge Was Broken

When it comes to home appliances just about every 12 months or so one in my home needs replacing. This has been going on since I moved in about 5 years ago so almost all of the big stuff has been replaced.

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On Friday though, our newish fridge that is only 11 months old appeared to not be working.

Just a half hour before I had loaded various meats from B&B Market into it in preparation for heading to the deer shack.  When I went back in to get something to drink, the fridge light was off and when I opened the freezer, and that light was off too.

I checked the bulbs even though I figured it would be rare both would go out at the same time, and they were fine.  I then confirmed the fridge had power, and it did and the temps in the whole unit seemed ok.

When my wife got home, she mentioned that the setting for the temp had two lights on instead of one and the control panel wasn't working.  She also felt the fridge was not as cold as it should be, and I figured that was because I kept opening it to troubleshoot the issue.

All of my Google research didn't provide helpful at why the lights were off and the panel was lit up but frozen, so I pulled up the manual.  Apparently, my fridge has an option for the Orthodox Jewish Community.  It's called "Sabbath Mode".

Sabbath Mode disables portions of the refrigerator and its controls to help in observing the Sabbath.  Not that I'm well versed in appliances by any means, but I was still surprised I had never heard of that setting on something before.  The odd thing is, I don't know what I would have done to enable it as the directions provided were something I didn't do.  However, reversing those directions did disable Sabbath Mode and I was able to call off the repair tech.