Community-Wide Event On Fire Safety By The FDNY And Loving Our Children By Rav Mordechai Finkelman

The key to preventing tragedies such as the one that befell the Sassoon family and the entire klal Yisrael on Shabbos, March 21, is to teach fire safety awareness. On Motza’ei Shabbos, March 28, Firefighter Mike Jones of the FDNY Fire Safety Education Unit spoke to a crowd of community members at the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills (YIKGH) about how to keep our families and our homes safe and how to teach our families what to do in a time of crisis. The main things we should look out for, according to Mr. Jones, are “electrical units that are broken in any way.” He stated emphatically: “Do not repair them yourselves. Discard them.” In addition, it is imperative that we do not allow unsupervised children when flames of any kind are present, whether it is candles lit for Yom Tov or Shabbos or a lit burner cooking on the stove – our children should not be allowed to play nearby. “Even if the stove is off, children should not play in kitchen areas as they tend to touch knobs on stoves and open oven doors,” said Mr. Jones. Some safety tips regarding candles are to place them at a distance from corners or edges of tables, and keep all combustible materials away. If the candles will be burning overnight, place them in an aluminum pan with water. This way, if they fall or burn too low, they will go out when they hit the water. Mr. Jones offered several safety tips that we should teach to our families as well as enforce on an ongoing basis. The devastating fire and the death of the seven Sassoon children have left the Jewish community at a loss. This tragedy has befallen all of klal Yisrael, and the enormity of this tragedy is something so difficult to comprehend. Rabbi Mordechai Finkelman, Mashgiach Ruchani of Yeshivas Ohr HaChaim, spoke to the audience following the valuable session on fire safety, to offer words of chizuk. He stated that the program was for a r’fuah for Gila bas Tzipora, mother of the Sassoon children, and Tzipora bas Gila, the only surviving child. Rabbi Finkelman spoke of the shul and how it is an extension of our home. “In chasidus, all shuls are called shtieblach, no matter the size. A shtiebel is a room, and we should think of our own shul as an addition to our home, a place where we feel safe to ask questions. If we do not have a connection to a shul, we are missing a part of our home.” In Har Nof, the massacre of sons, fathers, and grandfathers took place in their shul, their home, and it affected all of us. The loss of the seven beautiful n’shamos of the Sassoon family on Rosh Chodesh also affected us all. Our cycle of Yamim Tovim begins in Nisan with Pesach. This Pesach is a proposal to marriage with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and seven weeks later, on Shavuos, we will meet Him under the chupah. This is exactly the message that was given by Gabriel Sassoon at the l’vayah of his children. We need to be close to each other and close to Hashem. Mr. Sassoon said, “These are my children, they all have faces of angels. Hashem knows how much I love them.” People need to not ever forget how important our children are. “Every child is the best – every child is an important child. To me, each child was my whole world and I have just lost my whole world.” Mr. Sassoon’s message could not be clearer. Rabbi Finkelman reiterated the importance of this message: to love our children, love other people’s children – they are all our children. “We are always a teacher – someone is always watching us, they are always learning from us.” He discussed that it is important to do chesed, but that chesed must first start in the home. It is not hard to do chesed out of the home; however, the real test is doing chesed within the home, within your own family. There are ways of doing this chesed and that begins with shalom bayis. “We need to give our children a refreshing place to come home to, with healthy nourishment and ruchniyus,” said Rabbi Finkelman. Rabbi Finkelman reminded the audience again that in order to keep shalom bayis, Shabbos and Yamim Tovim should permeate our homes. We need to give Shabbos over to the next generation. If the home is unpleasant on Shabbos, then children will not want Shabbos. We need to let them be a part of making Shabbos, making Pesach. Let them help; make it pleasant and fun. “If we have to give musar, do it with love. Do not pick up the sin; pick up the child.” This extremely informative community-wide event was sponsored by the Queens Jewish Community Council (QJCC), Chazaq, and Chickens for Shabbos. by Jennifer Jaffe/QJL Visit https://www.chazaq.org/ Together We Can Make A Difference, To donate online to CHAZAQ please visit https://www.fidelipay.com/chazaq