Early last Saturday morning, 7 haredi siblings from the Sassoon family died in a horrific house fire in Brooklyn. There were no smoke alarms on the first or second floors of the house, and a Shabbat hotplate had been left on and unattended. It caused a fire that the sleeping family did not notice in time to get out of the house. Seven kids died, one other and their mother jumped from the second floor and is hospitalized in critical condition with injuries, burns and smoke inhalation. Wallerstein attempts to explain what the lesson is from this fire and why the kids had to die. Wallerstein, you see, thinks he knows why God killed the kids, because kabbalah and Jewish tradition told him – we are not careful enough with our own Shabbat observance. It isn't smoke alarms we need to check, it's our Shabbos observance.
[Hat Tip: Simcha Schonfeld.]