Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, the rabbi of Young Israel in Kew Gardens Hill, Queens, spoke to Arutz Sheva about the lessons to be learned from the tragic death of seven young children in the Sassoon family in Flatbush last Saturday, after a fire broke out due to a hot plate malfunction.
The rabbi remarked that when faced with the tragedy, "one thing to take away from it is unity." He noted that he never met the Sassoon family, but "it was like a personal tragedy," and he relates how that sense of connection was reflected by other Jews he spoke to as well.
It was "a Holocaust of one family, it's a personal Holocaust. You cannot explain the Holocaust, and people who try to only make the situation more aggravating," explained Rabbi Schonfeld. "This was a Holocaust of seven precious children."
Responding to how many have grappled to find a reason for the tragedy, he stated "we have to accept that we just don't know why Hashem does the things that he does."
The rabbi compared G-d's actions in such cases to those of a loving parent who sometimes is strict with their children for the sake of their ultimate benefit.
He remarked how Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent a letter to the father of the children "because he's a leader of the Jewish people and that's the way the Jewish people are, standing together."