A fire filled shabbat

 

Well, this was a Shabbat I will never forget. Last night was a great Shabbat Sheva Brachot, full of friends, family, and love. My parents came by last night, all was great.

Then this morning, around 7 am, we get a knock at the door at the Newmarks from Charlie. He is wearing tzitzit and orange shorts, leading me immediately to understand that something wasn’t right. I ran out with him without telling anyone, and got to Shivtei in seconds, seeing two fire trucks, 3 ambulances, police, security. I found Nava and gave her hugs, found my parents already in the ambulance on the way to check for smoke inhalation.

(What had happened was my mom woke up at around 7 am and saw smoke in her room. She woke up my dad who then woke up the people all over the house (9 people), and they all battled through the crazy dark smoke to go downstairs. It was so dark and smoky that the guests who didn't recognize the house, had a tough time figuring out how to get downstairs. Once out of the house, my dad called the fire department, and then they came.)

I asked all the questions to my parents, and my dad asked me to try and lock the door if possible. Nava asked me to tell the Engelharts what happened too. I told them they were in good hands and then they left. Once they left, my Saba rode up the street and had seen it – he asked me what happened. I vaguely said upstairs there was a fire, so for most of the morning he actually didn’t know that it was my parents.  

Once I got into the courtyard, I saw a bunch of neighbors congregating, and went inside quickly to see what was what. The entire house was flooded, upstairs and down, with black water from soot. The laundry room seemed to be the source of the fire, since it was the worst hit.

I ran to shul to ask the Rabbi what was allowed to be done on shabbat to limit the damage. He said if I really need to I can find a goy to move the water and if I can’t and I REALLY need to, I can do it with a shinui. I told a couple people at shul I couldn’t do teen minyan this week, ran to Shifra to tell her what was going on, and ran to my parents house to start working.

By the time I got there, the neighbors had already mopped out all the water on the first floor (definitely not with a shinui but so nicely and it really meant a lot to me that they did it). They offered to drive food etc. to my parents but I knew they would not want that.

The firefighter investigator came and thought that a vacuum lit on fire (which didn’t make sense to me as it wasn’t plugged in). He also told me that it was an absolute miracle that it happened in the morning and not in the middle of the night, because the smoke was so thick that they wouldn’t have woken up – scariest moment of the day to hear that. I then started to work on upstairs which was a massive job. While I was there, Limor (in her Sheva Brachot week!) came and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She brought cold water to drink, masks, and got to work with moving water. A few minutes later, my other amazing sister in law came. Together, we worked for almost 2 hours, and were able to get the upstairs to some level of normal. We had to make decisions like what to put on the beds, what to throw away etc, but I thought we did a good job. Orin Green and Yehuda Block came by to check on us, and neighbors kept coming in too. Was very meaningful to feel that hug from the community. The whole time while cleaning up I wanted to go to the Engelharts (I was sure they were hearing rumors) and let them know Nava and Charlie were ok, but I couldn’t leave.

As we were wrapping up, my Saba wheeled in to check on everyone. It was then that I think he found out that it was our family. But then, out of nowhere, my parents walked in, which was a huge surprise. They had apparently been fasttracked because we know a doctor there, and luckily, the doctor who was driving home anyway was able to give them a ride. They looked much calmer than they had in the morning, and they told us that all 9 people were medically fine, but the others were too frum to drive back home.

I walked them through the house, and gave them a detailed explanation of everything. Then the electricity inspector came by and told me that the cause of fire was fraying cables in the air conditioning engine, which made much more sense.

My parents went to wash up at my Saba and Savta, and Eliana and I went back to the Newmarks to each shower. We were both dressed in sports clothes, and one of the religious neighbors told us she didn’t know we were so sportivi. It took me a bunch of rounds of shampoo and soap until I felt like I got most of it off.

From there, I went to the Engelharts, who it turned out, did not hear anything but were so grateful that I had come to tell them. From there I walked to Sheva Brachot at the Greens, saw my parents on the way, and we walked in to a standing ovation. My dad even spoke his dvar torah at the sheva brachot which was an awesome one. After Challah at the meal I realized I hadn’t heard kiddush yet (oops) so I made sure to.

The rest of the day was good, we played with the kids, I told them at an age appropriate level what happened, and they thought it was pretty cool.

Now I am flying to America for work (and getting in some Tigers BP and games in the middle), and as my dad said today, “Batting practice is a better way to spend your week than sitting Shiva”.

Baruch Hashem. I hope we have a Seudat Hodaya next shabbat, we definitely should.