RIVKAH LAMBERT ADLER (Jpost.com 19-4-24)
There was something about the story of the murder of a mother and two daughters during the Passover holiday last year that imprinted itself on the consciousness of the nation and catapulted Rabbi Leo Dee, the grieving husband and father, to international prominence.
On April 7, 2023, Lucy Dee and her daughters Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, were driving to Tiberias over Hol Hamoed, the intermediate days of the week-long festival. Their vehicle was rammed off the road by terrorist gunmen, who shot all three women. Maia and Rina were killed on the scene, and Lucy passed away from her wounds two days later.
In a private ceremony exactly one year later, Rabbi Leo Dee and his daughters Keren and Tali and son Yehuda (now 19, 18 and 15 years old) dedicated a new social hall in their community of Efrat in Lucy’s memory.
Later that evening, a standing-room-only crowd of 700, plus 2,400 who watched the ceremony online, gathered in the newly dedicated Shirat Lucy (Lucy’s Song) Hall above the Mishkan Tziporah synagogue in Efrat to remember the three women and to draw inspiration from their lives.
RABBI LEO DEE SPEAKS
After thanking the attendees for “the abundance of love, help, positive wishes, and kindness from everyone this year,” Rabbi Dee called these collective acts of kindness “our greatest nechama [comfort].”
In his talk, Rabbi Dee highlighted what he identified as “some of the thousands of projects that have been set off during this year in their memory by friends, family, and people we have never met before!”
He spoke about the Torah scroll written in Lucy’s memory, “with every one of the 300,000 letters written by different schoolchildren, soldiers, and others from around the world.... This sefer Torah is the essence of Lucy’s quest to get every Jew to feel part of our greater story and to shine their light in the world.”
In a widely publicized follow-up story to the murders, seven people received one of Lucy’s organs. In the audience that night was Rina Lital, the recipient of Lucy Dee’s heart. While relating all the ways that Rina’s life has begun to mirror Lucy’s since the transplant, Rabbi Dee said, “The head of organ donations at Beilinson [Hospital, Rabin Medical Center, Petah Tikvah] recently announced on national radio that the 30% increase in organ donors in Israel is directly connected to Lucy’s story.”
Continuing the theme of saving lives, Rabbi Dee said that “groups of extremely generous Swiss and American donors, who had never met any of us, dedicated a number of ambulances in [Lucy’s] memory and in the memory of Rina and Maia. They have saved numerous lives since then.”
Dressed in matching white T-shirts, the students and faculty of Efrat’s Orot Yehuda, where Lucy was a much-loved English teacher, recorded a haunting video of songs of encouragement and faith dedicated to Lucy’s memory. The five-minute video garnered more than 43,000 views in its first four days.
In Maia’s memory, tens of thousands of Jews around the world are learning and discussing a teaching from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) at their Shabbat table each week. The project started 18 months ago, when the Dees hosted two of Maia’s friends from London. On that Shabbat, they learned one mishna from Pirkei Avot at each meal. In Maia’s memory, those friends expanded the project to the extent that Rabbi Dee commented, “I cannot travel anywhere today without people coming up to me and saying, ‘I am learning your Pirkei Avot.’”
He also talked about a project that Maia initiated during her National Service in a high school in Yeroham. She provided snacks to encourage girls to study the weekly Torah portion during their morning break. Maia named the project “Nish Nosh Parsh” and, according to Rabbi Dee, the project “has now been rolled out to hundreds of ulpanot across Israel in her memory.”
Rabbi Dee shared that Rina’s friendly and adventurous nature has been memorialized in “a trip to Masada for hundreds of teens from around the country before Pesach. They are planning to build a spring for [Rina] in Hamra over the summer.
“Rina, if there was a girl in your year feeling lonely, you were the one with your arm around her, and you were the one who would start a new ball game to include her,” her father said. “To remember your kindness, your friends have built a special space in the school at Kiryat Arba to bring everyone together during break times and for Mincha [afternoon prayers] (which you inspired everyone to daven), and they have dedicated a new chug of basketball, to which everyone is invited and will keep everyone fit.”
Future plans include a new youth house for Ezra in the Tamar neighborhood of Efrat in memory of Rina, who was instrumental in helping to establish the Tamar branch.
Speaking directly to his wife and daughters, Dee concluded his summary of memorial projects with the words, “Lucy, Maia, and Rina – you will never be forgotten. Everything I am doing is dedicated to one of you, and so many projects continue in your merit.”
The rabbi peppered his evening’s talk with the question, “Mi kamocha, Yisrael?” (Who is like you, Israel?), highlighting the many ways that he has been inspired by the Jewish people’s response to his family’s tragedy. He concluded with seven lessons he has drawn from the past year.
- There’s no benefit to being sad. I believe that the purpose of mourning is to get to a point where you can remember your loved ones with a smile; otherwise, we’ll never want to think about them at all. The challenge is figuring out how to do it. With the help of all these projects and more, Am Yisrael [the Nation of Israel] has been the greatest help.
- There’s nothing like the Jewish people. From the shiva [week-long mourning period] onwards, we have felt that we did not lose three members of our family of seven, but three from our family of 14 million.
- Tzaddikim [righteous people] live forever: They never die. Rashaim [evil people] never live, even when they are alive. This also applies to nations. The Jewish people from all past generations are still living through their contributions to our lives today. Our enemies have contributed nothing but destruction and are forgettable even while they live.
- I’m grateful for the 30 years I knew Lucy, the 20 years I knew Maia, and the 15 years I knew Rina. Your impact on this world is immeasurable. What you have achieved in half a lifetime, or quarter of a lifetime, is more than most of us could achieve in 10 lifetimes. It’s a challenge to always think of the good times, but that’s what’s needed.
- The best treatment for destruction is to build. The first mitzvah of the Shulchan Aruch [Code of Jewish Law] is to jump out of bed in the morning like a lion. This means: You must have something to jump out of bed for. Every Jew must have at least one passion he or she is working on at any time, and that’s what gets you up in the morning. If you are struggling to get out of bed, find your passion. Friday morning, planting fruit trees in Efrat was fulfilling the biblical mitzvah of Yishuv Ha’Aretz, settling the land. We will continue to build, we will continue to plant.
- There’s no youth like our Jewish youth. They have get up and go, they build, they invent, and they are the bravest generation in our history. I am proud of every one of them. They are the or le’goyim [light unto the nations]. At the shiva, some 17-year-old boys from the community asked if they could build a viewpoint [lookout] in Efrat in memory of the girls, and I apparently agreed. Nine months later, they showed me what they had achieved – and the Mitzpeh HaDegel [Flag Outlook] would be a victory for a professional landscape company, let alone a group of 17-year-old boys who raised the funds themselves and taught themselves how to build pergolas and plant trees from YouTube videos.
- Finally, I learned that what matters is not my emunah in Hashem, my faith in G-d, but rather Hashem’s faith in me. Every morning I say “Modeh Ani... Rabah Emunatecha” Thank you, Hashem, for Your faith in me. We can appreciate the infinite miracles in our lives – the friends, the family, Am Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] – but if Hashem agreed for us to wake up this morning, He has a purpose for us. Our job is not to question Him but to find that purpose. Today there are hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israel fighting for our people and for freedom in the world – fulfilling their purpose, and millions of others are supporting them.
THE DAUGHTERS SPEAK
Gathered together for strength and support, the three remaining Dee children ascended the platform, where both daughters spoke about their mother and sisters. At the evening event, Keren and Tali, who are fully bilingual, spoke in Hebrew; at the memorial ceremony at the cemetery in Kfar Etzion the next morning, they delivered their comments in English.
Keren revealed the truth about living post-trauma by contrasting her daily reality with what she described as “the beautiful image I built for myself from the outside.”
“At night, every thought and feeling that comes to mind keeps switching to difficult things. I am flooded with memories; tossing and turning over and over and unable to sleep. At about five, I get out of bed in despair and decide to spend the remaining time ‘til morning on my phone.”
She then recounted what her day would be like if her mother and sisters were still alive, including a poignant image of finding her mother in the kitchen baking “some indulgent chocolate banana muffins that we could take with us; and reminding us, of course, that it’s important to put on sunscreen so we don’t have wrinkles and to drink a lot because it’s hot today.”
Keren mused about the “Orphan’s Kaddish” she finds in her prayerbook and how she realized, with a start, that this memorial prayer now refers to her. She concluded with a thought she learned from her father that she said “helps me continue.”
“What if our life was supposed to look like this? What if G-d predestined an allotted time for them to be with us? For 18 years? And then we were meant to go on alone?” she asked.
“And then I ask myself, if I had the option and I knew that my life would look like this from the beginning, would I take it or give it up?
“Everything in life that made me who I am today, I learned from them,” Keren said.
“Mummy: If it’s doing hessed [acts of kindness], giving, caring, cooking like crazy, forgiving, being a listening ear but always remembering that there is something more to aspire to and to move forward, then that’s what she’ll do.
