Two Prominent American Rabbis Visit Rabbi Leo Dee

EFRAT (VINnews) — This week, Rabbi Efrem Goldberg of Boca Raton Synagogue and Rabbi Shay Schachter of Young Israel of Woodmere traveled to Israel to visit Rabbi Leo Dee in Efrat.

In an unspeakable tragedy, Rabbi Dee lost his wife Lucy and daughters Maia and Rina HY”D, in an April 7th terrorist attack in the Jordan valley.

Rabbi Goldberg and Rabbi Scachter were interviewed on Arutz Sheva about their visit.

“The whole Jewish world was rocked by this horrific tragedy, by the news and everyone was tuned in to the first funeral,” Rabbi Goldberg said. “At the first funeral I was shocked when Rabbi Dee referenced listening to my classes. He invoked my name and I’d never met him, I don’t recall ever interacting with him, and I was touched so deeply I got incredibly emotional to think that this Jewish tragedy which every Jew around the world whose heart pulsates and beats together feels connected with and here he’s mentioning me even though we physically were never together, our souls have been studying Torah for so long.”

Rabbi Goldberg elaborated on his blog about why he felt a strong need to visit the Dee family: “What was different this time? Was it my ego, a sense of honor and pride that he acknowledged me so publicly at such a vulnerable moment? It continued to gnaw at me.

“After landing, I made my way to the shiva house where I had coordinated to meet my dear friend and colleague, Rabbi Shay Schachter. Several people who had attended Shiva told Rabbi Schachter that Rav Leo was quoting him and referencing how much he loved listening to his classes, too. Rabbi Schachter was also moved to come meet this special man in person and so we coordinated to arrive and visit together.”

Rabbi Schachter said, “I had a number of people from the community in Efrat who had reached out to me, they were texting me, they were sending emails saying that Rabbi Dee kept quoting things and saying how he had been studying with me for a decade. His [students] came over to me and said that every day when they learn before they begin he always quotes something from a recent year… Rabbi Goldberg and I and we just felt that we had no other place to be other than here,” he explains.

The Rabbis described being together with the Dee family as the sirens sounded on Tuesday during Yom HaShoah.

“I thought that not only is everyone right now connected to the six million martyrs of the Holocaust but now these three who joined them, Lucy, Maia and Rina, as well and the siren, reflects not only the Holocaust but the martyrs of all Jewish history,” Rabbi Goldberg says. “The difference between the Holocaust and the context and background in which it happened versus now the State of Israel and in the backdrop of his home in Efrat in the Judean Hills is so different – equally tragic in the loss but profoundly different in the background and the circumstance.”

On his blog, Rabbi Goldberg wrote: “That siren at that moment was not just paying tribute to the six million but it was wailing for the three fresh graves that had just been filled, and it was crying out for every Jewish life and light that has been extinguished in our history by enemies that have sought to eliminate us. But as the wail of the siren was accompanied by the sound of birds chirping, my eyes were drawn to the view from the tent of the magnificent Judean hills and I was struck by the notion that as much as the martyrdom of the Holocaust and the murder of Lucy, Maia and Rina had in common, there was a profound, fundamental difference between them. The Holocaust was perpetrated against a defenseless Jewish people, strangers in a foreign land, while the Dees had died al kiddush Hashem in the one and only Jewish homeland, under Jewish sovereignty, under the protection of a strong Jewish army and with the promise that those that perpetrated this heinous act would be brought to justice and that we will never leave these hills or this land.

“The siren concluded and Rav Leo came directly over to us. No words were exchanged as we embraced and held onto a meaningful hug that will last a lifetime…Hearing him speak, it became absolutely clear. It was true that our guf, our bodies had never met, but I now understood that our souls have been talking and connecting and singing together for many years and my soul was craving to be with its good friend and chavrusa at this painful time.”

Rabbi Schachter said that Rabbi Dee asked them to stay at the shiva for a long time. He challenged both of them about the importance of aliyah and what they were doing to help increase the aliyah of American Jews.