Seven Facets of Healing: Rabbi Leo Dee's Blueprint for Jewish Resilience (265)

October 20, 2025

AI Summary

5 min read

On April 7, 2023, Rabbi Leo Dee’s wife Lucy and two daughters, Maya and Rina, were murdered by Hamas terrorists in the Jordan Valley. In the months that followed, he began to notice what helped him get out of bed, move through the day, and choose purpose over collapse. He calls these the seven facets of healing—family, friends, fitness, faith, function, finances, and fun—and he learned them from Lucy, who had invented the framework years earlier for their date nights. The idea was simple: instead of letting one bad thing dominate the conversation, assess all seven areas of life. That zooming-out habit, which once kept a marriage balanced, became the structure for surviving the unthinkable.

The choice to respond, not just react

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of Orthodox Conundrum

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Choosing a Response to the Unthinkable** - Rabbi Dee introduces the core idea that when a tragedy is so severe it has no scripted reaction, you can choose how to respond.
2 (01:56) **Introducing the Seven Facets of Healing** - Rabbi Dee reveals the seven categories his late wife Lucy created for their date nights, which he now uses as a structure for recovery.
3 (16:29) **Facet 1: Family - Choosing to Focus on the Good** - Rabbi Dee explains how he used his remaining family as an anchor by deliberately shifting his focus from the horror to the living.
4 (18:54) **The "Yetzer Hara" of Wallowing** - Rabbi Dee reframes the temptation to give in to despair as a spiritual challenge, not a natural right.
5 (21:33) **The Paradox of Receiving: Giving is Receiving** - Rabbi Dee challenges the idea that "it is better to give than to receive," especially for trauma survivors.
6 (25:01) **Pain as a Blessing** - Rabbi Dee recontextualizes pain as a signal that prompts positive change, rather than an enemy.
7 (27:55) **Facet 2: Friends - The Art of Showing Up** - Rabbi Dee provides a practical, actionable guide for how friends can truly support someone in trauma.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

This episode is dedicated to the complete recovery of יהונתן איתן בן בת שבע ברכה.

How do we move from private anguish to collective strength? In this deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation, Rabbi Leo Dee shares the story of the day his wife and two daughters were murdered, and the seven-facet framework he built to keep living with faith and purpose. We walk through Family, Friends, Fitness, Frumkeit (spiritual life), Function (purpose), Finances (trust and control), and Fun (simcha/growth)... first as practices for an individual in pain, and then as a national toolkit for a people living through ongoing trauma.

Instead of drilling into tactics, we explore the principles that make the Seven Facets portable, from the home to the community to the nation: how language and presence matter, how practice can carry belief, how purposeful action restores dignity, how trusting what we can't control quiets anxiety, and how measured joy can coexist with memory.

This episode is for anyone who refuses to let grief have the last word—and wants concrete, Torah-true ways to help themselves, their family, and Am Yisrael heal.

Click here to order Rabbi Dee's wonderful new book, The Seven Facets of Healing.

Check out Orthodox Conundrum Commentary on Substack and get your free subscription by going to https://scottkahn.substack.com/.

We're excited to announce that we at Jewish Coffee House are continuing to expand the conversation by bringing you—our listeners—into the mix. Introducing JCH Q&A, an exciting new podcast where listener-submitted questions are answered in a thoughtful, honest, and engaging way. We plan to dive deep into your pressing hashkafic, political, and philosophical questions. We will address the ideas that matter, the issues that challange us, and the topics that spark real curiosity.

To submit a question for our first episode, you must be a member of the JCH Podcast WhatsApp Community. (Join here.) No question is off limits, and all submissions will remain anonymous. We're looking forward to answering your questions on our first episode!

Please listen to and share this podcast, and let us know what you think on