In his latest book, The Seven Facets of Healing, rabbi and author Leo Dee shares what he’s learned about healing since the April 7, 2023, tragedy when his wife, Lucy Dee, and two of their daughters, Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, were murdered in a Hamas-led terror attack on their way to a family vacation in Israel’s North.
As Dee explains in the introduction, the book is structured around what Lucy, his wife of 25 years, called her “seven facets for living.” These seven facets are family, friends, fitness, function (job), finance, fun, and faith. This structure presents healing as something multifaceted rather than linear.
In short, accessible chapters, Dee examines his life since the terror attack through the lens of each of these seven facets.
Each section of The Seven Facets of Healing weaves together storytelling, insights from human development literature, and practical guidance for those healing from trauma or supporting someone they care about who needs to heal.
Recognizing life lessons
This balance is one of the book’s great strengths. Dee does not write about trauma from a theoretical distance, nor is the book solely a memoir. Instead, he combines his own experience within a broader human framework, allowing readers who aren’t necessarily in the midst of trauma to recognize life lessons that have emerged from his unique circumstances.
One example of this can be found in the section on “Function,” which Dee says relates to the work one does in the world.
Dee weaves in the experience of Rabbi Yizchak Dovid Grossman, a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) rabbi who founded the Migdal Ohr network, which provides structure and education for thousands of disadvantaged and at-risk Israeli children.
When asked by a journalist why a haredi rabbi would devote his life to secular, troubled teens, Grossman answered, “When I was 18, standing in my own community, I asked myself, ‘Do they need another one of me here?’ And the answer was clear: ‘No.’ So then I asked myself a different question – a better question. ‘Where do they need me?’”
As sometimes happens with certain high-profile terror incidents, after the tragic loss of his wife and two daughters, Dee went from being a private citizen to a sought-after speaker across a wide range of settings.
About his tragedy and grief, Dee shares with his readers that “We don’t move beyond pain by erasing it – we move forward by giving it purpose… In the end, perhaps that’s the great lesson: Purpose isn’t found where we feel most comfortable, but where we feel most deeply needed.”
Dee never portrays healing as a private endeavor. Again and again, he returns to the idea that the presence, patience, and humility of others can profoundly influence a person’s capacity to heal. He also acknowledges the limits of what supporters can do. In The Seven Facets of Healing, Dee teaches that healing ultimately unfolds at its own pace.
Clarity and compassion
The tone of the book is neither clinical nor sentimental. Dee writes with clarity, compassion, and moral seriousness, while allowing unresolved questions to exist. In his view, healing is not a final destination but a process that can include setbacks, ambiguity, and unanswered questions. If other presentations about healing equate healing with closure, Dee’s approach will resonate differently.
The Seven Facets of Healing is marked by a patient approach to rebuilding a life after tragedy. The book offers something valuable: a framework for understanding healing as a meaningful, relational, and profoundly human process.
Leo Dee isn’t offering simplistic answers or a rigid therapeutic formula. As a thoughtful, grounded, and quietly hopeful work, this book will be a valuable contribution to the literature on trauma and recovery.
It is a small book, which can be read cover to cover in under two hours, and kept on hand to refer to functions as a constant, compassionate companion for anyone navigating the long road toward healing.■
The writer is a freelance journalist and expert on the non-Jewish awakening to Torah happening in our day. She is the editor of three books on the topic: Ten from the Nations, Lighting Up the Nations, and Adrift Among the Nations.
THE SEVEN FACETS
OF HEALING
By Leo Dee
Turim
204 pages; $20