Rabbi Avi Shafran, Agudath Israel

Dear Jay,

I was deeply anguished to read of your and your wife's terrible loss. Although you and I know each other only "at a distance," as erstwhile engagers in a machlokes lisheim Shomayim, I think of you as a friend and want you to know that my heart aches for the hole Avi's petirah has left in your own.

Reading about him, it is clear to me that Avi was a truly special boy, one in whose life you and your wife should rightly take great pride. May you both, your other children and all who knew Avi, somehow be comforted mitoch shar aveilei Tziyon vi'Yerushalayim.

Avi Shafran