His Will was her sole focus. Remembering Rebbetzin Chaitchi Knopfler

The “problem” with speaking about Rebbetzin Chaitchi Knopfler, said her brother-in-law, Rav Ephraim Wachsman shlita, in his hesped, is that those who didn’t know her will think he is exaggerating, and those who did know her will think he isn’t saying enough.

Rebbetzin Chaitchi Knopfler of Golders Green, London, passed away on Isru Chag Shavuos at just 64 years of age. The Rebbetzin was an intensely spiritual person who lived a life of constant focus on Hashem’s Will, waking at 5:30 each morning to pack as much as possible into her day. Her magic was that she took the women around her — girls who watched her daven in shul, kallahs whom she taught, post-seminary girls and ladies who attended her shiurim — along on the journey.

Her usual greeting, even on the phone, was “Hello, darling!” creating a wide circle of people who felt close to her. “She had a warm, gentle voice,” recalls one student, “but fervent yiras Hashem.”

As the daughter of the well-known London businessman and philanthropist Reb Zalman Margulies, the Rebbetzin grew up in a wealthy home full of chesed and community feeling. The Margulies family are of distinguished descent, grandchildren of the Premishlan chassidic dynasty and other rabbanim.

She married Rabbi Berel Knopfler, today the rav of Sinai Bais Medrash and rosh yeshivah of Chayei Olam. Rebbetzin Knopfler was always at her husband’s side — and also very much a personality in her own right. Her husband’s Torah meant the world to her, yet her own role was uniquely expansive. In addition to raising a big family, she taught young students, kallahs, and women, initiated several mitzvah projects, and constantly focused on her own learning and tefillah.

While her fervent tefillos were unforgettable to the women and girls in her shul, and she had lists of people whom she davened for daily, her connection to Hashem didn’t end there.

“When we were in the car, she would daven to Hashem to find a parking spot,” says the Rebbetzin’s longtime chesed partner, Rebbetzin Rikky Dunner, who accompanied her on weekly Friday hospital visits, shivah calls, and chevra kaddisha work. When going shopping with her daughters, Rebbetzin Knopfler would say a perek of Tehillim “that you should find something tzniyusdig and find it quickly and for a reasonable price.”

She’d daven that even her eating and sleeping would be completely l’Sheim Shamayim. When she went to have chemotherapy, she was content, knowing that doing so was a mitzvah — “Now I’m fulfilling v’nishmartem me’od l’nafshoseichem and u’viarta hara mikirbecha,” she’d say.