Rav Ezrachi, husband:

During my wedding celebrations, Rav Leizer Yudel, Rivka’s grandfather, pulled me aside. “Chazal say when you give someone a gift, you must inform them. Well, you are receiving a most precious gift: Rivka.”

The past few weeks before Rivka’s petirah, I ran straight from yeshivah to Rivka’s bedside. On Thursday, two days before she was nifteres, I came in after seder. She gave me her trademark smile and said, “Oy, I am so happy that you’re here,” but then she grew worried. “It’s Thursday. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching in Brachfeld now?”

“I want to be here with you,” I told her.

Rivka was clearly agitated. “You must go, Yitzchak. You must go. You’ll come back to me afterward.”

I was shaking, terrified, but I went to Brachfeld. I trembled the whole time, but I went, I gave shiur, and then I came back to her.
The Rambam says about the loss of eishes neurim, the bride of your youth, that “ein nechamah — there is no comfort.” There is no comfort. You cannot comfort me.

Her daughters, Etty Tzippy,Tovy, and Mali:

Ima was someone who saw the good in everyone — it was as if she looked at people with a flashlight that could only shine on their attributes. A visitor told us, “Oh, so she was dan everyone l’kaf zechus?” and we were taken aback. Ima was never dan anyone, period.

She once said, almost in passing, “You know, I was never jealous of anyone.” Then she added hurriedly, “Not because I have good middos! Just because I’ve never lacked for anything!” Ima didn’t have an easy life. She spent her childhood in China and Japan, running for her life with her family, and yet in her eighties, she looked back and said, “I’ve never lacked anything.”

After the Iron Curtain opened, Ima was very involved with the Russian immigrants in Eretz Yisrael. She would take the girls under her wing, tending to their needs, both emotional and physical — but she didn’t stop with the basics. She made sure each girl was dressed in the current styles. She understood that clothing is so important to young girls trying to fit in. That says so much about her. She was so down to earth, so understanding, so accepting of concepts that you might think people as great as her would look down on.

One of “her girls” still tells us about how Ima had a package of Magic Markers waiting for her and how she still remembers the excitement she felt over that completely extra, unnecessary, yet so much appreciated gift.

Recently a young cousin of ours moved to Eretz Yisrael. She had no family here, and so Ima immediately “adopted” her. Two years ago, the summer before her daughter started first grade, Ima took the little girl shopping to buy her first knapsack. This cousin came to be menachem avel. With tears streaming down her face, she asked us, “I have a daughter in kindergarten. Who will care about her knapsack?”

She and Abba were a team; they’d cheer on each other’s successes, dividing and conquering. Abba once said over a devar Torah, adding that he thought it was mentioned in a Rambam. Ima said, “Yitzchak, I think perhaps it was a Kli Yakar?”

She was right… and Abba was so proud.

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 628)