The Bobover Rebbe’s family was also afforded much honor. “Being a part of the renowned Chassidic dynasty was very much a zechus,” acknowledges the Rebbetzin, “But my mother always stressed that we don’t brag about who we are. Far more than affording us privileges, we were raised to feel obligated.”
Committed Round the Clock
Feeling obligated isn’t a mere catchphrase for Rebbetzin Meisels. The phone rings repeatedly in the background as we speak, and I wait as she takes each call with humor, warmth and grace. After a few aborted attempts at rolling our interview along, the Rebbetzin takes the phone off the hook – a step she doesn’t take lightly.
Her days seem so crammed it would make a CEO feel dizzy. A popular public speaker both in Israel and abroad, there are times when she is booked for two or three functions a day at opposite ends of the country. All lectures demand prior preparation, of course. The Rebbetzin doesn’t drive, and in the early days found the lack of organized transport quite daunting.
Since tragically losing her beloved daughter, Malky, in a car accident, and a younger son to Leukemia many years before, Rebbetzin Sarah is often called upon to help families in times of bereavement. “I am meant to call on someone shortly whose child choked on a foreign object, lo aleinu.” She admits that these calls are hard to take. “I used to get overwhelmed by calls like these, but my daughter has taught me to place some distance… to remain a little detached. There were times I said ‘I don’t want to do this,’ but then my husband would point out that when I walk in, and manage to look and act normal, despite what I have gone through, it gives people chizuk. So, at the end of the day, I do what Hashem wants… whatever He sends my way.”
In Malky’s memory, the Rebbetzin began campaigning to increase public awareness of the importance of saying Amen. Today, thanks to her, countless Jews around the world take particular care when pronouncing the word. She also founded an organization called Ateres Malka, which provides post-partum mothers with cooked food, cleaning help and extra childcare.
These impressive commitments are carried out above and beyond the standard duties that any rebbetzin assumes with marriage: communal obligations, simcha attendance, Shabbos guests and the myriad of small responsibilities that fill the course of a day. And being the rosh yeshiva, her husband will sometimes ask for help in tending to a boy’s needs, too. “When someone falls ill my husband will say, ‘The boy doesn’t feel well. He’s far from home. Can you cook him some chicken soup?’ So even that is part of the job description – mothering the boys,” adds the Rebbetzin with a wry laugh.
Where does Rebbetzin Meisels get her phenomenal stamina from? She claims it’s an attitude instilled in childhood. “When we were young we would fight, like siblings do. At some point, inevitably, someone would always end up crying. My father, a”h, would challenge us: ‘Kinderlach! Let’s see if you can laugh while you are crying!’ When Malky was so tragically taken from us, it was so painful, but I picked myself up and told myself ‘I’m doing this for Tatty!’”
Of Home and Heart
Born in Manhattan, raised in Crown Heights and Boro Park (respectively), Rebbetzin Sarah moved to Israel soon after her marriage, in 1978, at her father’s behest, so that her husband could head the fledgling Bobover community in Bat Yam. Intending to stay for just two short years, their move evolved, as is so often the case, into a far more permanent arrangement. These days the Rebbetzin reflects upon thirty years in Israel with mixed feelings. She has no regrets – aside from having moved to a city so removed from mainstream Orthodox hubs. But life in the Holy Land holds its own particular challenges, and being distanced from her family has always been the most difficult aspect of all. What’s more, her own children, once wed, almost all moved back to the States, so she now faces the same separation her parents faced.