A Song and a Prayer     

“If you have a Siddur…”

“Az men hot a siddur, hot men alles — if you have a siddur, you have everything,” she often said. Even in Auschwitz, she had somehow managed to complete one Shemoneh Esreh a day. In her later years, she moved into an assisted living facility, where she took part happily in activities, but only after she’d completed her davening and daily Tehillim.
“Mummy and her siddur were inseparable,” says her youngest daughter, Noami Levy, who cared for the rebbetzin as she aged. “A few years ago, we had a Chanukah party for the Rakow daughters, granddaughters, and great granddaughters. We played a game where each player had two pieces of paper, each with a name or item written on it, and with each round of the game, had to pass on the one that was least important to them. Mummy was left with two papers. One said ‘SIDDUR’ and the other said ‘NOAMI’(me!). She looked at the papers, then at me, said ‘Sorry!’ and pushed the paper with ‘NOAMI’ written on it to the center pile. Then she hugged the paper that said ‘SIDDUR’ to her chest.”
She would plead with the Ribbono shel Olam to help all of His children — “and meiner kinder avadde — and my children among them, of course,” — and never tired of bentshing them all.
The Rakow daughters, today all rebbetzins themselves, laugh as they recall their teen years, when the Rebbetzin took them sales shopping at London’s department stores. Mrs. Suri Cohen recalls: “Mummy had to daven Shacharis first, of course. We tiptoed over and peeped into her siddur to check where she was up to, because Mummy’s davening went on and on. And then when we finally did board the Underground, Mummy had her Tehillim or her siddur and would continue davening. I was once a little embarrassed of her, and I said ‘Oh, Mummy, in front of everyone?’ She replied ‘They can go with all their crazy colored hair and funny clothes and I should be embarrassed of my siddur?’” Her erlichkeit and connection to Hashem were so real and unpretentious, drawing others to her. The last time Noami took her mother to Eretz Yisrael, she spent a long time at Kever Rochel, as she always did. When Noami started to push Rebbetzin Rakow’s wheelchair to the exit, one woman came over to ask for a brachah, then another, and more and more. As they left the building, men approached her too, and she blessed each one. Even after they entered their taxi, people were knocking on the window for her brachah. “What was all that about?” Noami asked her mother after the car pulled out. “Ich veis nisht, mistamah veil ich bin ein alteh Yidene — I don’t know, probably because I’m an old woman,” was her simple answer.