My sister, Rebbetzin Aviva Weisbord a"h, was my sister, my compass, and my best friend
Rebbetzin Aviva Weisbord a”h wasn’t only my sister, she was like another mother, she was my best friend, my compass, my North Star. Her passing is not only my personal tragedy, but a loss to all of Klal Yisrael.
From as far back as I can remember, Aviva had such clarity in her mission: to do the retzon Hashem. She was made of iron — mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and even physically. A cousin recently commented that Aviva was the picture of what you can accomplish when you don’t waste your time on gashmiyus. She never wasted a minute and was always on to the next thing to be accomplished. No wonder she was taken from us so much earlier than we could have imagined — she had already used much more than her allotment of hours serving Hashem and His People.
When our father, Rav Yaakov Weinberg ztz”l, was niftar, Aviva wrote an article titled “Six Weeks to Say Goodbye.” In it she wrote that she noticed a “feature that separates the gadol from the rest of us. At a time when most people tune out the world and focus on themselves, my father devoted his final weeks to chesed toward others, with a constant awareness of everyone else’s needs.”
It would never have occurred to Aviva that these same words described her perfectly. Right before she was intubated, Aviva wrote to her team at Shemesh (an educational program for children with learning differences), “I am going to be put on a ventilator soon, so I won’t be able to talk to you. Please make sure these three things are taken care of…” She could barely breathe, and knew she was about to be intubated, yet her concern was about making sure that things were put into place to help others. This middah defined the way Aviva lived her whole life: putting everyone’s needs before her own.
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