A large throng headed by roshei yeshiva and rabbonim
accompanied Rebbetzin Ruth Stefansky o"h, eishes
chover of HaRav Yaakov Stefansky ylct"a on her
last early journey. She was 50 years old at the time of her
petirah.
Rebbetzin Stefansky, an important figure in the United
States, was filled with vitality. Born in Boston, her
remarkable character traits were evident at a very early
age. At the age of ten she was chosen to represent Bnos
Agudas Yisroel before an audience of scores of women who had
gathered for a Neshei Agudas Yisroel meeting.
As the daughter of HaRav Mordechai Savitzky, the rav of
Boston, she had a great influence on all of the girls and
young women of the area. When she was twenty, she married
HaRav Yaakov Stefansky, one of the prominent students of
Lakewood, and resolved to devote all of her energies to
enabling him to pore over his Torah studies day and night
without any financial or other concerns.
Alongside this, she dedicated herself to the chinuch
of bnos Yisroel in the true Torah way. She first
worked as a teacher, and later as principal, of the Bais
Yaakov of Flatbush. During the last period of her life she
was principal of Bais Yaakov Monsey. The thousands of
students she guided over the years, each of whom felt
especially close to her, attest to the great love she felt
for each and every one of them. The many students who
visited her in her final days further confirmed this
link.
In addition to managing a home and raising her children in
the Torah way, she was a remarkable ba'alas chesed
who dedicated herself to helping others in a special,
personal manner. She helped scores of sick people, either by
driving them to the hospital for treatment or by visiting
and encouraging them, although she sometimes had to travel
more than five hours to fulfill this mitzvah.
A person who was once critically ill and later recovered
felt so indebted to her that he came all the way from Eretz
Yisroel in order to encourage her on her sick bed. He told
her that he had recovered on her merit and due to the
tremendous help she had given him during his difficult
times. She made great efforts to be mezakeh horabim
by organizing Torah shiurim. When she lived in Ramat
Elchonon in Bnei Brak, she founded the Brocho VoChessed
organization which helps women after birth and also helps
needy families by sending cooked meals and volunteers to
help with housework. She built a world of chesed with
the thousands of deeds -- both large and small -- that she
performed throughout her life, in a humble, modest
manner.
When she lived in Ramot Daled in Jerusalem, her husband
founded a yeshiva, while through her great love of Torah,
she assumed the tremendous burden of seeing to all of its
material needs. She organized furniture for the yeshiva and
sleeping quarters for its students; arranged for meals every
day and even did the laundry for the bochurim, as a
mother to every student in the yeshiva.
After a long illness and terrible suffering she returned her
pure soul to its Maker in kedushoh and taharoh
on erev Shabbos, parshas Tazria-Metzora.
At the large levaya in the United States,
hespedim were delivered by HaRav Eliyahu Ber
Wachtfogel, one of the prominent roshei yeshiva in
the United States, as well as by her husband, HaRav Yaakov
Stefansky and her sons. At the levaya in Eretz
Yisroel, a hesped was delivered by HaRav Don
Segal.
Rebbetzin Stefansky merited that the gedolei hador,
headed by the pillar of halachic authority HaRav Yosef
Sholom Eliashiv, as well as by HaRav Chaim Kanievsky and
HaRav Shmuel Auerbach, spoke highly of her and comforted her
family.
