Growing up in Potomac right next door to the Chabad House, our family got to see a lot of the Geisinsky’s and we spent a lot of time at Chabad.  Running around with Sendy, enjoying all of the Chabad fun and events, enrolling in Camp Gan Izzy for many years, and eventually davening and leading services on Shabbos; the Geisinsky Chabad was a major foundation of my childhood.  Rebbetzin Geisinsky, or Tanta Zlata as she was affectionately referred, was the year round Chabad Mother – managing all of the logistics of the many Chabad activities and caring for all of the community members and children as if they were her own.

 

If I close my eyes I can still smell Rebbetzin Geisinsky’s shabbos cholent, which to this day is hands down the best cholent I have ever smelled or tasted in my life (this fact is famous in my family)… Living next to Chabad and knowing the lay of the land has its perks. Each Shabbos friends of mine and I, totally ignoring all the cakes cookies and sweets, would hoard about 3 or 4 bowls of Cholent each, navigate the maze of people downstairs at the packed kiddush and then hightail it upstairs to the offices to delight in our booty.

 

A couple of years ago I jokingly lamented to Rebbetzin Geisinsky about how incredible her cholent was and how much I missed it after they had moved away… and I sheepishly told her about my perhaps not so admirable childhood practice of hoarding it every week.  She laughed and smiled…. And then that Friday, to my complete surprise, she personally delivered a cholent to my house (at this point as a grown up I didn’t know whether to eat it or sell it to the highest bidder… I decided the former, and it was awesome).

 

This was not unusual or extraordinary for her. This was the type of person she was.

 

Most recently I saw Rebbetzin Geisinsky at the Hebrew Academy where two of my kids attended her pre-school. I was always so happy that she was director, knowing that she taught them Torah each week and would guide them unwaveringly on the right path. In my weekly review of the Parsha with my eldest, Eitan, I made it a goal that he would be able to answer all of Morah Zlata’s Parsha questions… and every now and then I would throw in a phrase for him to say to Morah Zlata to get her attention “Teach me the secrets of the Tanya” being the most recent.  A couple of months ago at back to school night, she walked in as I tarried in a visit with my son Noam’s teacher and she gushed about how much she loved my boys and how impressed she was with their middos and Parsha knowledge. You could see in her eyes and in her signature smile both her sincerity and how proud she was to see me grown up with kids of my own.

 

She will be sorely missed.

 

Brian Berman, Potomac Maryland