Devastated
Devastated. The only word to describe the feelings of those, myself included, who knew Rav Moshe Hauer z”l.
The untimely passing of anyone is painful. Add to that pain the feelings of loss of someone so beloved, so warm and caring, so talented as a voice of authentic Torah Judaism both inside our community as well as to the world at large – and the pain becomes unbearable.
That is still not devastation. That comes when you look at the glorious vision of a Torah community Rav Hauer carried with him in life – what he so fiercely believed was the natural consequence of genuinely and fully living by the Torah – and you overnight see that dream shattered. That is devastation.
Many people have dreams. Many more ought to have them, at least when they are dreams of increasing the honor of Heaven. Rabbi Hauer spent his life implementing those dreams. If we had to distill the ingredient that get him going, it was achrayus/responsibility. He was pumped with achrayus.
In the 26 years that he served as mara d’asra of Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion he won the love and admiration of his congregants. He developed a reputation as one of a handful of the most successful pulpit rabbis in America, a model for others to emulate. But he recognized gaps in in the training of the next generation of rabbis, so he took responsibility. He mentored them, collectively for Ner Israel, and individually. Achrayus.
A number of us sensed that Jews who were absolutely committed to halacha and Torah study had become confused and frustrated with elements of institutional Torah life. We got together from time to time (always fortuitously) and commiserated. Rabbi Hauer refused to let it go at that. He pushed us to do something about it. It led to a secret meeting of concerned people from all walks of Torah life. That, in turn, led directly to the creation of the online journal Klal Perspectives, which offered something that so many in the Orthodox world were clamoring for: different Torah points of view on individual topics, rather than the monolithic positions offered by all its different subgroups. (I was privileged to serve on the small editorial board of that publication.) Once again, achrayus.
Few of us understood why he would leave a thriving shul at the height of his popularity for a desk job with the OU in Manhattan. When we saw what he did in that role, we understood. The OU does many, many wonderful things, including serving as the umbrella organization of the largest group of Modern Orthodox synagogues in the US. It was at a cross-roads, and also in need of some reimagination. It also needed someone who could keep the different camps within the OU together in a healthy, collegial working relationship. Again, he saw a possibility of going from a local congregation to a national one. Achrayus once more.
In the last few years, we’ve seen the OU under his stewardship go places it never had before. It recognized that the heterodox denominations, were no longer capable of contributing what they had previously contributed to American Jewry. The Orthodox community – at least the part that felt some responsibility for issues outside of their own ranks – needed to step up to the plate in new ways. This, even before Oct. 7th. In the last two years Rabbi Hauer was the face of engaged Orthodoxy, both within our community, and outside of it. He was one of those shouldering responsibility for our wartime actions and emotions. He helped lead the many missions bringing aid to Israel, and directed us to the proper spiritual avodah during crisis. It was a role even he never anticipated.
Achrayus, all over again.
Some will likely say that his heart gave out, overbrimming with concern for Klal Yisrael. I don’t think that is true, especially after spending some time with him just a few weeks ago. To be sure that concern was there, but his heart was full of action plans to calmly and efficiently transform those concerns into dividends for the Jewish people.
That, now, will become our achrayus.
Yehi zichro baruch
I share in the grief over Rabbi Hauer’s petira. He was just what Rabbi Adlerstein describes in his words of tribute to him. I only got to know Rav Hauer through essays he wrote that I found much more than worthy, and mere months ago, we sat together in his office and spoke of many things, including recounting our experiences with our mutual rebbe, Rav Yaakov Weinberg.
May the Hauer family and all who benefitted from Rabbi Hauer be comforted among the mourners of Tziyon v”Yrushalayim.
Yehi zichor baruch
Rav Asher Weiss gave a fabulous hesped on Friday in Israel
Here is the link to R. Asher’s hesped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPUdsKIZ25g
R Asher Weiss’s hesped was awesome
R Aryeh Leibowitz gave a beautiful and very moving hesped in the BeisxMedrash which is available on YU Torah
Just listened. It was, in fact, amazing.
Here is a link to a hesped given by Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, one of Rabbi Hauer’s predecessors
(also formerly of Baltimore, no conicidence)as EVP of the OU.
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/play/DouwvmM6CEUfa5QIXpvzlBLBi8KznKQ3mlY1Zpu8oHX3OB6TaDFQdfMIQNta2RMHe9iKNc5dGeY2y777.UG85zzOxFRUx2xnz?eagerLoadZvaPages=sidemenu.billing.plan_management&isReferralProgramEnabled=false&isReferralProgramAvailable=false&accessLevel=meeting&canPlayFromShare=true&from=share_recording_detail&continueMode=true&componentName=rec-play&originRequestUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fus02web.zoom.us%2Frec%2Fshare%2FYNu8B3o0h79f-zwV8AxlTuvA6U6olEMzMwXgSGf_He2eKDzl_gLwirBcMnnATdkA.Fbi6oo6o8Pi-AIss
I was shocked and saddened to learn after Yom Tov of the passing of Rabbi Hauer z’l . Just this Simchas Torah, I was thinking that R. Hauer was a unique resource for unity within Orthodoxy.
Rabbi Hauer had moderated a unique panel discussion held at Congregation Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion in Baltimore in 2019 which was sponsored by Mizrachi and some Baltimore shuls. It was titled “Strength in Diversity: The Complementary and Conflicting Flavors of Torat Eretz Yisrael” and featured Rabbi Moshe Taragin of Yeshivat Har Etzion and Jonathan Rosenblum as panelists.
Rabbi Hauer began the program by asking both speakers to begin speaking about what they liked about each other’s community and later asked the panelists to speak self-critically about their own community. R. Hauer referred to Jim Collin’s “Window and the Mirror Leadership Model,” whereby outstanding leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well, and look in the mirror to assume responsibility when things go poorly.
My own reaction to this program was to think of Ibn Ezra’s comment on the term “yafli” used to describe the nazir’s act of vowing, which means wonder (pelah), as the nazir’s commitment to self-control is so rare as to be called wondrous. It similarly struck me here as very original and a breath of fresh air that each speaker was asked to begin speaking about what they liked about the other community and to self-critically look into the mirror regarding their own communities.
Note – While the idea to have the speakers discuss the strengths of their counterpart’s community was apparently Jonathan Rosenblum’s(see JR’s 18Forty interview from this June titled , “Would you want to live in a country run by Haredim? ” Minute 59 and in transcript), R. Hauer creatively applied the “Window and the Mirror Leadership Model,” in his moderator’s introduction, as mentioned above.
I elaborated on the above Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion event, with links to an audio of the program on YU Torah and to Jonathan Rosenblum’s 2019 articles about it, in one of my comments to an earlier Cross Currents post linked below:
https://cross-currents.com/2024/03/11/20704/#comment-499795
Yehi zichro baruch
Yisroel Besser related the following story about Rabbi Hauer’s efforts to pursue peace in a 2021 Mishpacha article about R. Hauer’s newly assumed role at the OU, titled “The People Come First,” excepted and linked below:
“A very well-known rabbi, prominent in his writings and speeches, recently took public issue with another rabbi. The first rabbi attacked the second in a speech, and the second rabbi defended himself in print, making his disdain for the first one clear.
Before Tisha B’Av, Rabbi Hauer called the second rabbi — the victim of the original attack — and suggested a peaceful conversation between the two rabbis, with him, Rabbi Hauer, moderating.
The two men spoke, trying to understand one another, as Rabbi Hauer guided both of them. They never did grow to fully understand one another, but a channel of peace opened between them, and they did agree to put the past behind them and respect each other’s sincere efforts to bring kevod Shamayim, albeit in different ways.
This was not an OU program, and there was no sponsor or login info, but it’s a big part of what Rabbi Hauer does. Every day.”
https://mishpacha.com/the-people-come-first/
Rabbi Hauer’s approach seems to both recognize the challenges to Orthodox unity and to overcome them with empathy and seeing the other’s positive qualities(the title and approach of his article below, “The Gap is Wide — but We Can Bridge It,” reminds me of the dialectic and synthesis in the approach of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT, which validates and accepts the difficulty someone is facing while simultaneously seeking change). Some excerpts of his writings on maintaining achdus as far as the communal repercussions of the Gaza war, linked below:
At the beginning of the war, R. Hauer concluded his article about both the Washington rally and a Yom Kippur Katan tefillah gathering: ” We have each other and we must treasure each other, all of us who were in shul on Monday or in DC on Tuesday. Let’s build together on what matters.” He also says that “the discussions of Klal Yisrael need to go back to… exchanging ideas about the latest creative idea to strengthen Klal Yisrael spiritually or materially…” (” We Have Each Other and We Must Treasure Each Other,” also republished on Cross Currents, November 2023).
In an article cogently titled “The Gap is Wide — but We Can Bridge It” written for Yom Hazikaron of May 2024, R. Hauer began by writing of his “sincere tefillah to HaKadosh Baruch Hu that its words generate unity and healing and not chas v’shalom argument and division.” He wrote that “this gap is far more substantive than which side we take in the philosophical and policy debates over the pros and cons of granting draft exemptions to yeshivah bochurim. And it is a space that needs to be filled not by discussions in which we argue our own side, but by pure and unadulterated empathy, nesius b’ol im chaveiro, trying our hardest to understand the other’s experience.”
R. Hauer began another article about a discussion of the Haredi draft crisis: “I do not live in Israel. My children are not held hostage, do not serve in the army, and are not impacted by the cancellation of the haredi draft deferment. Perhaps that means I have no right to speak, but more likely none of us have the right to remain silent” (“This Erev Shabbos: Am Yisrael’s Response to Crisis,” July, 2024).
Before this Tisha Ba’av, R. Hauer wrote that “the Jewish people are comprised of many camps and tribes, each with its passions and priorities directing its role within our nation and holy land. Especially during the past few years, those passions and priorities have collided in profound and deeply painful ways leading us to scream out against one another… ” He then said that according to “Rebbe Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk, we can pray that G-d place in our hearts the ability to see not the faults but the positive qualities of each other, “for who is like Your people Israel, a unique nation on earth?” (“Rabbi Moshe Hauer’s Erev Shabbos Chazon Message 5785″)
In an exchange with Prof. Moshe Simon-Shoshan in the Jewish Action this Spring in response to one of R. Hauer’s JA articles, R. Hauer wrote, ” he has helped me gain a deeper understanding of and sensitivity to the current attitude of the Religious Zionist community towards the Chareidi draft” and that “this growing rift between those deeply faithful to Torah is tragic, frightening and unnecessary”(“Letters – Spring 2025”). See links:
https://www.ou.org/rabbi-hauers-erev-shabbos-message-2023/
https://mishpacha.com/the-gap-is-wide-but-we-can-bridge-it/
https://www.ou.org/this-erev-shabbos-am-yisraels-response-to-crisis/
https://www.ou.org/rabbi-moshe-hauers-erev-shabbos-message-for-shabbat-chazon-5785/
https://jewishaction.com/from-the-desk-of-rabbi-moshe-hauer/lemaan-achai-vreiai-pursuing-unity/
https://jewishaction.com/letters/letters-spring-2025/
Compare the above-mentioned Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion panel — where Rabbi Hauer asked both speakers to begin the program by speaking about what they liked about each other’s community — with the final question in one of the 2016 presidential debates, excerpted and linked below.
A voter in the audience at Washington University in St. Louis asked both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, to the audience’s applause and laughter, to say one nice thing about each other(albeit following a nasty debate in which both candidates slung a lot of mud at each other):
“My question to both of you is, regardless of the current rhetoric, would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another?”
I agree with one political commentator at the time, Business Insider, that this was “arguably the best” part of the debate( regarding the Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion panel, Jonathan Rosenblum wrote, “and I cannot stress enough how uplifted the audience felt by watching representatives of different communities relate to one another with respect,” see link in my first comment). See link to presidential debate question :
https://abc7chicago.com/post/trump-and-clinton-name-one-positive-thing-about-each-other/1547586/
The attribute of achrayus that Rabbi Adlerstein refers to was undoubtedly enhanced by Rabbi Hauer zt”l’s connection to Rabbi Neuberger zt”l. When Rabbi Neuberger passed away, his sense of achrayus was the main message I remember heading again and again, and this week’s MIshpacha makes this point as well, noting that Rabbi Hauer was a close talmid of Rabbi Neuberger.
I had the privilege of having one meaningful conversation with Rabbi Hauer about 10 years ago, and a few other short encounters. Some of what he said stays with me to this day. His essays impacted me a lot, and I had the opportunity to attend a live Q&A he led with Rabbi Moishe Bane at his shul a few years ago after joining the OU. I was blown away by the wisdom displayed.