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| Rabbi Moshe Hauer, ZTL (OU) |
I never met him, but he was an inspiration to me.
I am deeply saddened to report the passing of Rabbi Moshe Hauer, Executive Vice President of the OU. He died suddenly and shockingly - apparently from a heart attack - at his home on Shemini Atzeres. He was 64 years old.
The loss to the Jewish people of a leader with his capabilities is indescribable. Rabbi Hauer was a giant of the Jewish world whose intellect was recognized by all who knew him - as that of a major Talmid Chacham.
He personified much of my own thinking on matters of faith and on issues of public concern to the Jewish people. Like the late Rabbi Berel Wein, his views reflected the essence of mainstream Judaism, yet he was unafraid to depart from the conventional ‘orthodoxy’ of the Charedi world when he felt it appropriate to do so.
One example of this was when he publicly advocated voting in the WZO elections for one of the religious parties. When he was aksed who he voted for he said the Religious Zionist party. This was despite the urging of the Charedi world to vote for Eretz HaKodesh. The Religious Zionist Party was what I voted for even though I am not a member. Nor, do I believe, was Rabbi Hauer. I assume it was for the same reason I did. I felt that the Religious Zionist party was more deserving of our vote because of the great sacrifices being made by the Religious Zionist community in Israel’s war against Hamas.
And yet, he had the deepest respect for Charedi leadership, both in Israel and in the United States. That was the measure of the man. He did not allow differences in public policy to affect his profound respect for the rabbinic leadership of the right. He recognized their level of religious scholarship and honored it accordingly. I feel very much the same way.
It should also be noted that, despite his occasional disagreements on matters of public policy, the Charedi leadership respected him as well.
Even though he was fourteen years my junior, I looked up to him as a leader and as a moral conscience for the Torah world.
As was the case with Rabbi Berel Wein, he will be difficult to replace. There are not many leaders who have the courage to stand by their convictions regardless of conventional wisdom. Rabbi Moshe Hauer was one of those rare leaders.
He will be sorely missed.
Baruch Dayan HaEmes.
Bde, such a loss.
ReplyDeleteWhy no other comments being posted very strange.
might have something to do with the change of format here. Or the fact that this news has been so wide spread and commented upon that there is nothing left to say.
DeleteI was shocked and greatly saddened to learn 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.
ReplyDeleteRabbi Hauer 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(Minute 50).
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, "Would you want to live in a country run by Haredim? " Minute 1:00:00 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 the comments to the Cross Currents post linked below:
https://cross-currents.com/2024/03/11/20704/#comment-499795
Yisroel Besser related the following story about R. 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:
ReplyDelete"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. Some excerpts of his writings on maintaining achdus as far as the communal repercussions of the Gaza war, linked below:
ReplyDeleteAt 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 R. Hauer's JA article, 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/
In a very different context than the above-mentioned Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion panel moderated by R. Hauer, compare his approach with the final question in one of the 2016 presidential debates, where a voter in the audience at Washington University in St. Louis, asked both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to say one nice thing about each other(after a fiery debate and campaigns which insulted the other), to audience applause and laughter:
ReplyDelete"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 commentary at the time(Business Insider) that this was "arguably the best" part of the debate. See link to question :
https://abc7chicago.com/post/trump-and-clinton-name-one-positive-thing-about-each-other/1547586/
Thank you so much, SOG, for rounding out the measure of the man. Like I said in the post, not too many like him.
ReplyDeleteYour welcome.
DeleteAs I said in the beginning of my comments, I was just thinking of his unique contributions over Yom Tov before I learned of his passing.