Not many mainstream Orthodox rabbis are eulogized by US leaders from both the Reform movement and the haredi establishment, and not many American rabbis are familiar and beloved figures both in the Knesset and on Capitol Hill.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, who suddenly passed last week at the age of 60, was all those things. Rabbi Hauer didn’t just build bridges; he was a bridge.
He connected American Jews and Israeli Jews in many ways, both personal and communal. On the personal level, Rabbi Hauer constantly practiced the simple but profound act of truly listening.
Truly listening
I saw this over and over again when I accompanied Rabbi Hauer on his visits to Knesset members, families who lost loved ones on October 7, and the OU Israel team struggling with being evacuated from their homes in the North and South of the country.
So many leaders are eager to show that they already know exactly what’s going on, or they can’t wait to jump in and get their point across. Yet Rabbi Hauer was different, reminding me regularly that when I walked into a room with him, I wasn’t to say a word until we first heard from those we were meeting with.
Instead of showing off his knowledge, and he was extremely knowledgeable, he would sit quietly and simply listen.
He would let others tell him what was happening in their own words. He treated each person with the greatest respect, while he himself exhibited the utmost humility.
Other people weren’t abstractions to Rabbi Hauer. He constantly strived to understand others, meet with them, talk to them, and, most importantly, listen to them – face to face. A few days ago, a bereaved Israeli woman whom Rabbi Hauer first met over a decade ago told me that with his death, she felt like she had lost a brother. Everybody who encountered Rabbi Hauer felt how much he genuinely cared.
Communal roles
On the communal level, too, Rabbi Hauer served as a bridge between American Jews and Israeli Jews.
He testified in the US House of Representatives to fight antisemitism on American college campuses and met with rabbis and political leaders in Israel to promote unity and attempt to heal societal divisions.
Under his leadership, the Orthodox Union tripled its presence in Israel because he recognized that the organization should help families thrive in Israel and continue supporting them after they made aliyah. Under his leadership, the Orthodox Union sent American rabbis on missions to Israel and Israeli rabbis on missions to the United States to foster a greater understanding of our cultures and to encourage collaboration.
Learning from Rabbi Hauer
I hope and pray that we as a people learn the lessons that Rabbi Hauer spent his life quietly modeling for all those around him:
That we refrain from acting in a way that will desecrate God’s name but rather work toward sanctifying it, on both personal and communal levels.
That we learn to love every single Jew, no matter how different from us they are, no matter what they wear or what they look like.
That we do a lot less talking and a lot more listening.
The writer, a rabbi, is the executive director of OU Israel.