Gifted with Obligation

One of the most rewarding aspects of my job as executive editor of Mishpacha magazine is the opportunity to meet and learn from people whose personal circle of concern encompasses the entire Klal Yisrael.  

I was somewhat familiar with Rabbi Moshe Hauer before he took the helm of the Orthodox Union and my job put me in contact with him. Around twenty-five years ago, my husband’s grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda (“Reb Yide”) Friedman, moved from Washington, DC, to Baltimore and joined Rabbi Hauer’s shul, Bnei Jacob Shaarei Zion. Zaidy was an elderly Hungarian Holocaust survivor with a long record of harbatzas Torah (spreading of Torah knowledge)—he gave a regular Daf Yomi shiur in Washington and finished Shas at least seven times—and he was warmly welcomed by Rabbi Hauer, who asked him to serve as a regular substitute whenever he wouldn’t be available to give the Daf Yomi shiur. The mutual respect and affection continued for many long years, even after Zaidy moved to Yerushalayim and Rabbi Hauer moved on from his position at the shul. 

Soon I would learn that he granted that respect, warmth and almost supernatural air of absolute focus and consideration not just to Zaidy Friedman.  

After Rabbi Hauer became executive vice president of the OU in 2020, I interacted with him semi-regularly. I wasn’t a member of his inner circle and never gained a front-row seat to his wisdom and dedication, but after his sudden, shocking petirah I pulled up the emails I’d received from him over the years and sat transfixed by the recurring themes and messages.  

Many of those emails included touches of wit. Some sparkled with flashes of passion. More importantly, every communication from Rabbi Hauer was saturated with dignity, purpose and a deep sense of responsibility.  

In all our exchanges, meetings or conversations he radiated tremendous respect for the magazine and its mandate. When I asked him to contribute a piece celebrating Mishpacha’s twentieth anniversary, we had a back-and-forth about his proposed opening lines: “The most influential body in contemporary English-speaking Haredi Jewish life is the editorial board of Mishpacha magazine. That represents an epic opportunity and responsibility.”  

I worried this would seem too self-congratulatory for us to print. In response, he wrote, “I would prefer the sentence stays in, as diluting it will make the point far less clearly. People who read the piece will not accuse it of being simply self-congratulatory, both because it is not ‘self’ and because it is much more focused on the attendant responsibility than congratulations.” 

He clearly saw the magazine’s influence as an obligation. Because that was his lens for viewing any gift, talent, resource or power: if you have it, how are you using it to benefit your people?  

As a serious person who took our magazine seriously, Rabbi Hauer wasn’t shy about sharing feedback. He let us know if he deemed an ad or article inappropriate. He also let us know when he thought our coverage might endanger a sensitive political relationship, and he spoke frankly–while never losing his elegant restraint—if he was disappointed in the approach we’d taken. 

Because that was his lens for viewing any gift, talent, resource or power: if you have it, how are you using it to benefit your people?  

At a certain point, Rabbi Hauer asked us to consider giving wide coverage to a community initiative that he considered extremely important. I participated in several meetings with the organizers and watched in admiration as he made time in his very busy schedule to join and focus fully on the proceedings. He didn’t say much, but he listened carefully. Clearly, he understood that his presence lent weight to the venture.  

He later explained to me that this was an issue that kept him awake at night, and he believed that the OU’s resources along with Mishpacha’s coverage could help the initiative achieve real results—although he didn’t think it was necessary or helpful for the OU’s role to become public.  

In almost all those interactions, I saw him as a communal and organizational leader, a big-picture thinker who had taken this very taxing job hoping to make a real dent in klal concerns. But I still remember one other incident where he sounded a different tone.  

It happened around a conference table in our Yerushalayim office, when several editors were privileged to meet with a few prominent marbitzei Torah in our Yerushalayim office. Rabbi Hauer, who was visiting his mother in Yerushalayim, joined as well. As they discussed some of the issues the magazine might want to raise in print, one of the talmidei chachamim in the room rued how so many parents of yeshivah bochurim just outsource their children’s education and never reach out to the maggidei shiur for updates, never mind collaboration.  

Rabbi Hauer opened his mouth to speak. He remained regal and composed, every word considered and deferential, but there was real emotion when he said, “You know, parents want to have a say. We want to have a voice. But too often, we get the message we’re not wanted.” Then he got personal—for just a moment or two—and expressed his dreams for his own sons to grow and blossom in Torah learning.  

There are so many reasons to mourn the loss of Rabbi Hauer. He was a true “Klal Yisrael Jew”—a man who devoted to his people his keen understanding of human nature, of communal structure, of governmental systems and of both soft and hard power. He was a leader who commanded huge budgets and initiatives yet listened to every voice in the room, who had strong convictions but conveyed them with utmost respect. He was a deeply feeling person who fused thoughtfulness with passion, and he carried the weight of public concern in his private life: he couldn’t sleep because Jews on campus were experiencing antisemitism or because frum families were struggling financially or because young women in Lakewood and Monsey were failing to find shidduchim. And he was a talmid chacham who dreamed of a place within the four walls of the beis medrash for himself and his children.  

In the two years since October 7, Rabbi Hauer was tremendously pained not just by our nation’s battles with external enemies, but also by the severe divisions he observed within. The disconnect between those living the effects of the war on their very flesh and those living life as usual gave him no rest. As he wrote: We need to recognize that this is currently the deepest division in Klal Yisrael, the disparity in lived experience between those bearing the direct burden of the war and those removed from it. It is this gap that 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 bachurim. And it is a space that needs to be filled not by debates where we typically argue our own side but by pure and unadulterated empathy, nesius b’ol im chaveiro, where we try our hardest to understand the other’s experience.  

How he would have enjoyed celebrating the return of the hostages. Of course, he’d say with that all-knowing smile, that’s the biggest story right now. It’s what our battered nation dreamed of. What our fractured people needed. After two years of tension and strife, what could be more noteworthy than their return—and more heartwarming than the accompanying collective sigh of relief and gratitude that erased all barriers on Hoshanah Rabbah morning? 

How painful that after watching him yearn for a seemingly elusive unity for two long years, his family and admirers had just one day to watch him savor the fulfillment of his dream.  

Shoshana Friedman is executive editor of Mishpacha magazine.