Thank you for your article “To Illuminate Rather Than Condemn: The Legacy of Rabbi Moshe Hauer” in the Winter 2025 issue of Jewish Action.
Your analysis is amazingly clever:
“In shaping the Orthodox Union’s institutional culture, Rabbi Hauer would often invoke a teaching of the Chafetz Chaim: that the most powerful refutation of error is not condemnation and denigration, but the clear and consistent example of the right path. When an organization challenges the practices of other movements or institutions, there is a tendency to denounce their flaws and failures. Rabbi Hauer, though acknowledging how difficult restraint can be, consistently urged the OU to act otherwise. Human nature often falls short of the ideal, but this ethic has become a guiding standard at the OU.”
A person undergoes many tests in the course of his social life: at work with colleagues and superiors; in the army, with his buddies and with his commanders; in school, with friends and teachers; at home, with parents and with siblings.
There are tests in every area: in monetary matters, when a person is robbed or cheated or when others use his property without permission; with status, when a person is demoted or fails to be promoted, or when he suffers an affront to his dignity.
A person could utilize the three principles of emuna in each and every one of life’s tests and believe that everything that is happening to him comes from the Creator. Others are only sticks in Hashem’s hand whose purpose is to stimulate us to seek more emuna. One who is aware of this and lives this spiritual fact of life will enjoy inner peace and tranquility; he’ll get along with everyone and he’ll have a high score in the World to come.
These were some of the virtues of Rabbi Hauer ז”ל, OU Executive Vice-President.
בס”ד
Rabbi Bane,
Thank you for your article “To Illuminate Rather Than Condemn: The Legacy of Rabbi Moshe Hauer” in the Winter 2025 issue of Jewish Action.
Your analysis is amazingly clever:
“In shaping the Orthodox Union’s institutional culture, Rabbi Hauer would often invoke a teaching of the Chafetz Chaim: that the most powerful refutation of error is not condemnation and denigration, but the clear and consistent example of the right path. When an organization challenges the practices of other movements or institutions, there is a tendency to denounce their flaws and failures. Rabbi Hauer, though acknowledging how difficult restraint can be, consistently urged the OU to act otherwise. Human nature often falls short of the ideal, but this ethic has become a guiding standard at the OU.”
A person undergoes many tests in the course of his social life: at work with colleagues and superiors; in the army, with his buddies and with his commanders; in school, with friends and teachers; at home, with parents and with siblings.
There are tests in every area: in monetary matters, when a person is robbed or cheated or when others use his property without permission; with status, when a person is demoted or fails to be promoted, or when he suffers an affront to his dignity.
A person could utilize the three principles of emuna in each and every one of life’s tests and believe that everything that is happening to him comes from the Creator. Others are only sticks in Hashem’s hand whose purpose is to stimulate us to seek more emuna. One who is aware of this and lives this spiritual fact of life will enjoy inner peace and tranquility; he’ll get along with everyone and he’ll have a high score in the World to come.
These were some of the virtues of Rabbi Hauer ז”ל, OU Executive Vice-President.
Blessings!
Naftali Rubin
Jerusalem, Israel