A Rabbi’s Rabbi

I knew my friend Rabbi Moshe Hauer was then in Jerusalem and would be addressing a group of prospective rabbis on the lessons of his more than two decades in the rabbinate. And having stayed with the Hauers several years earlier while researching a biography of Rav Noach Weinberg, and having been a guest speaker in his shul on a number of occasions, I also knew that I could not find a better guide to the role of a rabbi.

At the Shabbos meal on that stay in his home, I asked Reb Moshe whether his contract made provision for a sabbatical. He answered simply, “I’m doing what I most want to do.” As he explained to me on another occasion, “I love Torah, and I’m acutely aware of how Torah transformed me, and I want to share that experience with others.”

And I saw how true that was. By 8:30 a.m. everyday weekday morning, he had already taught a Daf Yomi shiur to one group of balabatim, and an amud yomi to another. I also attended a chaburah on the Maharal’s Tiferes Yisrael. He also had a weekly chaburah in Pachad Yitzchok, as well as regular shiurim in Chumash and halachah. In addition, he led separate weekly middos vaadim for men and women based on Rav Shlomo Wolbe’s Alei Shur. On my visits to Baltimore, I joined on a number of occasions a weekly Motzaei Shabbos discussion group he led for aspiring communal rabbanim in Ner Yisroel.

I managed to dig up the notes I took of our conversations prior to my Ireland jaunt, and they capture how deeply he thought about his role. He was by nature a private person, who possessed a gravitas that the more glib among us do not have. Yet he told me, a rabbi must be a growth-oriented person capable of bringing others along on his journey. In that context, he quoted the Klausenburger Rebbe: “My biggest sacrifice is that I must let others observe my private avodas Hashem.”