Instead, I sat in his synagogue… at his funeral.

In my 30 years at the Orthodox Union, heading our Washington advocacy arm, I have worked with many leaders at the OU and across American Judaism at large. From the moment I first sat down with Rabbi Hauer in his Baltimore home in 2020, I knew he was different. I expected him to lay out his vision for me. I expected him to tell me how it was going to be.

Instead, the learned and accomplished rabbi informed me that he was the “student” and I was the “mentor.” He asked for a tutorial and a reading list. Thus began our work together. Over the five years of our partnership, we faced many challenges together. From Covid, to rising antisemitism, to the October 7 attack on Israel. We met with presidents, senators, representatives, the heads of Jewish groups and other faith organizations, CEOs, and donors.

Like I said, I have worked with many Jewish leaders—all with their own strengths and weaknesses. One of Rabbi Hauer’s biggest strengths was his modesty.

It may seem like an odd trait for the head of the largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella group. Executives are often demanding. They tend to be the loudest voices in the room, lest they get drowned out by all the other loud voices. It’s also a position that can go to one’s head. After all, Rabbi Hauer met with important and famous people, as evidenced by the outpouring of eulogies from President Trump, Bibi Netanyahu, Isaac Herzog, and others.

And yet the most striking thing about the outpouring of eulogies from global figures was how Rabbi Hauer would have reacted to them. He would have been shocked and uncomfortable. In a world of influencers and me-firsters, he was the most humble person I have known in a leadership role.

He was soft spoken to a fault. Senators and representatives had to literally lean in to hear his wise words. But that was the thing about him. You wanted to lean in. It wasn’t the sound of his voice that said, “listen to me.” It was the content of his message and his sincerity that demanded your attention.

Rabbi Hauer was a walking oxymoron. An unassuming giant. A sage who sought advice. A teacher who played the role of student. A national leader who saw every individual.

If it is hard to reconcile these contradictions, remember that the Jewish people’s greatest leader, Moshe Rabeinu, was a soft-spoken shepherd turned prophet who questioned G-d’s choice. The Torah describes Moshe as “anav me’od, mikol ha’adam”—the most humble person of all people.

Former Chief Rabbi of England, the late Jonathan Sacks, explained that there are two categories of teachings in the Torah. One pertains to questions of immutable Jewish law, like the laws of keeping Shabbat and Kosher. Situations can change, but the fundamental laws do not. Rabbi Sacks called this category Torat Kohanim because “the kohen, the priest, was the first role model in Jewish history of the enduring structure of kedusha; the eternity in the midst of time.”

The second category is what Rabbi Sacks called Torat Nevi’im—“Torah not of the priest but of the navi, the prophet.” While the priest represents the eternal and unchanging law, the prophet represents history. The prophet teaches people how to serve G-d in the always changing, challenging world we live in.

While the Jewish people need both kinds of leaders, Rabbi Sacks stressed the importance of the prophet when it comes to making the world a better place. “There is no formula, no Shulkhan Arukh, and no responsum governing how to be mitaken ha’olam (repair the world). For this the Orthodox community needs not only masters of the law but also ba’alai ne’vuah—people with historical insight; that is the challenge of our time.”

Rabbi Hauer was this kind of prophet in our time—not in the predictive sense, but in the sense that Rabbi Sacks underscored. He was suffused with a belief in the Jewish People—our Torah, our history, and our destiny. He was committed to an Orthodox Jewish community fully engaged with society to advance our values and bring the world just a little closer to G-d.

He did that by living as a Torah Jew fully engaged in the public square. He spoke about his faith with Senators and Cabinet Secretaries just as he did with members of his synagogue—passionately and sincerely.

His humility derived from his understanding of the Jewish people’s role in the arc of history. In his mind, he wasn’t meeting with statesmen because of who he was. He was meeting with them because G-d put him on this Earth to do good.

Every day over the past five years, I was privileged to witness Rabbi Hauer perform this role of the Ba’al Nevuah as he engaged in advocacy for the Jewish people.

One story—out of many—looms large in my mind. A few weeks after the cataclysmic attacks of October 7, 2023, Rabbi Hauer was scheduled to testify before the House Education Committee as the lead witness about rising antisemitism on college campuses.

In his testimony—which I heard about for weeks afterwards—Rabbi Hauer simultaneously spoke for the Jewish community as a whole and for the needs of the Orthodox segment within it. He marshalled the perspective of Jewish history to appeal to the moral conscience of American leaders.

The Jewish people are the people of the book, and that book teaches us both our values and our story. We know our history, and it goes like this: For more than 3,000 years we have lived in a great many places, where we thrived and contributed to the host country, and then we had to leave. Sometimes we were expelled by laws and sometimes by fear, by the sheer danger of the hate that grew towards us.

That is our story. We always end up having to leave. 

He challenged the Representatives:

You are our elected leaders. It is in your hands to restore our faith that America will be the exception to the rule of our history.

I was with Rabbi Hauer when he made this appeal many times in the critical months following Oct. 7. We met with elected and policy officials alongside other leaders of major American Jewish organizations. It was always Rabbi Hauer who spoke with the most impact. In his quiet but firm tone, he gave voice to the dual Jewish feelings of apprehension and aspiration.

Later this week, I will walk into the White House for the meeting Rabbi Hauer and I were meant to have last Thursday. We won’t be walking in together, but Rabbi Hauer will accompany me into that meeting.

His spirit, his insight, and his fierce and full commitment to the Jewish people will accompany me into that meeting and the many thereafter.

After all, he was never really the “student.” He was always, and will always be, the teacher.

Nathan Diament is the executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center (OUA).