The emotion-soaked days of Elul, leading up to the Yamim Noraim, flowing into Succos, Shemini Atzeres, and finally, Simchas Torah, always found a whirlwind of expression in the halls of Baltimore’s Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion shul.

Each year, Rabbi Moshe Hauer, who served as the shul’s rav from 1994 to 2020, then moved on to serve as executive vice president in the OU but remained as rabbi emeritus, would daven for the amud on the first night of Selichos. His voice trembled with feeling, particularly as he sang “L’maancha” — one of his favorite songs.

A few days later he would daven Mussaf on Rosh Hashanah and then on Yom Kippur, repeatedly breaking down in tears throughout the tefillah.

“Like a malach” is how mispallelim describe his visage during the Yamim Noraim.

The intensity then gave way to the joy of Succos, concluding with Hoshana Rabbah, when Rabbi Hauer would deliver a three-hour shiur, from 9:00 p.m. until midnight.

On Shemini Atzeres Rabbi Hauer would once again take to the amud to daven Mussaf, along with the special Tefillas Geshem, and again, his voice shook.

But the moment the aron kodesh opened and Simchas Torah began, the solemn energy morphed into elated joy. Rabbi Hauer always wore a special “Simchas Torah tallis,” visibly discolored by perspiration. Hand in hand, the kehillah danced, inspired by the energy, the love, the joy, and the fire of their rav.

And when the hakafah ended and the chant of Moshe emes v’Soraso emes began, they watched in anticipation as Rabbi Hauer, who stood well above six feet tall, would jump into the air to an impossible height, fervently proclaiming “Moshe emes v’Soraso emes — Moshe is true and his Torah is true!”

With tears, with joy, and with ironclad belief in the Torah’s eternal truth, Rabbi Hauer would leap upward.

Reaching for the heavens toward which he always aspired.

Pivotal Influences

Rabbi Moshe Hauer dedicated his life to teaching Torah and inspiring Jews, driven by a passion whose seeds were planted in his earliest years. His father, Rabbi Binyamin Hauer, was a Holocaust survivor who initially settled in Toronto upon liberation. There, he joined a chaburah of young men studying under the tutelage of Rav Avrohom Aharon Price, a great Polish gaon who served as a rav and posek in Toronto. Eventually, Reb Binyamin himself assumed a rabbinic position, serving as the rabbi of Toronto’s Beth Jacob.

Later, he and his wife, Rebbetzin Miriam tblch”t, relocated to Montreal where Rabbi Hauer accepted an offer to lead the B’nai Jacob shul. There Rebbetzin Miriam accepted a teaching position and gained a reputation as a superb educator.

It was in this environment that young Moshe was raised, an atmosphere defined by the love of Torah, and the yearning to invite others to discover its brilliance.

Moshe was enrolled in Yeshiva Gedolah of Montreal for elementary school and later for high school, where he developed a close relationship with the rosh yeshivah, Rav Moshe Mendel Glustein.

Upon completing high school, Moshe moved on to Baltimore, where he joined Yeshivas Ner Yisroel. He was immediately struck by the sheer force of spiritual energy roaring from the beis medrash.

“The first time I walked into the beis medrash, I had this overwhelming sense of being home,” he once said.

In Ner Yisroel, he developed close relationships with many of the rebbeim, three of whom became the primary influences that shaped his life’s trajectory: Rav Naftali Neuberger, Rav Yaakov Moshe Kulefsky, and Rav Yaakov Weinberg.

“From Rav Neuberger, he learned the importance of achrayus,” says Rav Chaim Kosman, the third-year maggid shiur in Ner Yisroel. “Every derashah of Rav Neuberger’s was about achrayus.”

From Rav Kulefsky, Rabbi Hauer learned the true meaning of “joy in Torah.” Rav Kosman shares a small but poignant anecdote.

“Rabbi Hauer had a minhag not to eat gebrochts just on the first two days of Pesach,” he says. “Not because of the conventional concern that there might be some stray flour that would become chometz upon meeting liquid, but based on a shitah of the Rambam about matzah ashirah. Rav Kulefsky would give a shiur on this Rambam every year and, before the shiur, he always called Rabbi Hauer just to hear in person — one more time — from someone who actually adheres to this rare minhag.”

And from Rav Yaakov Weinberg, says Rav Kosman, Rabbi Hauer learned two things: “Rav Weinberg taught us that Torah is real. That Torah matters.” Rav Kosman recalls how Rav Weinberg once entered the shiur room completely distraught. He had just seen a psak printed in the name of Rav Moshe Feinstein. He himself had discussed this psak with Rav Moshe and knew that Rav Moshe had retracted it. “Rav Weinberg was beside himself. For him, Torah was real and anything that takes away from its truth was unbearable.”

And, secondly, Rav Weinberg taught his talmidim that one must do anything to help a fellow Jew.

In this atmosphere permeated with Torah, ahavas Yisrael, and a distinct sense of mission, Rabbi Moshe Hauer bloomed into a true ben Torah whose unlimited potential was beckoning to be realized.

At the Helm

Rabbi Dr. Joseph Baumgarten was the rav of Baltimore’s Bnai Jacob shul, while simultaneously holding a teaching position in the Baltimore Hebrew College. His daughter Mindi was suggested for Moshe Hauer, and soon the two were married. It didn’t take long before Moshe began delivering shiurim in his father-in-law’s shul, whose small membership was beginning to wane.

In 1994, Rabbi Hauer was formally appointed to be the shul’s rav. The position took a quantum leap forward in 1999, when the congregation merged with another local shul, Shaarei Zion. Renamed Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion, the kehillah moved into a beautiful, spacious new home.

Mergers between shuls, particularly those with divergent memberships in terms of age and demographic, are fated to be tense. But the seamlessness with which this integration was completed was so perfect that it caught the attention of the Orthodox Union, who did a case study on it to help inform other shuls aspiring for peaceful mergers.

Rabbi Hauer would describe the process that led to his successful tenure in the rabbinate.

“I started teaching Torah and, along the way, fell in love with the people I was teaching,” he once said.

Rabbi Hauer was consumed by a love for Torah, cherishing each novel concept and creating countless of his own original ideas. But this passion never led him to a secluded corner, obscured by piles of seforim. He spent his life teaching, wanting others to learn as well. And the more he taught, the more he loved.

“On Erev Yom Kippur, people would line up outside his office, waiting for a Birchas Habanim,” says Rabbi Daniel Rose, the current rav of Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion. These were people who didn’t have fathers, or, for whatever reason, wouldn’t be blessed by their fathers. In Rabbi Hauer, they found a father who would always be there to bless them. In fact, before Kol Nidrei, Rabbi Hauer recited the Birchas Habanim before the entire shul. Many — particularly those without fathers — were moved to tears.

He placed a great emphasis on the children. Each Shabbos morning he would gather the children around the bimah and encourage them to answer Amen to Kaddish with all of their might. They would then receive candy. Children dreamed of their bar mitzvahs when he would give them such exalted attention and personalized blessing.

Every tefillah, every occasion, every Yom Tov, was punctuated with the same symmetry of love for Torah, and love for Jews. Pesach was one of his favorite times of the year. He delivered a four-part shiur on the Haggadah each year — always providing fresh material, and ultimately wrote a sefer recording many of these ideas.

Each Shavuos, Rabbi Hauer would speak throughout the night, presenting a spellbinding masterpiece that had attendees listening raptly even as dawn approached.

On Tishah B’Av as well, he would choose one specific person to focus on, sharing stories that highlighted their unique personalities and the inspiration to be gleaned from their legacies. For many, it was an eye-opening experience as it was the first time they experienced anything more than a sense of dread and hunger on Tish B’av. Hundreds of community members who did not daven in the shul would attend these lectures and, later, the OU broadcasted them online via live transmission where it was watched by thousands.

And on Simchas Torah, Rabbi Hauer’s joy saw no bounds. His prime focus was the children, as they danced and sang with the man they looked to as both a mentor and father. Then there was a “Holocaust” hakafah. Rabbi Hauer would seat all Holocaust survivors while the rest of the shul danced around them singing “Utzu eitzah v’sufar.” During the fifth hakafah, Rabbi Hauer would step out and deliver a shiur to the women, in an effort to include them in the day’s joy.

Hundreds of families, thousands of people, were uplifted by Rabbi Hauer’s care and concern. But, says Rabbi Yaakov Hopfer, rav of Baltimore’s Shearith Israel Congregation, the inspiration went far beyond Rabbi Hauer’s own shul. “He elevated his kehillah,” says Rabbi Hopfer, “and this led to elevating the whole Jewish community of Baltimore.”

Never Alone

A frequent refrain of Rabbi Hauer was a line written in the introduction to Nefesh Hachaim. There, Rav Itzeleh Volozhiner writes in the name of his father, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, that man was created “rak l’ho’il lachrini — only to help others.”

Rabbi Hauer didn’t only quote this, he lived by it.

And while he cared for every Jew, he was completely overtaken with concern for those who had no one else to care for them. The plight of the lonely was forever on his mind and his home was open to all in desperate need of company. Every Friday, he would go to visit Jews in hospitals or nursing homes.

When a local shul once invited a prestigious scholar to spend Shabbos with them, Rabbi Hauer was asked if he would invite him for a seudah. Rabbi Hauer apologized and said he could not. He had already invited another guest, a Jew in need of chizuk and camaraderie. He felt that any additional company would detract from the attention he wanted to lavish on this guest, and so could not take the opportunity of hosting this distinguished scholar.

On Purim it was almost impossible to deliver mishloach manos to Rabbi Hauer in person. He was away all day, visiting the homes of those in need of a kind word and loving company.

Helping individual Jews — seeing them in the micro rather than in the macro — was crucial to his approach to rabbanus. Each Friday, Rabbi Hauer gave a chaburah to young, aspiring rabbanim. Whenever someone would say something to the effect of “I’ll accept a position in a small community as a stepping stone,” it drew his ire.

“Whose head are you stepping on?” he would retort. “You have to give it your all wherever you are. If Hashem wants you to be mashpia to a larger kehillah, He’ll take you there. But no one is a ‘stepping stone.’ ”

Loving every Jew meant appreciating their contributions and expressing adequate hakaras hatov.

Each year, as Succos approached, Rabbi Hauer enlisted the help of his friend, Mr. Binyamin Ziman, to build his succah. This year was different, as the Hauers had added an addition to their home which included a built-in succah. Mr. Ziman’s assistance was not needed. But Mr. Ziman was invited to the Hauers for the meal on the first night of Succos and, on the succah’s wall, saw a picture of himself with Rabbi Hauer and several Hauer children and grandchildren. Above the picture was a sign that read:

In honor of Mr. Binyamin Ziman

For the dedication of hard work and devotion, time and energy, skill and expertise which he lovingly invested in our succah.

Heart in the East

Rabbi Hauer’s heart, beating with an impassioned love for Jews, echoed with an equally resonant rhythm of love for Eretz Yisrael. He spent every moment he could in Eretz Yisrael and, even when afar, went to the greatest lengths to assist the Land and its inhabitants in any way he could. Like his love for Torah, he couldn’t keep it to himself. It became a focal point of his rabbanus as he inculcated a love for the Land in his hundreds of mispallelim.

During the First Intifada, Kever Rochel was effectively closed to visitors. During this time, several rabbanim, Rabbi Hauer among them, visited Eretz Yisrael and managed to gain access to Kever Rochel. There, he met Mrs. Miriam Adani, who headed the Kever Rochel Heritage Fund.

“He said to me, ‘What can I do for you?’ ” Mrs. Adani recalls. “I told him I needed an American charity set up so I could raise funds in America. With those funds I could hopefully get bulletproof buses to transport people to Kever Rochel.”

Rabbi Hauer listened and immediately got to work. He established a formal charity on behalf of Kever Rochel, facilitating mass amounts of funding toward the cause. The initial donations paid for two years’ worth of bulletproof busing.

He didn’t stop there though. He kept in constant touch with Mrs. Adani, always seeking to do more on behalf of Kever Rochel.

“Once, when he was here, he asked me what I needed,” Mrs. Adani recalls. “I told him that half a year earlier, a chayal named Ariel Chovav had performed a bris for his newborn son. Then, tragically, Ariel was killed in a terrorist attack. The family now wants to write a sefer Torah in his memory.” Rabbi Hauer agreed to help. “He raised money for the Torah and also helped raise money for a beis medrash that was built in Elkanah in Ariel’s memory.”

And then tragedy struck the Adani family themselves. “Our 15-year-old son, a bochur in yeshivah, died suddenly,” Mrs. Adani shares.

Rabbi Hauer immediately flew in to be menachem avel. “He stayed in Eretz Yisrael for four hours. He came to the shivah. Then he went to visit his mother. Then he went to Kever Rochel. Then he came back to the shivah and from there, he went straight to the airport to return to Baltimore.”

Rabbi Shlomo Raanan is the founder and chairman of Ayelet Hashachar, an organization that seeks to strengthen Judaism in secular kibbutzim throughout Eretz Yisrael. On a visit to Baltimore, Rabbi Raanan was introduced to Rabbi Hauer, and the encounter sparked a decades-long relationship.

“He would send me messages to give me the feeling that I’m doing the most important thing in the world,” says Rabbi Raanan. On trips to Eretz Yisrael, Rabbi Hauer would travel to these various kibbutzim along with Rabbi Raanan. “He would mostly just listen to the people,” Rabbi Raanan recalls. “He knew how to listen. He would listen to them and hug them.”

Rabbi Raanan recalls the last conversation he had with Rabbi Hauer.

“Someone in a northern kibbutz requested we send someone to blow shofar on Rosh Hashanah. The kibbutz wouldn’t allow us to send a full minyan so it was a matter of one person spending his whole Rosh Hashanah alone in a kibbutz. The question was — should we do it?”

At one point during the discussion, Rabbi Raanan said to Rabbi Hauer, “If we blow shofar in the kibbutz now, in three years from now they will all be frum.”

“When I said that, Rabbi Hauer got so excited,” he recalls.

Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon, a posek, rosh kollel, and rosh yeshivah in Eretz Yisrael also shared a close relationship with Rabbi Hauer. “After the expulsion from Gush Katif, he contacted me,” says Rabbi Rimon. “He said he wanted to help.” Rabbi Rimon came to Baltimore and Rabbi Hauer went to great lengths to raise funds on behalf of his efforts. Their relationship blossomed into a deep friendship.

“I saw he was a talmid chacham. He knew a lot of Torah on a deep level. And I saw that he had a neshamah me’ira (an illuminative soul). He had a neshamah that had the ability to connect every Jew.”

Last year, Rabbi Rimon hosted a Pesach Seder for some four hundred widows and orphans who had lost their husbands or fathers during the war.

“I needed about five hundred thousand dollars for it,” he says. “I called a few people and then I called Rabbi Hauer. A few days later he called me back. He had the money.”

Overflowing Cup

“Avraham Avinu was given the blessing v’heyei brachah — and you shall be a blessing,” says Rabbi Yehoshua Hartman, author of a vast commentary on the Maharal and a close friend of Rabbi Hauer. “The Maharal explains that this means that Avraham will receive so much blessing that it will overflow and spread to others.”

And this, says Rabbi Hartman, explains the next chapter in Rabbi Hauer’s life.

In 2020, Rabbi Moishe Bane, then president of the Orthodox Union, launched a search for a candidate to fill a very specific, very nuanced, position. The behemoth Jewish organization’s executive vice-president, Allen Fagin, was poised to retire and the vacancy needed to be filled. Rabbi Bane had an ambitious vision. He wanted to hire two executive vice presidents, each with a distinct role. One would service the organization’s internal needs, managing its mass databases, overseeing strategy and day-to-day operations. The other would play more of an external role, serving somewhat as an ambassador, bringing the organization’s resources to the outside world.

For this second role he saw his old-time friend, Rabbi Moshe Hauer, as the perfect fit. It seemed like an outlandish request and, at first, Rabbi Hauer returned it with a kind but firm rejection. But Rabbi Bane appeared at his Baltimore home and begged him to reconsider.

It took several attempts, but Rabbi Hauer indeed reconsidered and ultimately agreed to take the job.

“There are problems that run deeper than the person in front of you, things that have to do with the framework of the community,” he once shared in an interview with this magazine. “It was frustrating to deal with symptoms of a problem and not be able to fix the root. Because if you can fix the framework itself, you can solve that issue not just for the person sitting in your office, but for everyone facing that challenge.

“I think that when the opportunity at the OU came up, that’s what attracted me most: The chance to make a difference at that level.”

“When I interviewed him for the job,” says Mr. Mitch Aeder, current president of the OU, “one of his concerns was that, as a rav, he was giving over twenty shiurim a week. He didn’t want to give that up.”

And so, says Mr. Aeder, Rabbi Hauer remedied this problem by making Torah part of the job.

“We always started off the board meetings with a devar Torah,” he says. “But Rabbi Hauer changed that. Instead of it being an isolated devar Torah followed by an unrelated board meeting, he said, ‘Let’s not just say a devar Torah. Let’s give the meeting a ‘Torah framing.’ ”

Giving a ‘Torah framing’ might be the best way to describe Rabbi Hauer’s entire approach to his position.

Each Friday he would send out an email with a devar Torah that was both brilliant and relevant. Much of his approach to drush and machshavah was shaped by Rav Moshe Shapiro, with whom Rabbi Hauer was extremely close. From his heightened vantage point, he was able to spread these deep concepts and powerful lessons to tens of thousands of subscribers.

“He often had to interact with people far to the left of himself, religiously,” says Mr. Aeder. “But at every event that he attended, he was asked to be the final speaker, that’s how appreciated he was. He had not just personal integrity, but Torah integrity.”

And while he always showed the greatest respect to others, he never compromised on values. “Interacting with those who we disagree with ideologically could be very difficult at times,” Mr. Aieder shares. “For example, when we were planning the rally in Washington right after the October 7 massacre, Rabbi Hauer was absolutely adamant that there be no kol ishah. It was a difficult position to take, but he took it, and wouldn’t budge.”

A unique feature to Rabbi Hauer’s leadership, also demonstrated throughout his term in the rabbinate, was that he didn’t wait for problems to arise in order to take action. His approach was to be proactive and he always sought to provide assistance before the problem crossed his desk. Rabbi Hauer went out of his way to discover how he could help, particularly with regard to issues that burned within him.

Being at the OU allowed him to take his sensitivities to the national, or even international sphere.

Multiple studies conducted by the OU showed that for widows or divorcees, Shabbos and Yom Tov are the most difficult times. Rabbi Hauer invested tireless efforts into initiatives that would help ease these burdens by offering a number of services, like Makom Kavua, an OU program that encourages men to take boys who don’t have fathers to shul with them.

In another initiative, one of countless examples of how his position at the OU allowed him to continue his life’s work on an amplified level, Rabbi Hauer recognized that women without husbands are unlikely to buy themselves arba minim for Succos. So he arranged for prechecked arba minim to be delivered to their homes.

As the special assistant to the executive vice president, Rabbi Yisrael Motzen had access to Rabbi Hauer’s emails. Following Simchas Torah, Rabbi Motzen checked Rabbi Hauer’s final emails. He found that on Hoshana Rabbah, following the release of the hostages, Rabbi Hauer had sent an email to Jon Polin, father of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the murdered hostages.

“I wanted to let you know that I’m thinking of you,” the message read.

In general, Rabbi Hauer’s sensitivity to the hostages, and anyone affected by the October 7 massacre knew no bounds. He constantly paid visits to wounded soldiers and family members of hostages.

Rabbi Avi Berman, executive director of OU Israel, tells us more. “About two weeks after October 7, Rabbi Hauer came here. He wanted to go down to Sderot. This was when no one was going to that area. But he felt that we must go to be able to inform the government in America what was actually going on.” They went down to Sderot only to be met by the horrific ruins left in the massacre’s wake. “Rabbi Hauer said we can’t be scared. We are shluchei mitzvah.”

Rabbi Dr. Josh Joseph served alongside Rabbi Hauer as a fellow executive vice president.

“We were both hired in 2020, toward the beginning of Covid,” he says. “We met at Thomson Park, which is equidistant between the Five Towns and Baltimore. We were wearing masks and maintained social distancing. But even so, within a few minutes, we knew we had forged a connection.” The two would frequently refer to each other as brothers.

“At the beginning of this year, 5786 (tav shin pei vav), I told him that it is the year of ‘shutaf — partner,’ Rabbi Joseph recalls.

And the esteem in which Rabbi Hauer held his “shutfim” — whether structural partners within the organization, or conceptual partners throughout Klal Yisrael, was evident by a sign hanging on the wall of his office. The sign displays three words, excerpted from Shemos (4:14): “Vera’acha v’samach b’libo — And he will see you and he will be happy in his heart,” the pasuk where Hashem reassures Moshe that his older brother Aharon will be happy about his appointment as leader of the Jewish People.

Rabbi Hauer kept this sign on his wall — a reminder that it’s never about our individual selves — or the success of our own organizations — but always about our common purpose and the Jewish People as a whole.

Another staff member shares how a certain Jewish organization scored a success on behalf of the community — one that the OU had been pursuing.

“They beat us to it,” the staff member commented to Rabbi Hauer. Rabbi Hauer’s brow furrowed. “Beat us to it? Klal Yisrael won!”

There was one other quote hanging in Rabbi Hauer’s office. This was excerpted from a pasuk in parshas Vayigash (44:34): “Eich e’eleh el avi v’hanaar einenu iti — How can I go to my father and the child is not with me?” In context the verse is quoting Yehudah, expressing his anxiety over returning Binyamin to his father, Yaakov. But the words carry an eternal message that Rabbi Hauer willed to resonate throughout his office. “How can I go to my Father and the child is not with me?”

How can we return to Hashem without having brought everyone of His children back to Him?

Where Charity Starts

As much as Rabbi Hauer was a national figure, he was, at his core, a family man. When he accepted the job at the OU, the logical course of action was to move to New York so that he could commute easily to the Manhattan offices. But Rabbi Hauer knew that remaining in Baltimore was better for his family, and so he arranged to be in New York for two days a week while working from home for the remainder of the week. Yet, he did not wish to be away from home for two nights and so he would rise extremely early in the morning, arriving in Manhattan at the start of the work day, remain there overnight, and then return to Baltimore the following evening.

Family always came first.

Rabbi Hauer loved his children and always spoke in such glowing terms of his beloved wife. His schedule was unfathomably taxing, and yet, to his children, he was everything, the father who would answer their calls anytime. On a Sunday, the one day where he had some respite, he’d happily drive from Baltimore all the way to Monsey and back just to attend a grandson’s Mishnayos siyum. The children recall how every travel decision was all about how it would affect the family. He wouldn’t shy from expressing this love openly; at a supper meal he would extend his hands and say, ‘I’m so happy to be with family!’ ”

Rabbi Hauer once had a meeting of critical importance in Washington, D.C., but a family member was undergoing a medical procedure in New York at the same time. Initially torn, he came up with a compromise. He went to the hospital the night before the procedure to be with the patient, then left early in the morning for Washington, returning back to New York that evening.

If music was playing when he walked into a room, Rabbi Hauer would grab whichever child was nearby and, together, they’d dance.

And, as important as the positive energy was, equally as important was the absence of negativity. Rebbetzin Hauer shares, in no uncertain terms, that her husband never spoke lashon hara. With all he was involved with, with all the many disputes he must have mediated, with all the scandals he must have dealt with, his family knew none of it.

And his dedication to his mother was truly incredible. He called her every day without fail. Sometimes that entailed stopping short in the middle of an urgent meeting but this was of little import. Rabbi Berman shares how on trips to Eretz Yisrael, as they ran from appointment to appointment, Rabbi Hauer would stop and say, “I need to eat something.” He explained. “I will soon call my mother and she’ll ask me if I ate today. I want to be able to tell her that I did.”

Toward Heaven

As with every year, the halls of Baltimore’s Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion shul saw a whirlwind of expression of the emotion-soaked days of Elul, leading up to the Yamim Noraim, flowing into Succos, Shemini Atzeres, and finally, Simchas Torah night.

But something about Simchas Torah was strange. Rabbi Hauer — where was he? He wasn’t in shul. Rumor spread that he wasn’t well, perhaps in the hospital. Word of what actually occurred only went out after Yom Tov, once the children were all informed.

The shul did their best to jump while chanting Moshe emes v’soraso emes, but it felt empty, wrong. The energy of the cry was missing.

They were not yet informed that the night prior, on Leil Shemini Atzeres, Rabbi Moshe Hauer had passed away in his home. The heart that bore the pain of millions gave its final beat, leaving a nation void of a brilliant, caring, and compassionate leader.

Eich a’aleh el avi v’hanaar einenu iti — How can I go to my Father and the child is not with me?

Rabbi Hauer now certainly stands before his Father, given the exalted place reserved for those who care tirelessly for His children.

As for us? We must move onward. We must remember the eternal truths that Rabbi Hauer imbued within us — Moshe emes v’soraso emes!

With tears, with joy, and with the Torah’s eternal truth, we must strive to leap upward.

Reaching for the heavens toward which he always aspired.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1083)