Like a Parent
| October 21, 2025Individuals at every age and every stage somehow felt that Rabbi Hauer was “their person”
IN
the week since the passing of Rabbi Hauer, the Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion family, where Rabbi Hauer served as rav for over 25 years, has been left orphaned. To convey the devastation that we are all feeling, I want to try to articulate what Rabbi Hauer meant to us.
To my three-year-old son, Rabbi Hauer was the warm, smiling figure who gathered all the kids to the bimah to say Amen as loud as they could to the last Kaddish and then gave them candy from his stash.
When my son turned six, Rabbi Hauer gently encouraged him to daven Anim Zemiros, even weighing in on his weekly tune selection.
Which is why, when he found out that Rabbi Hauer was moving on to the OU before his bar mitzvah, my son was distraught. It was inconceivable that Rabbi Hauer would not ask him, like he did every bar mitzvah bochur, what he wanted to do with his life and talk about all of the wonderful things in his future. Of course, when Rabbi Hauer found out how he felt, he spoke to him 45 minutes, promised him that he would be at his bar mitzvah, and all was once again right with the world.
While Rabbi Hauer took incredible pride in the children of the shul, individuals at every age and every stage somehow felt that Rabbi Hauer was “their person.”
Rabbi Hauer built so many of us into the people we are today: He consoled, counseled, and cried with us when we went through crisis. He joked with us with his sharp and incisive humor. He expanded our horizons with his boundless love of Eretz Yisrael, taking us there every year to make sure that we saw what he saw. He instilled in us to love other Jews, to be “our brothers’ keeper.” We knew that he would be there for us when we needed him.
He begged us to never stop looking out for people that our society tends to forget about. The Hauer Shabbos table guests were often elderly, singles, divorcees, and widows, and a significant amount of his time was dedicated to their well-being.
Every year during the Yamim Noraim, we felt Rabbi Hauer carrying us on his shoulders as he cried, cajoled, and begged Hashem to give his kehillah and Klal Yisrael another year of good. One of his hallmark moments would take place on Yom Kippur right before Kol Nidrei, when he would get up and give the Bircas Habanim to those who didn’t have parents to give it to them. Every year, I — and everyone else who didn’t have a father — would cry, knowing there was someone who loved us like a parent.
Perhaps most importantly, Rabbi Hauer dedicated his life to teaching us how to love Torah. From the esoteric machshavah seforim that he brought to life, to his passion, Sefer Bereishis, and everything in between, Rabbi Hauer’s Torah was truly a Toras Chaim — a Torah that informs how we live our life.
Rabbi Hauer would go on to occupy a national platform and I had the zechus to spend time with him in that capacity as well. One thing became clear right away. The same warm, empathetic, kind, broad talmid chacham who was like a father to his kehillah quickly became recognized as a gadol to the rest of Klal Yisrael.
While we feel incredibly blessed to have a wise, caring talmid chacham, Rabbi Rose, at our helm, we look at your empty seat and can’t fathom that you are not here anymore. We miss your love and care more than words can express and we desperately need you to tell us how to deal with a world that doesn’t have you in it.
But deep down, we know what you would want us to do and we will do the best we can to carry on your mission.
Yehi zichrecha baruch.
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1083)
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