One morning, in a certain yeshiva that will not be mentioned, at some point in my teenage years, I was in middle of shacharis when my Judaic teacher, my rebbi, came storming into the Bais Medrash. To paint a picture, the Bais Medrash had roughly 150 people there at the time and I was sitting all the way in the front. My rebbi rushed over to me in a huff, at this point, the whole room was watching him. He looked me in the eyes and said, “Oysvorf!” Yiddish, for degenerate, “Aroys! Get out!” And he kicked me out of the Bais Medrash in front of the whole school.
About a year ago, the Orthodox Union published the findings of a study on attrition. They were trying to understand why some people stay within the fold of Orthodox Judaism and others leave. One factor that came up over and over again was the impact of good and bad rebbeim on a person’s religious trajectory; Judaic teachers who either kind to their students or those who called them an ‘Oysvorf’ in front of the whole school.
Despite having no shortage of negative interactions with rebbeim, and I’ll admit, some of that was my fault, I had far more positive ones over the subsequent years. A few years later I has a rebbi, Rabbi Motti Rappaport, who walked in the first day and put his number on the chalkboard telling us that if we ever needed anything at all – even to get bailed out of jail, we could always call him (I never took him up on that particular offer). Another rebbi, Rabbi Eliezer Breitowitz, encouraged me to question and to think, and exposed me to the grandeur and profoundity Torah learning. I studied in Israel under Rav Mendel Blachman at KBY, who despite giving one of the most difficult Gemara classes in the world, of which I told him numerous times I did not understand, he always encouraged me to stay in his class until I eventually I did understand – some of what he taught. I studied at Ner Israel where Rav Ezra Neuberger helped me appreciate who I was and what I was capable of. I spent some more time in Israel where I studied in the Mirrer Yeshiva under Rabbi Yosef Elefant who dedicated time almost daily to discuss with me the fine points of the Gemara we were learning and the fine points of life. Thank G-d, for me, the good rabbis far outweighed the bad ones. The positive impact these people had on my life is immeasurable.
But the common denominator of all of these rebbeim is that they impacted me during my high school and yeshiva-college years. And that is fairly typical. When people hear the word rebbi, which literally means, my teacher, rav sheli, they think of a teacher during high school or yeshiva. And that’s a pity. Yes, having positive role models and teachers during those formative years is critical, but I’d like to argue that in many ways, having such role models and teachers as we leave the cocoon of school is even more important. If I had the money, I’d commission a new study, tracking the religious connection of adults who have a rebbi vs. those who do not. My conjecture is that those who have a connection to a rebbi in adulthood are far more connected to G-d, to their community, and to their family.
So let me lay out my objective before I even begin. I’d like us all to walk away from this talk with a greater appreciation of what a rebbi can do for us in our current stage of life. I’d like us all to walk away from this talk with an interest in maybe finding someone who can fill that role. I also want to clarify that this is not one long plug to call me more often. I’m good. Trust me. As we will discuss, your shul rabbi is not necessarily your rebbi. And with that let’s begin:
What is a rebbi? How do you choose a rebbi? Can you have more than one rebbi? What kind of questions do you ask a rebbi? And a pressing question for our times, how does AI impact the need for a rebbi?
As you know, I recently lost my rebbi, Rabbi Moshe Hauer zt”l. He was someone I met when I was starting to leave yeshiva. I continued my relationship with him after I left yeshiva and college, and over the past five years my relationship deepened significantly. My relationship with him was probably the most transformative relationship I ever had. I will be using my relationship with him as a springboard to help explain what a rebbi is and why I believe having one is so valuable.
In the first chapter of Pirkei Avos it says, “aseh lecha rav” not once but twice, in the sixth and sixteenth mishna of the first perek. The Maharal (1:16) explains that this directive is repeated because one can have different rabbis for different needs. For me, I did not ask Rabbi Hauer my Halachic questions. He knew Halacha far better than I could ever dream, but that wasn’t his expertise. And so instead I turned and turn to many others when I have a Halachic question I do not have an answer for; Rav Notta Greenblatt Zt”l, Rav Dovid Cohen, Rav Willig, and others.
I actually almost didn’t get my job here at Ner Tamid because of this. During my interview process in a Q and A with the congregants someone asked me who my rabbi is. I didn’t know how to answer this question. Rabbi Hauer was the person I would turn to to discuss life questions, but the person I turned to the most for Halachic questions at the time was Rabbi Yosef Berger. And so, I said, “Rabbi Berger.” Needless to say, I scared a few people here. I was the only candidate who was given the “honor” of a follow up Q and A session where I was asked questions like, “Will you ban television at Ner Tamid?” “Will you tell the congregation that we cannot use the internet?” (No and no.)
There are different roles that a rebbi plays; one of them is to address Halachic questions. It is critical to have someone who knows you and who knows Halacha who can address your Halachic questions. Can AI do this? To a certain extent but not really.
I once spent time in Rabbi Berger’s office as he was fielding Halachic questions. In the course of an hour, he received the same question about ten times. So I asked him, as a joke, “Why don’t you just get a touch tone service set up? ‘If you washed your dairy dish with a meat sponge press 1. If the water was hot press 4.’ You would save yourself so much time!” I thought it was a cute suggestion. Instead of smiling, he got really serious and said, “Sruli, when two people ask me the same question about a dish they washed, one of them has tears in his eyes and one does not, do you think I answer the question the same way?” AI cannot do that.
But it’s deeper than that.
I recently saw a clip of Yuval Noah Hariri, my least favorite intellectual. Aside from other intellectuals questioning his methodologies, his understanding of religion is extremely cynical and betrays real ignorance. It was an interview in which he was asked how AI impacts the need for a rabbi. He explained that since Judaism is a text-based religion and we now have machines that know all the texts, there is no longer a need for a rabbi to answer our questions. His answer is predicated on a completely incorrect understanding of Judaism. A rebbi, be it someone you could turn to for guidance on how to live your life or someone you ask your Halachic questions, is not just using their wisdom or knowledge to assist you, they are connecting you to G-d. One person who explained this better than anyone else was Rav Yosef Soloveitchik.
In 1975, Rav Soloveitchik gave a talk on the topic of Mesorah, tradition, to the Rabbinic alumni of Yeshiva University. There was a certain rabbi who was attempting to institute a loophole that would solve once and for all the agunah problem. Finding a way to alleviate the suffering of an agunah was of the utmost importance to Rav Soloveitchik and really to any self-respecting rabbi. However, Rav Soloveitchik took issue with this particular rabbi’s approach. While the topic is fascinating and timely, we don’t have the time to properly analyze it. Instead, I’d like to share with you some quotes from that talk:
“Talmud Torah is more than intellectual performance. It is a total, all-encompassing and all-embracing involvement — mind and heart, will and feeling, the center of the human personality — emotional man, logical man, voluntaristic man — all of them are involved in the study of Torah. Talmud Torah is basically for me an ecstatic experience, in which one meets G-d…. American Orthodox Jews have encountered Judaism in the modes of Talmudic analysis through intellectual cognition and cold logic. However, they have not merited to its living ‘sensual’ revelation; shaking and gladdening hearts.”
In his book, The Lonely Man of Faith, Rav Soloveitchik described his experience of learning in the following evocative fashion:
“When I sit to ‘learn’ I find myself immediately in the fellowship of the sages of tradition. The relationship is personal. Maimonides is at my right. Rabbenu Tam at the left. Rashi sits at the head and explicates the text. Rabbenu Tam objects, the Rambam decides, the Ra’abad attacks. They are all in my small room, sitting around my table.”
In other words, learning Torah and ruling on Halacha is more than putting pieces of information together. It is a meeting with G-d. It is the opportunity to sit at a table with people, human beings, with all their greatness and all their limitations, as they analyze Halacha and apply it to our lives. No machine can recreate that experience. No system, no matter how sophisticated, has a right to be at that table.
Rav Soloveitchik continued:
“That is why Chazal stress so many times the importance of humility, and that the proud person can never be a great scholar, only the humble person. Why is humility necessary? Because the study of Torah means meeting the Almighty, and if a finite being meets the infinite, the Almighty, the Maker of the world, of course this meeting must precipitate a mood of humility.”
(https://www.torahmusings.com/2016/05/masorah-teachings-rabbi-joseph-b-soloveitchik/)
Rabbi Hauer was a paragon of humility and yiras shamayim, fear of Heaven. I have never met a person who knew so much, who was so bright, who was brimming with self-confidence, and at the same time, could listen to others with such focus and humility.
A few years ago, a group of young rabbis came to meet with Rabbi Hauer. They didn’t like the way Rabbi Hauer was leading the OU. They took issue with his decision-making process. The meeting was tense. The way they spoke to him was inappropriate. My blood was boiling.
When the meeting was over, I came into Rabbi Hauer’s office to vent and saw him scribbling away on a pad of paper. I asked him what he was writing.
“Their delivery was wrong,” he said. “But they made some very good points. I am going to make some changes on how I do things and I want to organize my thoughts.”
The Gemara in Moed Kattan says that you should only learn Torah from someone who is like an angel. Rabbi Hauer’s ability to override his ego, to separate the garbage from the substance, to have the intellectual honesty to say, I was wrong, I need to change what I do; in that moment I realized that I was working with an angel.
Judging someone’s fear of heaven is a risky business. Only G-d knows what people truly think. But you could learn a lot about a person’s relationship with G-d by watching them pray. In Rabbi Hauer’s davening, there was focus, there was sincerity, there was softness, there was strength. Watching him daven was a masterclass in “shifchi kamayim libeich, pouring one’s heart out like water.” It wasn’t dramatic but it oozed with authenticity. You could also learn a lot about one’s deference to Mesorah in how one relates to Torah scholars. While Rabbi Hauer was a scholar in his own right, while he had opinions that at times would conflict with some of the leading Torah voices, something we’ll talk about soon, when he sat before a Torah scholar, he sat like a thirsty child at the foot of a fountain, he sat with koved rosh, with reverence.
A machine can amass insane amounts of information, it can process questions in lightning speed, but that is not Torah Judaism. Bringing a machine into the Torah conversation is as nonsensical as using a psychological insight to upend a mathematical equation. Torah Judaism, our mesorah, our tradition, is built upon the human wisdom of scholars who are imbued with humility and yiras shamayim. When we think of Mesorah, when we think of how Jewish Law makes its way into Jewish practice, the only people who have the right to be at that table are humans with yiras shamayim and humility. There are many rabbis out there who are brilliant. There are many rabbis who are phenomenal speakers and inspiring. But those are not the qualities we are looking for when we look for a rebbi. What we are trying to find is someone who seems to possess those rare traits of humility and fear of heaven.
***
My relationship with Rabbi Hauer started about seventeen years ago. I was living on Park Heights in a place called the Blair House. My wife and I would call it the Blair Witch Project house. It was section-8 housing, otherwise known as the projects and some of our neighbors were scary as witches. The upside of living there was that it was not too far from Bnai Jacob Sharei Zion, Rabbi Hauer’s shul, where we started davening. I had heard that a few years earlier he would get together weekly with a group of students from Ner Yisroel to share insights about what it means to be a rabbi. At the time I was not yet sure that I wanted to become a rabbi, but I thought it would be a great opportunity to spend time with him. I asked him if he would be open to starting a new chabura and he quickly agreed.
There was one theme that came up many times in our discussions with him, Daas Torah. Daas Torah is usually understood to mean that you are meant to ask rabbis questions about anything and everything. And that you are expected to listen to whatever they say. But this was not Rabbi Hauer’s view of how to live a Torah life.
When asking a question on Jewish law, one is not allowed to ‘shop around.’ But that is not the case when it comes to asking questions about how to live one’s life. When discussing this second category of seeking Rabbinic guidance, Rabbi Hauer would often quote a comment by Rav Chaim Volozhin, the primary student of the Vilna Gaon, on Hillel’s teaching in Pirkei Avos that marbeh eitzah, marbeh tevunah. Rav Chaim writes: “She’al eitzah va’aseh k’chochmosecha, seek out advice and use your own wisdom.” Yes, there is immense value in seeking out the opinions of people who are immersed in Torah, they have a G-dly worldview that illuminates every aspect of life. But at the end of the day, the only person who could really decide what is best for you is you.
The Vilna Gaon writes (commentary to Mishlei, 16:4) that in the times of prophecy, prophets could see deep into your soul and tell you exactly what you should do. But we don’t have prophecy and so although we are all filled with biases and blind spots, we are the only ones who really know what we should do.
This is why whenever I did ask Rabbi Hauer a personal question the first thing he would ask me is, “What do you think?” If I pushed him, he would share his thoughts which were always deep and thoughtful, and then he would say, “aseh k’chochmosecha, follow your own wisdom.”
***
But a true rebbi is not only someone who encourages you to do your own thing. A true rebbi is someone who cares deeply about you and wants you to do what’s right. A true rebbi is someone who takes the time to listen to your point of view, but if they feel that it truly wrong then they let you know.
In all my years having a relationship with Rabbi Hauer there was only once that he firmly told me he disagreed with something I did. I had written an article that was fairly controversial. He saw the piece, called me, and asked me if we could speak in person.
Ler me pause here. This was a signature move of his. Whenever he had to have a difficult conversation with someone, he never wrote it out or even spoke by the phone. He wanted to convey his warm feelings of love and the only way that could take place is by looking someone into their eyes.
It’s important to add that I published it right after I was hired by the OU but before I started working for him. He was encouraged, I found out later, not go through with the hiring. However, he never made any mention of that. Though he felt strongly that I misspoke, he never held the job over my head. Instead, he patiently explained why he thought that some of the things I wrote can be misunderstood and encouraged me to correct them. I wrote a follow up piece. He still felt like it wasn’t enough. A day later, he called me again. Again, asking for an in-person meeting. And explained why he thought I made a mistake.
Humiliating? Yes. But also, the deepest expression of someone who cared so deeply about me, who wasn’t willing to do what I too often do when someone says something I disagree with – “Oh, that’s interesting. Thanks for sharing.” And move on. I treasure that experience with him more than any other. In doing so, he also conveyed to me that every other time he did not voice his displeasure, though I knew he did not agree with everything I did or said, he was implicitly telling me, “It’s okay. You do you. It’s your path and you need to follow it.”
Rabbi Hauer was allergic to people blindly following him. Though he would patiently address any question that came his way, it bothered him when people would ask him questions that he felt they should be figuring out on their own. Rabbi Sacks once said that “Good leaders make followers, great leaders make leaders.” He filled me with confidence, but the only way that confidence meant anything was because I knew he was willing to rein me in. That is a rebbi.
***
What if you can’t find anyone to be a rebbi? What if you know more than everyone else? What if you cannot find someone that you truly respect?
First of all, if you really believe that you are wiser than everyone else, if you really believe that there is no one out there that you can respect, you’re probably just plain arrogant.
But let’s just say it’s true. There is no one that you could really look up to. What to do then?
If I had to pick the brightest of all the rabbis in our history, I would have to pick the Rambam, Maimonides. What he accomplished, what he wrote, what he organized, what he explained, it’s breathtaking. If there is anyone who justifiably struggled with this challenge of finding someone to look up to, it was probably him.
This is what he writes in his commentary of Avos. He is addressing why the Mishna does not say ‘find a rebbi,’ instead it says, ‘make a rebbi.’ Says the Rambam: “[Make for yourself a teacher] means [make him play that role] even if he is not fit to be your mentor. Place him upon you as a mentor, so that you can discuss and argue with him. As a result of this, wisdom will come into your hand. If a man studies on his own, it is good; but if he studies with someone else, the teaching will be better established in his hand and it will be clearer — even if his partner is like him or even below him in wisdom.”
Rabbi Hauer, in a shiur he gave on Pirkei Avos, suggested that this is why the next phrase in the Mishna is ‘judge people favorably.’ He explained that no one is perfect and you will never find a perfect rebbi. He said about himself that he did not have any rebbeim of whom he had no issues or questions. But without judging favorably, without choosing to see the good, we’re left all alone. We’re left thinking everything we say and do is brilliant. We’re left with our egos intact and our character severely flawed. “Make for yourself a rebbi,” even if he or she is not worthy.
***
Rabbi Hauer had an uncanny ability to see a person’s flaws or to disagree vehemently with someone and see the value in who they were and what they were doing. Nothing brought this home to me like the following episode:
Last year, a few days before Purim a certain Orthodox organization wrote a message to its followers that completely ignored and minimized the sacrifice of the soldiers of the IDF. Rabbi Hauer was troubled that this statement of theirs would be seen as representing all of Orthodoxy. A day letter Rabbi Hauer wrote a piece that spoke of the importance of unity and then he wrote:
“The Torah scholars and leaders who guide … speak with their voice, while other great Torah scholars and leaders speak with a different voice. So often and on so many fundamental matters those voices are in harmony, but regarding Israel-related issues those voices are frequently in severe conflict. Especially during the past year and a half, the gedolim who set the tone for us at the OU have spoken with a very different voice about everything from the holiness of the chayalei Tzahal and the victims of 10/7, the obligation to physically defend our land, the efforts of many who deeply value Torah to find a solution for the draft law, and the value of religious partnership in the Zionist movement.
We draw great strength and direction from the beautiful voice of the gedolim that guide our OU community, dedicated without compromise to Torah and to the entirety of Klal Yisrael.”
Though he wrote in a measured fashion, some saw his message as an attack on this organization. A week later he got a call from someone affiliated with that organization letting him know that he was upset. Rabbi Hauer, in his signature style, asked that they meet in person. The individual offered to come to the OU. Rabbi Hauer insisted on going to this person’s office. They met, in person, and with love and respect had a constructive dialogue.
Rabbi Hauer later told me one thing that he shared in that meeting. He told this person that from the beginning of our nationhood there has always been a Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel; one group of leaders who take a hardline approach and another that takes a softer more humanistic approach. Which one is right? Elu v’elu divrei Elokim chaim. They each play a role and, in many ways, balance each other. “You keep being Bais Shammai,” Rabbi Hauer told him, “And we’ll be Bais Hillel.”
I’m profoundly jealous of Rabbi Hauer’s ability to respect people he disagreed with. I am a product of this cynical generation. I struggle mightily to look up to people who I see flaws in. It was not coming from a place of naivete, he was one of the most astute people I ever met, and yet, he was able to see the good everywhere he looked. “Judge favorably” or else you will not have the gift of role models and people to look up to.
***
This ability to see the value in other ways of thinking uniquely positioned him as a bridge builder. His dream was to reunite the Jewish People. He worked tirelessly to connect with Jews who were not Orthodox. One of the first assignments he gave me was to find projects that we can work on with non-Orthodox Jews. I found a coalition of Jews working on renewable energy in Jewish institutions, which he was thrilled about. He developed deep and real relationships with Jews who he could not be more different than. This is what Sheila Katz, a Reform Jew and a self-proclaimed feminist, wrote after Rabbi Hauer’s passing:
“After October 7, we found ourselves advocating side by side at the Department of Education and Department of Justice, in Congress, in the White House, and in the Knesset, determined to show what Jewish unity could look like. It wasn’t unity for its own sake, but unity in service of the Jewish people, to advocate together for Jewish women, for the Orthodox community, and for all of us. Him, an Orthodox male rabbi. Me, a Reform Jewish progressive woman. Together, we were an unlikely duo that came together to advocate against antisemitism, to promote safety in Israel, and for the return of the hostages.
On a bus ride in Israel that lasted more than an hour, we chatted about life and legacy. He talked about his family and his hope to be remembered through them. We exchanged pictures of family members, discussed books we were reading, had a friendly debate on the Torah of reproductive freedom, and genuinely connected. When I mentioned that I sometimes relax by watching Survivor, he reminded me that he doesn’t watch television, but he asked why I loved it and what about it helped me to relax. He always showed genuine interest in the things that animated others.
We learned Torah together. Debated each other. Disagreed often. But agreed even more when we took the time to hear each other. We always came back to our shared Jewish values and our deep love for the Jewish people. What began as simple coalition work became a true partnership and a profound friendship.”
(Facebook post)
These relationships ensured that the rally in Washington conformed to all aspects of Halacha and paved the way for thousands of Orthodox Jews to attend. The organizers had a partner in Rabbi Hauer who they trusted. That said, when he felt he could not partner, he put his foot down. In the lead up to the second rally in Washington, the organizers were getting some pressure to not “capitulate to the Orthodox” and wanted to have women singing at the event. Rabbi Hauer firmly and politely informed the organizers that if they do so the OU would not participate.
I had the pleasure of accompanying him on meetings and trips. He was often the only person in the room with a yarmulka. It seemed to me like many of these leaders were a little intimidated of the man who was so principled. But there was also respect and friendship between Jews of all stripes. That was his dream.
He attempted to use his broad array of relationships to make inroads in Israel between the Charedim and the Daati Leumi community. Unfortunately, that was one area in which he felt like he failed in. He felt like no matter how hard he tried, he could not bring the sides to appreciate one another.
Though I have to add a postscript – he had an idea of bringing Daati Leumi rabbis to America to better appreciate American Jewry; he felt like that too was a divide that needed to be remedied. The trip took place a few weeks after he passed away. The delegation from Israel met with a wide variety of communal leaders and made a stop at Ner Israel where they met with Rav Aharon Feldman. Rav Aharon Feldman has in the past shared views that have not been very positive about serving in the army. I was quite nervous about this meeting as this group of rabbis, all affiliated with communities that send their boys and men to serve in the IDF. I am not going to lie, it got a little heated. But it was also an incredibly fruitful conversation that ended with Rav Shapira, the Rosh Yeshiva of Merkaz HaRav embracing and asking for a bracha from Rav Aharon Feldman.
I left the meeting, sat in my car, and I cried. I so wished for Rabbi Hauer to see the fruit of his labor start to blossom.
***
Herein lies Rabbi Hauer’s greatness. He was one of the most broad-minded people I knew. He cared about the Jewish People. He cared about the human race. He had a schedule that would put any ironman to shame. Somehow he manage to care about Am Yisrael and at the same time, he cared about every member of Am Yisrael, he truly cared for every single person.
After his passing I went into his outbox to see who he emailed on Hoshana Rabbah. Remember, this was one of the most joyous days for the Jewish People. The last of the hostages were returned! People were dancing in the streets. But Rabbi Hauer being Rabbi Hauer knew that for some people the release of hostages would bring immeasurable pain. And so on the last day of his life while he was undoubtedly elated, he sent a short message to Jon Polin, the father of Hersh Polin, Hy”d: “Wishing you much strength. With deep love, Moshe Hauer.”
He would often share a Chassidic thought on why Moshe was chosen to lead the Jewish People. It was the Medrashic episode describing Moshe shepherding his sheep in the desert when one sheep ran off. Moshe was faced with a dilemma. If he chases that one sheep then all the other sheep will have no one watching them. Logic would dictate that he should just let that one sheep go. But logic did not dictate Moshe’s decisions. He was dictated by love. And so Moshe ran off, illogically caring for the single sheep because he cared. It was only then that G-d appeared to Moshe at the burning bush.
This is why Rabbi Hauer answered every single email that came his way. It didn’t matter who it was from, if they had a title or it was just a nudnik asking him silly questions. No person was too small.
This is why in Rabbi Hauer’s office at the OU, though there were very few things hanging on the wall, mostly pictures of his family – I could dedicate an entire talk to that topic, but there was one letter he had pinned over his computer and it read as follows:
Rabbi Hauer,
I read your recent article, Invisible People, with great interest.
As a widow in… a large orthodox community, I was shocked to become invisible with the death of my husband. 8 out of 10 families removed me from their Simcha list. Shabbos invitations became rare.
My single daughter & I spend most shabbosim alone, making our own kiddush, hamotzie, havdalah. I understand that this is not personal. Most widows report the exact same experiences. I have mentioned this to local congregational rabbonim, who express genuine shock & dismay. But there is no initiative to remediate this situation.
Now you have publicly acknowledged this issue. Does it end there? Or will the OU reach out to congregational leaders to include their invisible congregants?
He hung this over his computer to remind him that inasmuch as he had the weight of Klal Yisrael, the Jewish nation, on his shoulders, he could not allow that to cause him to lose sight of a single precious sheep.
***
You may have noticed that all these stories I just shared with you did not involve me asking Rabbi Hauer any personal questions. I could probably count on one hand the number of personal questions I asked him over the past five years. And yet, he impacted me profoundly. And that’s because the value of a rebbi, to me, is to be in the presence of someone who inspires you to grow and to always strive to be the best version of yourself.
For the past five years, I had the opportunity to regularly interact with a person who never ever rested on his laurels. He mobilized the entire Orthodox community to deliver 180,000 letters to the White House and then turned to his team and said, “Nu, what’s next?” That energized me to give as much as I can to the Jewish community.
For the past five years, I had the opportunity to regularly interact with a person who dropped everything for his family because they were the most important people in his life. That reminded me that no matter was I was doing, nothing was more important than my spouse and kids.
For the past five years, I had the opportunity to regularly interact with a person who passionately loved Torah, loved G-d, loved the Jewish People and that infectious love rubbed off on me.
For the past five years, I had the opportunity to regularly interact with a person who represented the greatness of our Mesorah and it deepened my faith in Torah Judaism and in G-d.
For the past five years, I had the opportunity to regularly interact with a person who elevated me, who pushed me, who broadened my horizons, not by telling me what to do, but by allowing me to be in his presence.
Do you need to have a rebbi, a man or woman who inspires you, who could be honest with you, who could lift you up? You don’t need to. Pirkei Avos is not a book of Jewish Law. There is no Halacha to make for yourself a teacher. You don’t have to. But you’d be crazy not to.
***
We live in cynical society unwilling to see the good in people, unwilling to be inspired. We live in a confusing time for the Jewish People and for all of humankind. Pesach reminds us of the importance of tradition, through parents but also through teachers. The one seder depicted in the entire Haggadah involves not parents and children but Rabbi Akiva and his students. Our Torah teachers are the bearers of our rich past, and without a connection to the past we have no future.
In the week of Shiva for Rabbi Hauer’s rebbi, Rav Yaakov Weinberg, Rabbi Hauer went over to a certain rabbi and asked him to study with him on a weekly basis. Rabbi Hauer had the utmost respect for Rav Weinberg, he was dust at his feet, this rabbi he turned to was a gadol, but he was not Rabbi Weinberg. Nonetheless, Rabbi Hauer felt, very much like the Rambam, that every person needs to have a rebbi.
I thought about finding someone to turn to during shiva. I knew the experience I had of such close proximity to greatness was unique, but I also knew that I could still find someone to speak to from time to time. I could still find someone that I might be able to watch from a distance and grow from. I could still find someone who I could develop relationship with who could be honest with me. I thought about it but I didn’t do so and I still have yet to do so.
All of us have the ability to find someone, a man or woman who has yisras shamayim and humility, with whom we could talk to from time to time. All of us could find someone who we could watch from a distance and be inspired to be better. All of us could find someone who could be honest with us and guide us through the challenges of life.
If I am being honest, I shared these thoughts with you today selfishly, to remind me of the importance of having a guiding light in my life, to remind me to keep looking. If Rabbi Hauer felt that he needed a rebbi, then what does that say about me and you? I hope and pray that we each find a rebbi to call our own.