The Torah world mourns the passing of Rabbi Nota Schiller, the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Ohr Sameach and one of the founders of the Teshuva movement 60 years ago, who passed away Friday night at Shaare Tzedek hospital after a short illness.
Rabbi Schiller was born in 1937 and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where he attended the high school division of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, studying under Rabbi Shmuel Yaakov Weinberg. He graduated from Yeshivas Ner Yisroel in Baltimore.
The 1960s and 1970s were a time of searching for meaning by Western-educated, college-age men and women. In 1972, Rabbis Noah Weinberg, Mendel Weinbach, Nota Schiller, and Yaakov Rosenberg founded the Shma Yisrael Yeshiva to teach young Jewish men with little or no background in Jewish studies.
After a few years, Rabbi Weinberg left the yeshiva over a difference in approach and founded Aish HaTorah in 1974, whereas Rav Rosenberg left and founded Machon Shlomo in Har Nof. Shma Yisrael subsequently changed its name to Ohr Somayach, after the commentary on the Mishneh Torah written by Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, the Ohr Somayach. Rabbi Schiller succeeded in creating a cadre of Talmidei Chachamim who established Torah homes worldwide. He believed that even in a yeshiva for ba’alei teshuva, the emphasis should be on studying Gemara and led his yeshiva accordingly, educating thousands of students across the world.
Rabbi Schiller was the driving force behind the development of Ohr Somayach International, which has opened yeshivas and learning branches in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, South Africa, and Australia. He founded the first international Ohr Somayach program in Yonkers, New York in 1977. The program became an independent spin-off in 1979 and relocated to Monsey.
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