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fter finishing yeshivah and receiving semichah from Rav Hutner, Reb Nochum married Denah Nemeth and took a job as a shul rabbi in Middle Village, Queens. But not long after the birth of their first child, Tzippy, he decided he’d had enough of working so hard on Shabbos.

He took a job at a major New York marketing firm, to fulfill a $50,000 bequest left by a deceased client that Siamese cats be saved from the endangered species list. The paltry amount was simply not enough. When he told his supervisor he couldn’t make it work, he was told: Come up with a plan, or you’re out. Nochum returned to his office, where two live Siamese cats reposed on his desk (oddly supplied by the firm). As he contemplated their translucent blue eyes, he hit upon the idea of using the money to run a fundraising campaign. Columbia University signed on as a partner.

Asked if the campaign was successful, Rabbi Stilerman smiled and said, “Let me ask you, did you ever have any idea that Siamese cats were once on the endangered species list?”

When Reb Nochum was 25, in 1967, an opportunity came up at a large pro-Israel organization. He was unsure about pursuing it — he would be the only frum employee, and also the youngest. He consulted Rav Moshe Feinstein, with whom he had a connection. Rav Moshe advised him to go for it — and he was hired.

He had a deeply unpleasant experience not long after taking the job. He offered some ideas about capitalizing on the wave of pro-Israel sympathy in the wake of the Six Day War, which were rudely rejected by an executive. But then at the organization’s annual convention, the same executive presented Nochum’s ideas to the crowd, to great applause — but without crediting the source. And after his speech, he snubbed Reb Nochum.

Reb Nochum was very upset, until he received some chizuk from a colleague: a vort about Chanukah licht. The shamash lights all the other candles; but the brachah is said only on the other candles, and not on the shamash. The shamash is set aside — but without its light, there would be no brachah.

“Your job is to be the shamash — to enable others to shine, while you remain in the background.”

It was advice that Rabbi Stilerman would follow throughout his fundraising career. He would go on to work for Ohr Torah, the OU, and Boys Town Jerusalem; then he went out on his own and founded his own firm. He served such clients as Sloan-Kettering Hospital, the Bronx Zoo, and Cancer Care.

In 1987 he was approached by Zev Wolfson, who urged him to redirect his energies to kiruv. He went to bat for Ohr Somayach Yerushalayim, Neve Yerushalayim, Acheinu, Aish HaTorah, and the Gateways Outreach Organization, among others. In this role, he also learned part-time. By this point, he was at the top of his field.

IT was around this time when he realized he could distill the principles he applied in his work into a course that he could teach to others. He worked it up into a program he called the SMART system — an acronym for the five pillars of the program: “specific, measurable, accountable, realistic, and tefillah.”

This “strategic discipline system,” as he called it, laid out a road map for setting specific goals — measuring progress toward attaining them, building a network of friends and mentors who ensure accountability, offering reality checks when an idea goes too far; and, when all the hishtadlus has been done, presenting the undertaking to Hashem and asking for His help.

“There are three kinds of people in the world,” Rabbi Stilerman would say. “There are those who make things happen, those who watch what happens, and those who stand around afterward asking, ‘What happened?’ This system makes a reactive person proactive. It gives you the opportunity to live your life by design, not by default.”

Reb Nochum decided to apply this system to his own Torah learning. Using these principles, he developed a plan to learn two tractates of Gemara and Sefer Tehillim by his 71st birthday. Because he was learning at the Mir at this time, he sought the endorsement of Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel. What followed became a famous story, recounted by Rabbi Yissocher Frand at the 12th Siyum HaShas in 2012.

To Reb Nochum’s surprise, Rav Finkel sent him back to the drawing board. Rabbi Stilerman’s plan went through several revisions until he found the formula that satisfied the Rosh Yeshivah: a 2,500-page detailed computer printout that committed Reb Nochum to learning ten hours a day for more than 23 years.

When the three-volume printout was presented to Rav Finkel, he exclaimed, “Now, that’s a plan!”

Rabbi Stilerman objected that he couldn’t possibly complete such a plan. Rav Finkel, who labored under severe symptoms of Parkinson’s disease for 28 years, had a ready answer.

“Do you think I can do what I’m doing?” asked the Rosh Yeshivah as he struggled to stand up. “Look at me!”

He pulled out all the plans to add new buildings at the Mir, to accommodate hundreds more talmidim. He conceded that to finish all that work was probably beyond him.

“But you and I have a great advantage,” Rav Nosson Tzvi continued. “Everyone else fools themselves into thinking that they can do what they want to do. You and I realize that we are in the Hands of the Ribono shel Olam, and that we can’t do more than commit ourselves to the task.”

Rabbi Stilerman committed himself to the task, with joy, for the remainder of his life. It was a familiar sight at the Mir, to see the bus depositing the yungeleit in the morning, and Rabbi Stilerman ascending the steps singing “Olam Haba iz a gitte zach, lernen Torah iz a besser zach.” He would exhort his colleagues, “Another day in Gan Eden!”

When he started learning in the Mir, Rabbi Stilerman insisted on experiencing the first five years as a “regular bochur,” says grandson Tzvi Yarmish. After he had progressed to a certain level, he asked to be treated like a yungerman. Reb Nochum’s son Rav Yisrael Stilerman is a rosh chaburah in the Mir, and for the last few years, the two had the pleasure and zechus of learning together daily.

Did Rabbi Stilerman stick to his plan? Tzvi Yarmish says that as his powers began to fade, he took a healthy approach — one that fit with the SMART system principles he espoused.

“He said it’s important to follow a plan that’s in line with the ratzon of Hashem,” says Reb Tzvi. “He saw that at a certain point, his original plan was not in keeping with the ratzon of Hashem. So he said, ‘Ain hacha nami, I had this plan, and now I’m going to change it.’ He felt it was very easy to say that.”

Applying the R in the SMART system (for “realistic”), Rabbi Stilerman dialed back his daily learning program to something he could manage within his resources. And once he settled on a new plan, he kept at it — even after receiving the diagnosis of his final illness and undergoing the grueling treatments. His tenacity earned him semichah on Maseches Shabbos from his son Rav Yisrael, only three weeks before his petirah.

It calls to mind something Rabbi Frand mentioned about Rav Finkel, in his address at the Siyum HaShas in 2012: “He taught us to reach beyond. And he taught us that beyond your reach is really within your grasp.”

Rabbi Stilerman is survived by his rebbetzin, Denah Stilerman; by their children, Dr. Tzippy Thall, Mrs. Estee Yarmish, Rabbi Yisrael Stilerman, Mrs. Ahuva Weinberger, Rabbi Yosef Stilerman, Rabbi Avraham Stilerman, and Rabbi Shlomo Stilerman; by his sister, Mrs. Bassya Pinson; and by numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, bli ayin hara.

Yehi zichro baruch.

Reb Nochum’s Elixir of Youth

Gedalia Guttentag

You’re only young once, they say. That undeniable fact of life seems to have escaped the attention of legendary fundraiser, Torah and outreach strategist, and late-in-life kollel avreich Rabbi Nochum Stilerman a”h.

Reb Nochum, as we knew him, was one of life’s Big Men — the type who make you sit up and take notice by force of their personality, motivation, and ideas. He was one of the most dynamic, fresh-thinking people I’ve ever met. When it came to a normal career trajectory — the idea that by your seventies, it’s customary to stop embracing new initiatives for Klal Yisrael — he simply had no clue.

Doubtless many will be able to identify with that statement. Those who sat next to him on the Yeshivas Mir bus after he retired to embrace the schedule of a yungerman; the chavrusas with whom he famously attempted to learn the entire Torah as a pensioner; the roshei yeshivah and kiruv leaders whom he advised.

But unless you witnessed Reb Nochum in action in Tel Aviv, you could have no idea just how far his youthfulness went.

About a decade ago, my partner Rabbi Refoel Raiton and I — both graduates of the Ner L’Elef kiruv training program — founded an outreach organization in Israel’s secular capital.

Things quickly took off, with large numbers of young professionals coming through the doors for Shabbos meals, learning and growth-inspiring trips to Chevron, Tzfas, and Yerushalayim.

But that pace of development wasn’t matched on the organizational or financial side, to put it mildly. So we asked Reb Nochum, who taught a fundraising class in Ner L’Elef, to step in.

The idea was that he’d help us with some strategy, but it turned out to be far more. Reb Nochum and his lifelong partner-in-adventure Rebbetzin Denah were up for something entirely new and unexpected. They quickly became the Bubby-and-Zeidy-in-residence of Tel Aviv kiruv.

When I say “in residence,” I mean exactly that. For a few years, they came for many shabbatons, trips, and even Yom Tov.

The experience wasn’t for the fainthearted. We weren’t some lavishly funded American outreach organization. We were a scrappy, hand-to-mouth Israeli kiruv startup, and the facilities were to match. To put it politely, things were a bit basic.

Instead of the hotel room that the Stilermans deserved, there were some sofa beds in the dingy second floor of a kiruv center in downtown Tel Aviv. Rebbetzin Denah couldn’t have loved the occasional cockroaches, but the bugs didn’t deter them. With the enthusiasm of eternal youth, they kept coming back.

Together — always as a team — they were the stars of the show. On Shavuos night, Reb Nochum would speak for hours to a large crowd. He would take one of the Aseres Hadibros and work through it with an extensive source sheet. The term “shiur” or “lecture” hardly does justice to his style. It was more a sound-and-light experience.

Reb Nochum would break out into song; throw candies to participants who answered questions; reminisce about encountering this or that celebrity; and trade quips with his wife — all as part of the shiur.

And the students and professionals from all over the world loved them.

It wasn’t just their lovable Bubby-and-Zeidy shtick. Reb Nochum had a sophistication. He was a New York force of nature. He’d been everywhere and done everything, from raising hundreds of millions, negotiating with Wall Street bosses, teaching college and interacting with gedolei Yisrael.

Beyond first impression, people were drawn to his overflowing, warm Yiddishe heart. He made Kiddush like a rebbe; he would dance during davening and the Shabbos meals; and he would spread elevation just by walking the streets dressed in his kapote and tallis.

Famously, Reb Nochum wasn’t a fundraiser; he practiced what he called “soulraising.” He preached that asking for donations for Torah causes was something to be done with pride, because one was offering someone a chance for eternity in exchange for mere money.

That was not just a successful fundraising strategy; it was Reb Nochum’s very existence. He lived and breathed it with a rare zest. For him, Torah — any Torah — was fresh and exciting. Davening was exciting. Serving Hashem was exciting.

You simply couldn’t be around Reb Nochum without catching some of that spirit. And so all of us — mekarvim and students alike — were swept up in it. To this day, our Shabbos table rings with his spirit — his famous Oy-oy-oy Shabbos!

As we discovered when driving them in to Tel Aviv, when they fielded a battery of calls from children and grandchildren, the Stilermans were proud heads of an ever-expanding clan.

But over those long shabbatons in Tel Aviv, the full force of their grandparenting instincts were deployed on the Guttentag and Raiton offspring.

All the children remember Reb Nochum’s “nisselach” — the “little nuts” that he promised anyone who said a devar Torah at the Shabbos lunch table, when the crowds had been replaced with only a few close regulars. He celebrated every childish, half-remembered vort as if it were the Vilna Gaon himself uttering secrets of Torah.

And then, after the anticipation had built throughout Shabbos, came payday: multiple shekels (or hundreds of agurot, as he emphasized) for each small child.

That display of the instinctive mechanech applied to the adults as well. Reb Nochum took a genuine interest in all of us. He wanted to know about our lives, and would gently advise us how to deal with our challenges.

A month or so before he was diagnosed with his final illness, Reb Nochum called to compliment me on something that I had written about the wartime Tishah B’Av we’d just experienced.

“It’s so clear — I never thought of that,” he exclaimed. “Please send it to me so that I can pass it around.”

That phone call was simply Reb Nochum being Reb Nochum — king of the compliment, scattering ayin tovah and positivity as naturally as he breathed. To him, the disparity in age and life experience mattered not a jot; he was uplifted by something and wanted to spread the light.

And that’s the phone call that I’m going to take with me. Because the elixir of Reb Nochum’s lifelong youth was his ceaseless enjoyment of another day of Torah-filled life, his endless striving for the next frontier. That was both a privilege to witness and a demand to live by.

As Reb Nochum would have put it, nursing a coffee as he prepared for vasikin after a long, kiruv-filled Friday night, “Nu — what’s next?”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1046)