This paper (available online here) contrasts the thought of two Lithuanian rabbis: Rabbi Meir Simhah of Dvinsk (1843-1926) and Rabbi Simhah Zissel Ziv of Kelm (1824-1898). The paper considers questions about the value of philosophical contemplation, how difficult moral transformation may be, whether acts of loving-kindness constitute the highest form of human spirituality, and how human beings may be compared with angels.Geoffrey D. Claussen, “Angels, Humans, and the Struggle for Moral Excellence in the Writings of Meir Simhah of Dvinsk and Simhah Zissel of Kelm,” in Jewish Religious and Philosophical Ethics, ed. Curtis Hutt, Halla Kim, and Berel Dov Lerner (New York: Routledge, 2018), 27–50.
- writings on Jewish thought, Jewish ethics, pedagogy, and musar (mussar) traditions
