Abstract
In Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simḥah Zissel Ziv and the Path of Musar, Geoffrey Claussen presents Simḥah Zissel as frequently caught between seemingly opposing modes that he aimed to reconcile. Simḥah Zissel succeeded in setting up an isolated learning community for his students while exposing them to general Haskalah studies. He insisted upon loving others, while highlighting the withdrawal from worldly pleasures as a virtue. He was a committed educator who valued private study and meditation, a solitude seeker who nonetheless valued politics and the active marketplace, aspiring to reach a large audience and yet cultivating his ideas of fellowship behind the walls of an insular academy. Claussen's book provides us with an essential background to both contemporary Jewish thought and the growing field of Jewish studies today. Simḥah Zissel allows us to see how Jewish learning expanded, balancing oppositions, and embracing contradictions.
