Simcha Zissel Ziv threats to traditional Judaism and to strengthen the cause of the Musar movement, Simcha Zissel decided to open a school in Kelm, the Kelm Talmud Torah. At the time, Simcha Zissel was almost forty years old. The Talmud Torah opened in approximately 1865 and attracted young students, mainly thirteen and fourteen-year-olds. Simcha Zissel’s teacher – Rabbi Yisrael Salanter – had taught Simcha Zissel the importance of Musar and so the Talmud Torah aimed not only to enhance its student’s Torah knowledge but also to shape their personalities and develop their character traits using the Musar approach. Indeed, much of daily
Is Theosophy a Religion? theosophical journals often characterize an attempt to deal with errors as merciless "attacks on Christianity," "untheosophical assaults" and so on. She writes: Contrary to the allegations of Blavatsky which she made in her article, professor John Melton wrote that Theosophy is "established religious cult" along with christian science, rosicrucianism, spiritualism, satanism, mormonism, and so on. René Guénon called Blavatskian Theosophy "theosophism" and described it in his book as a "pseudo-religion." He believed that Blavatsky's "theosophism" is a "confused mixture" of Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Jewish Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and occultism. "The Catholic Encyclopedia" noted that Blavatsky's doctrine is a "strange mixture" of mysticism