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
Simcha Zissel Ziv Bloch the chief rabbi of Bausk and Plunge. Other students of Simcha Zissel entered professions including medicine, law, and engineering. One of his students, Israel Isidor Elyashev, became a well-known literary critic. Many of Simcha Zissel's discourses and letters to his students were published in a two-volume work, "Hokhmah U-Musar", edited by Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz and Rabbi Simcha Zissel Halevi Levovitz. Additional letters, as well as transcriptions of his words by his disciples, appear in a series of volumes under the title "Kitvei Ha-Sabba Mi-Kelm". An English translation of the opening letters of "Hokhmah U-Musar" by Rabbi Ira Stone appears