Rav Eliyahu Lopian רב אליהו לופיאן
the Kelm school of mussar—in London and in Kfar Chassidim
He studied in Kelm under the students of Rabbi Simcha Zissel while that school still stood—and took from it the main thing: mussar is not about shaming but about seeing. Kelm taught order, quiet and attention to small things, because a person is made of small things.
In 1928 he came to London and for twenty-two years was mashgiach of the Etz Chaim yeshiva—the first to bring Kelm mussar to England. In 1950 he went up to the Land of Israel and until his death gave talks at the Knesset Chizkiyahu yeshiva in Kfar Chassidim. People came to him from every yeshiva in the country; Rav Dessler, himself of Kelm, called him the elder.
His talks appeared as the books Lev Eliyahu—on fear of Heaven, on prayer, on how a person deceives himself and how to notice it. They read simply; doing what they say does not.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Lev Eliyahu—the talks of Rav Eliyahu Lopian — his teaching and the Kelm school within it
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — the years 1876-1970; London 1928-1950, Kfar Chassidim from 1950
Basis: documents and evidence.