I was rereading Artscroll's adaptation of Ohr Elchonon, the biography of R. Elchanan Wasserman. This, from the intro, jumped out at me. Penned by Rs. Meir Zlotowitz and Nosson Scherman (1982):
I actually remembered the following footnote from the last time I read this book, which was in high school. It was even more interesting than I remembered:
Note, this shows that the influence of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason on R. Elchanan's thinking is a clear possibility. By the way, Kant advocated a severe reform of Judaism, including the abolition of most mitzvos as a prerequisite for granting Jews civil rights. I suppose this may be construed as some evidence that R. Elchanan was of the opinion that one may accept the good and discard the bad of thinkers. Secondly, he read the newspaper in the beis midrash?!
I see I was preceded in the second part of this post by two years (link).
