I understand Hillel’s usage of the concept of tikkun olam as intended to create a safeguard against the dangers of legalism. Ironically, religions are endangered not only by external threats, but sometimes by their endemic strengths as well. One of Judaism’s great strengths is its halakhic (legal) system, its concretization of Judaism’s ideals into law. It isn’t enough to tell people to not go about as gossips (Lev. 19:16); Jewish law offers very specific regulations on what constitutes speaking unfairly about others and what things are permitted and what things are not permitted to be said. This is the strength of a legal tradition; it insists that people turn noble but potentially abstract ideals (like “love your neighbor as yourself”) into righteous deeds, and offers them a standard for doing so.
But the problem confronting a legal tradition is that the law can become an end unto itself. Consider, for example, a discussion in the Talmud (Kiddushin 31a) of the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother.” On the one hand, it is striking that in the first legal document legislated for the entire Israelite people, such emphasis is placed on honoring one’s parents, and there is no question that this early emphasis on familial obligations has characterized Jewish life ever since.
On the other hand, when you examine some Talmudic texts defining what it means to honor your parents, the demands become quite extreme. When Rabbi Tarfon noted with pride that he would bend over so his mother could step on his back to comfortably ascend to or descend from her bed, his rabbinic colleagues said to him, “You haven’t yet reached half the honor due to a mother. Have you let your mother throw your money into the sea without doing anything to [restrain her or] embarrass her?” (Kiddushin 31b). The third-century sage, Rabbi Yonatan, despairing of the possibility of ever obeying the law to honor one’s parents properly, finally declares, “Happy is the person who has never seen his parents.”* This statement epitomizes the dangers confronting a legalistic religion: a rabbi ends up declaring that it is better to be an orphan, because that way one will not be punished for violating a series of laws that can never be fulfilled properly.2
Hillel understood that if Judaism defined itself exclusively by literal observance of Torah law, it would end up, for example, with poor people unable to secure loans, even though securing loans is exactly what the Torah wanted to see happen. The law itself, he understood, requires a principle of tikkun olam, a standard that can be used to moderate and modify the law when it is not achieving the goal it was intended to achieve. It is obvious that something has gone wrong if the very law mandating the honoring of one’s parents turns this filial obligation into so onerous a task that a great rabbi can end up declaring that it is preferable to be an orphan.* Preferable for whom? The child? The parents? This is what can happen if the law comes to be seen as an end in itself, divorced from intention and common sense.
Once introduced, the concept of tikkun olam continued to be utilized when there was danger that following the strict letter of the law would end up damaging people in ways that the law never intended. For example, the biblical and rabbinic belief in the great value of human life prompted the rabbis to declare that all Jewish laws (with three exceptions)3 should be suspended to save a life. This is the basis for the ruling that violating Judaism’s most sacred holidays, such as the Shabbat and Yom Kippur, is permissible in such an instance (see this page).
Similarly, because of the value of life, the rabbis rule that when a Jew is kidnapped and held for ransom—and whose life is more at risk than a captive in such a situation?—the Jewish community is obligated to raise the money to free him. But just how much should be paid? Any sum necessary, one might argue, because human life is of infinite value. In actuality, because of the principle of tikkun olam, limits are placed on how much should be spent. The Mishnah rules: “One does not ransom captives for more than their value because of tikkun olam” (Mishnah Gittin 4:6). The Talmud offers two reasons for this restriction: First, so that kidnappers do not seize more captives. If it is known that Jews pay more than other groups to save their members, brigands will target Jews and all Jews will be at risk. As Maimonides writes: “We do not redeem captives for more than their worth … so that enemies will not pursue people to hold them captive” (“Laws of Gifts to the Poor” 8:12). Alternatively, or in addition, it is forbidden to pay excessive amounts to redeem captives because doing so may end up impoverishing the community.
To this day, the concept of tikkun olam, first associated with Hillel, continues to have enduring relevance. Whether it is in a discussion of what price Israel should pay to redeem kidnapped soldiers (including releasing convicted terrorists who might then harm and murder others) or of whether governments and insurance companies should expend enormous sums caring for ill people with limited possibilities of recovery (and thereby run the risk of impoverishing the community), this principle ensures that the Torah ethic can be applied even in new, unanticipated circumstances. Hillel’s delicate balancing act—sustaining the Torah ethic without formally voiding a Torah law—helped the needy Jews of Hillel’s time, and has helped the Jewish people ever since.4
* Rashi explains Rabbi Yonatan’s comment: since it is impossible to fulfill the commandment to honor one’s parents in all its details, a child will inevitably be punished on account of them.
* My daughter Shira Telushkin has noted that coming to regard the commandment of honor for parents as a burden and an obstacle ironically leads to disrespect for parents, for what could be more disrespectful than wishing one was freed from this obligation?
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Five Traits
Tikkun olam is a lofty concept, but Hillel, like rabbinic Judaism itself, was deeply concerned with the daily behavior of human beings. The modern notion of scholarship is alien to the world of traditional Torah study, where practice and learning are braided together, and nobody exemplifies this more than Hillel. Writing about Hillel, reading about him, is not a passive activity. There is a way in which he is constantly reaching out of the stories in which he has come down to us, opening his door and welcoming us in as if we ourselves were the potential converts, or strangers, or poor men at the door. He teaches through precepts but also understood that behavior is in itself a lesson—a lesson that says, as it did to the converts whose lives he altered: “You must change your life.” He not only tells us, “The rest is commentary, now go and study,” but, through his actions, he shows us that “the rest is behavior, now go and do.”
For this reason, we might well ask what Hillel’s daily life was like. We can, alas, only guess. The Talmud gives us glimpses, but biography has never been a Jewish form. The Chafetz Chayyim, the subject of the beautiful story of righteousness with which this book began, lived into the twentieth century, but his very name—Israel Meir Kagan—has been eclipsed by the name of one of his books. Hillel has retained his own name, but his actions, and the lessons implicit in them, seem missing at times from our understanding of his greatness and his contemporary relevance. And just as his openness to non-Jews wishing to convert is honored but ignored, so his individual qualities, as they are represented in the stories that have come down to us, seem in need of rescue.
To that end, I have distilled five aspects of Hillel’s personality: his patience, his moral imagination, his optimism, his nonjudgmental nature, and his intense curiosity. These are, in fact, the very traits that enabled his openness to all whom he met.
Extreme Patience
It is worth it that you should lose 400 zuzim and yet another 400 zuzim, but Hillel shall not become angry.
—Shabbat 31a
In the Talmud, Hillel’s patience is, quite literally, legendary. To illustrate it, the Talmud tells a story about gambling, which is in itself unusual because there is only one bet that I can think of that is mentioned in the entire Talmud.
While the prevailing view in Jewish sources is that gambling is permitted, earning one’s living as a full-time gambler is regarded as disreputable. Such a person is seen by some rabbis as untrustworth
y, and by others as one who does nothing productive for the world. The Talmud therefore rules that a full-time gambler (though not an occasional one) is disqualified from serving as a witness before a Jewish court (see Mishnah Sanhedrin 3:3).
This brings us to the lone bet I recall from the Talmud.1 Strangely enough, it involves—if only indirectly—Hillel. Apparently, his patience was a source of fame even during his lifetime, and two men bet each other 400 zuzim (an enormous sum of money at the time, given that the amount of money a man had to compensate his wife if he divorced her was only 200 zuzim) that one of them could provoke Hillel’s anger.
It was Friday, just before the Sabbath, when people are very rushed. Hillel was washing his head. One of the men passed by the door of Hillel’s house and called out, “Is Hillel here? Is Hillel here?”
Hillel put on a robe and went out to him, saying, “My son, what do you want?”
“I have a question to ask,” said the man.
“Ask, my son,” Hillel prompted.
The man said, “Why are the heads of the Babylonians round?”2
Hillel replied, “My son, you have asked a great question. It is because they have no skilled midwives.”
The man departed, waited awhile, returned, and called out, “Is Hillel here? Is Hillel here?”
Hillel again put on a robe and went out to him, saying, “My son, what do you want?”
“I have a question to ask,” the man said.
“Ask, my son,” Hillel said.
The man asked, “Why are the eyes of the Palmyreans bleary?”
Hillel answered. “My son, you have asked a great question. It is because they live in sandy places.”
The man departed, waited awhile, returned, and called out, “Is Hillel here? Is Hillel here?”
Hillel again put on his robe, went out to him, and said, “My son, what do you want?”
“I have a question to ask,” said the man.
Hillel told him, “Ask, my son.”
The man asked, “Why are the feet of Africans wide?”
Said Hillel, “My son, you have asked a great question. It is because they live in watery marshes.”
The man said, “I have many question to ask, but fear that you may become angry.” Thereupon, Hillel sat down before him and said, “Ask all the questions you have to ask.”
The man said, “Are you the Hillel who is called the nasi [president or leader] of Israel?”
“Yes,” Hillel replied.
“If that is so,” the man said, “may there not be many like you in Israel.”
“Why, my son?” Hillel asked.
The man answered, “Because on account of you I have lost four hundred zuzim” [and he proceeded to explain to Hillel about the bet he had made].
Hillel answered him. “Be careful of your moods. It is worth it that you should lose four hundred zuzim and yet another four hundred zuzim, but Hillel shall not become angry” [literally, “not take offense”] (Shabbat 31a).
While Hillel’s explanation of the Babylonians’ round heads and the Africans’ wide feet might not pass muster with anthropologists or biologists, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz notes that these responses are consistent with Hillel’s generally humanistic teachings and his focus on the commonality of people: “[Hillel believed that] racial diversity is the result not of essential differences but, by and large, of circumstances and conditions.”3
Although the impression we have from Hillel’s many aphorisms is generally one of passionate moderation (see, for example, this page), in two areas he is depicted as extreme: in the previously cited instance of his devotion to Torah learning (how many people would run the risk of freezing to death to hear a Torah lecture) and in his refusal to allow himself to lose his temper. Perhaps great equanimity came naturally to him, or perhaps Hillel, aware that his rival Shammai was known for unrestrained bursts of anger—he chased away two would-be converts with a stick—felt the need to model a never-ending patience.
Nonetheless, and whatever might be the explanation, this incident does seem a bit extreme. Elie Wiesel has commented that “the anecdotes about Hillel’s patience finally put a strain on mine.”4 But perhaps the Talmud records this story to teach us that there is little that human beings cannot control if they are sufficiently determined. True, it is not always wrong to lose one’s temper, and we can find many examples in the Bible where a loss of temper is seen as justified. For example, God is outraged at Balaam for misusing his prophetic talents by taking money from the king of Moab to curse the Israelites (Num. 22:22); Jacob is viewed as justified in expressing great anger to his father-in-law Laban for his lack of gratitude (Gen. 31:36–42); and Moses is outraged by the rebels Korach, Datan, and Abiram for slandering him with the claim that he used his position of leadership to enrich himself (Num. 16:15). That God and figures such as Jacob and Moses all express anger indicates that, when directed fairly and at justified targets, feeling and verbalizing anger can be the moral thing to do.
Similarly, a Mishnaic passage justifies occasional expressions of anger by speaking of a saintly person as one who is “difficult to anger and easy to appease” (Ethics of the Fathers 5:11). The Talmud does not say, “impossible to anger,” just “difficult.” Hillel, however, chooses to model a standard bordering on the impossible, and while this is not a standard that can be demanded from everyone, he was willing to demand it of himself.
Perhaps those of us prone to explosions of anger and cutting retorts can look to Hillel for guidance. We may not achieve the almost complete cessation of anger he did,5 but a 50 percent improvement might well bless the lives of those who deal with us. If you are a kapdan, of hotheaded disposition, ask your family members, your students, or your employees if they would be unhappy if you reduced your expressions of anger or your cutting comments by 50 percent.
Such a statement might provoke a variety of responses. What it will not provoke, however, is an argument.
Moral Imagination
Hillel provided a horse for the [formerly rich] man to ride upon.
—Ketubot 67b
That Hillel allowed himself to freeze under more than four feet of snow while lying on the roof of Shmaya and Avtalion’s yeshiva might suggest to some that he was of an ascetic temperament. Such a view would be further reinforced by Hillel’s refusal to accept financial support—at a time when he was poor—from his brother, Shebna, who seems to have been a successful businessman (Sotah 21a).
On the other hand, at a time when standards of personal hygiene were low, Hillel made great efforts to remain clean. Indeed, he seemed to take genuine enjoyment from some basic bodily pleasures. The Midrash records that on one occasion, Hillel concluded a class with his disciples and left the House of Study together with them.
The disciples asked him where he was going, and Hillel answered, “To fulfill a religious obligation.”
“Which religious obligation?” they asked.
“I am going to the bathhouse to take a bath.”
The astonished disciples asked, “Is that really a religious obligation?”
Hillel answered: “Yes! If somebody who is appointed to scrape and clean the statues of the king that stand in the theaters and circuses is paid for the work and even associates with the nobility, how much more should I, who am created in the image and likeness of God … take care of my body?” (Leviticus Rabbah 34:3).
Hillel is teaching his disciples that, while the study they have been engaged in is of great importance, the body and its care matter, too. Leviticus 19:18 may instruct us to love our neighbors as ourselves, but if we do not love ourselves, how good are we going to be at loving our neighbors? His justification—that we are made in the image of God—is also of course a key to understanding the basis of his treatment of outsiders. He reasoned from his own body outward—the opposite of a narcissist—and recognized that caring for others is also caring for God.
But it is the very embodied nature of his thinking that allowed him to make room for the individual. Ju
st as all bodies are different—some have round heads, some have flat feet—they are all made equally in God’s image.
Although Hillel chose a life of simplicity for himself (in one of his aphorisms, he taught, “One who increases his possessions, increases his worries” [Ethics of the Fathers 2:7]), he was nonjudgmental and understanding of the wants of others. A biblical verse commands Jews to give a poor person “sufficient for his needs” (Deut. 15:8). The standard understanding of this phrase is offered in the Shulchan Arukh: “If he is hungry, he should be fed. If he needs clothes, he should be provided with clothes. If he has no household furniture or utensils, furniture and utensils should be provided” (Yoreh De’ah 250:1).
But the Talmud offers another interpretation of “sufficient for his needs”: that when dispensing charity, you take into account the recipient’s emotional as well as physical needs and desires. For example, a rich person who becomes impoverished should be maintained at a higher level than one who has always been poor, because for such a person the descent into poverty likely causes greater suffering than for one who has never known anything better. In the context of commenting on the verse in Deuteronomy, the Talmud relates an anecdote about Hillel, who might well have been the first person to express concern about the treatment of the formerly rich. “They said about Hillel the Elder that he undertook the care of a poor man from an aristocratic family. Hillel provided a horse for the man to ride upon, and a servant to accompany him [literally, ‘to run before him’]. On one occasion, Hillel could not find a servant to accompany the man, so he ran before him for three millin [about two miles]” (Ketubot 67b).
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin Page 6
