Rabbi Joseph Telushkin

by When? Hillel: If Not Now

  They said to him, “One cannot bring a proof from the moving of a carob tree.” Said Rabbi Eliezer, “If the law is according to me, may that stream of water prove it.” The stream of water then turned and flowed in the opposite direction. They said to him, “One cannot bring a proof from the behavior of a stream of water.”

  Said Rabbi Eliezer, “If the law is according to me, may the walls of the House of Study prove it.” The walls of the House of Study began to bend inwards. Rabbi Joshua then rose up and rebuked the walls of the House of Study: “If the students of the wise argue with one another in matters of Jewish law,” he said, “what right have you to interfere?”

  In honor of Rabbi Joshua, the walls ceased to bend inwards; but in honor of Rabbi Eliezer, they did not straighten up, and they remain bent to this day.

  Then said Rabbi Eliezer to the Sages, “If the law is according to me, may a proof come from Heaven.” Then, a heavenly voice came forth and said, “What have you to do with Rabbi Eliezer? The law is according to him in every place.”

  Then Rabbi Joshua rose up on his feet and said, “It is not in the heavens” [a quote from Deut. 30:12].

  What did he mean by quoting this? Said Rabbi Jeremiah, “He meant that since the Torah has already been given on Mount Sinai, we do not pay attention to a heavenly voice, for God Himself has written in the Torah, ‘Decide according to the majority’ ” (Exod. 23:2).

  Rabbi Nathan met the prophet Elijah. He asked him, “What was the Holy One, blessed be He, doing in that hour?” [that is, while this was happening].

  Said Elijah, “He was laughing and saying, ‘My children have defeated me, my children have defeated me.’ ” (Bava Metzia 59b)

  That divine voice communicated to Rabbi Nathan, through the prophet Elijah, the same message of anti-fundamentalism as was related in the earlier story, regarding Rabbi Eliezer, in which the divine voice is heard.

  Hillel, who so esteemed logic, probably would have wanted to have his positions chosen on the basis of logic and majority rule, rather than on the basis of a divine voice.* But there are others, as we know, who prefer divine voices and miracles. Perhaps this passage is intended to teach us that God is on the side of those who are humble, who are willing to learn from their opponents, and who accord respect to those who disagree with them.

  Certainly these are the traits we associate with Hillel. And yet, while Hillel is continually supported by the Talmud, racking up victory after victory in legalistic skirmishes, and is honored in our time as a revered sage, he remains the historical loser in a larger conflict with the spirit of Shammai in ways we have only begun to reckon with (see, for example, this page).

  The danger, as identified in the Talmud, comes when there is an increase in the number of disciples of Shammai and Hillel “who had insufficiently studied with them.” It is because of the ignorance of those invoking the names of Hillel and Shammai without truly knowing them that “disputes proliferated in Israel and the Torah became as two Torahs.” It is my hope in this book that by presenting Hillel and Shammai together, the reader will have a chance to study them and, in a sense, study with them. Only then can the healing of the houses, and what those houses represent, truly take place.

  * Obviously, in a society in which divorce proceedings can be initiated by either party, permitting a divorce for any reason would constitute the lenient position.

  * In line with contemporary anthropological writings, Rabbi Irwin Kula notes that issues of purity and impurity, and of intention, are ways in which the rabbis maintained order in the face of disorder, randomness, and chaos.

  * In line with this, for example, contemporary rabbis whose standards for conversion dispense with certain ritual requirements of Jewish law should make sure to inform would-be converts that their conversions will not be acknowledged as valid by more observant Jews. That will spare these converts from later unpleasant surprises and hurts.

  * A certain potential for intolerance and even violence might have been present from the beginning. The Talmud records an episode in which Hillel went to offer a sacrifice at the Temple on a holiday in a manner that Shammai and his followers believed to be forbidden (it involved a long-standing dispute concerning laying hands on the animal that was to be offered). Hillel found himself surrounded by Shammaites and felt sufficiently threatened by them that he lied and denied his intentions (Beitzah 20a–b). Lying to protect oneself from attack might be permitted by Jewish law, but it certainly reveals a very unfortunate propensity for intolerance and possibly violence among at least some of Shammai’s followers.

  * The fact that Hillel is recorded as being present on that day, as is Shammai, is puzzling, since the events described in this passage would seem to have occurred decades after they died.

  * Rabbi David Woznica suggests that “perhaps the heavenly voice intervenes as a last resort so that the dispute would not escalate into something more, and worse, than verbal.”

  * The late professor Ephraim Urbach argued that the School of Hillel’s rulings were indeed chosen on the basis of majority rule (not a divine voice) because, as the story with Rabbi Eliezer demonstrates, a bat kol is ignored “when it does not reflect the majority opinion” (The Halakhah, p. 268).

  PART III

  Hillel and Jesus

  12

  The Jewish Sage and the Christian Messiah

  Hillel and Shammai are the Talmud’s most famous pair but it is impossible to talk about Hillel without considering another figure who quickly came to overshadow him in world history, despite having been born after Hillel and having most probably been influenced by him. That figure is Jesus. The two men, both of whom lived in the first century—though Hillel is two generations older*—are frequently compared, and it is worth considering them briefly side by side. Just as Shammai is at times cast unfairly in the role of inflexible literalist when compared with Hillel, so has Hillel often been cast, very unfairly, in a similar role when compared by some Christian scholars with Jesus.

  In a famous New Testament passage, Jesus is pressed to declare what he regards as the Torah’s greatest commandment. Jesus cites two verses: “You shall love the Lord your God”* and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37–40). Elsewhere, he says, “So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the meaning of the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12). Jesus’ citing of the law of love of neighbor and the Golden Rule have been frequently contrasted with Hillel’s seemingly negative summation of Judaism’s essence, “What is hateful unto you, do not do to your neighbor.” More than a few Christian scholars have argued that Jesus’ positive formulation represents a higher ethic than Hillel’s.*

  In the case of Jesus’ and Hillel’s statements of religion’s essence, comparisons are particularly unwise because the teaching “Love your neighbor as yourself” did not originate with Jesus, as many Christians believe. Nor did Jesus think he was being original in making this statement. Rather, he was simply quoting a verse from the Hebrew Bible (Lev. 19:18), in which the commandment to love one’s neighbor is set down for the first time.

  But comparisons between Hillel’s and Jesus’ teachings on a number of issues can be fruitful. For one thing, it is valuable for Christian scholars to bring Hillel into a consideration of Jesus because of his likely influence on the figure at the center of their religion. Jesus was raised as a Jew and grew up among Jews, and Hillel was the most significant religious figure in the Jewish community during Jesus’ youth. That Jesus would have been familiar with Hillel—and with some of his more famous teachings—can be assumed.

  Comparisons between teachings of Hillel and Jesus can be beneficial for Jews as well, because it is quite possible that, in later centuries, anxiety about the revolution wrought in Jesus’ name spawned anxiety about those aspects of Hillel’s teachings—the extraordinary openness to converts and the emphasis on loving and just behavior as God’s central demand—that, though older than Christianity, suddenly sounded strangely un-Jewish.

&nbs
p; It was perhaps in response to Jesus’ emphasis on faith and love, and Paul’s decision several decades later to drop the requirement to observe Torah laws,1 that many Jews came to focus Jewish religiosity on laws, specifically the ritual laws that most differentiated Jews from Gentiles. For example, if two Jews are speaking about a third, and the question “Is so-and-so religious?” is raised, the answer is based exclusively on the person’s level of ritual observance. Such a standard is, of course, precisely the opposite of what Hillel taught about Judaism’s essence.

  All of this is not meant to suggest that Hillel was not concerned with ritual observance. He was. Very. Indeed, most of the disputes between Shammai and him and among their disciples were on matters of ritual law. He simply deemed Judaism’s ethical demands to be foremost in significance, and it is one of the paradoxes of history that the very power of Hillel’s moral teaching, having likely affected Jesus, his disciples, and the religion founded in his name, might have been responsible for provoking an anxiety about those very teachings in Jews who felt threatened by the rise and growing popularity of Christianity—a feeling that intensified after Christianity had done away with the legal structure of the Torah and started to hold Jews accountable for their savior’s death.

  But it is infrequently noted that Jesus, unlike Paul, believed in the binding nature of Torah law as well: “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law [the Torah] or the Prophets,” he told his disciples. “I tell you solemnly, until heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved.” The law’s “purpose” of course is the universal recognition of God, a goal that neither Christianity nor Judaism believes was realized in Jesus’ time or since. Jesus concluded his message with a severe warning: “Therefore, the man who infringes even the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:17–19).*

  In addition to their ethical emphases, there are a few other striking similarities between Hillel and Jesus. Both lived in economically trying circumstances and worked as manual laborers: Hillel, according to one account, as a wood-chopper and Jesus as a carpenter.

  More striking, however, are their differences. The central feature in Hillel’s aphorisms is his emphasis on Torah study, the subject of so many of his teachings (“Do not say, ‘When I have [free] time, I will study,’ lest you never have [free] time.” “An ignorant person cannot be a saint.”) and the nonelitist attitude of his disciples (“One should teach any person, for there were many sinners in Israel, yet when they drew close to the study of Torah, there issued from them men who were righteous, saintly, and worthy.”)*

  For Hillel, study was the essential prerequisite for knowing and fulfilling one’s obligations, because virtue is not achieved through good intentions alone. Good intentions need be coupled with ongoing and vigorous intellectual effort. The late Jewish scholar Hyam Maccoby commented that “learning was regarded as the duty of every Jew and as the basis of all useful and virtuous living.”2

  But central as Torah study is to Hillel, what one does not find in his aphorisms are teachings about God and about prayer. There are no statements such as “Do not say, ‘When I have free time, I will pray,’ lest you never have free time,” or even “One who does not believe in God cannot be a fully righteous person.” A passionate believer in Torah—and in the God to whom he attributed its authorship—Hillel almost never speaks, at least in the passages the rabbis transmit in his name, about God.* In one of his classical formulations, he declares, “Be of the disciples of Aaron … one who loves people and brings them close to Torah” (Ethics of the Fathers 1:12). “Close to Torah” is what he says, not “close to God.” Similarly, in the instances of the non-Jews who come to him seeking to convert (see chapters 3 and 4), Hillel emphasizes to each the importance of Torah and of study, and does not speak of God (presumably he assumed, based on their interest in converting, that they already held such a belief).

  On the subject of prayer, Hillel is silent as well. His and Shammai’s disciples debated whether or not a person has to stand in the morning when reciting the Shema, but one looks in vain for teachings of Hillel about the experience of prayer itself. He was a man of deep, but rarely discussed, faith. The Talmud records that once, on his way home, Hillel heard loud shouts coming from the direction of his neighborhood, but he did not offer a prayer. Instead, he declared, “I am confident that this screaming is not taking place within my house” (Berakhot 60a). Perhaps Hillel believed that prayer at such a time would be what is called in Hebrew a berakhah le-vatalah, a pointless prayer. Once you’ve heard the cries, it is too late to pray that the shouts are not coming from your home. Either they are, or they aren’t (see Mishnah Berakhot 9:3). Nonetheless, and despite Hillel’s attitude of great calm, I find that such prayers are still commonly offered, and I would probably find myself among those who pray at such a moment.

  In contrast to Hillel, one looks in vain in the New Testament for statements from Jesus advocating rigorous Bible study.* It is not intellectual sophistication that Jesus seems to value most, but simple faith: “I tell you solemnly, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). Jesus speaks about the experience of prayer often. In particular, he extols private prayers: “But when you pray, go to your private room and, when you have shut your door, pray to your Father” (Matt. 6:6). When the prayer is not offered by an individual, Jesus favors praying in small groups (Matt. 18:20). The most famous prayer associated with Jesus, which begins with “Our Father who are in heaven,” is set down in Matthew (6:10–13) and known to this day by Christians as the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus also believed prayer to be singularly effective in procuring one’s needs: “Ask, and it will be given to you … your Father in heaven [will] give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:7, 11). This is a belief that is certainly common among religious Jews as well, but one that is not found in the corpus of Hillel’s teachings. And, of course, Jesus speaks repeatedly about God and the soon-to-come kingdom of heaven.

  The New Testament also cites several teachings distinctive to Jesus, and for which one finds no parallels in Hillel’s words, or in Jewish theology in general. Three such statements are particularly significant for they have characterized Christian theology ever since:

  Jesus forgives all sins: “The Son of man has the authority to forgive sins” (Matt. 9:6). Traditional Jewish theology teaches that not even God Himself forgives all sins, only those sins committed against Him alone. As the Mishnah teaches: “The Day of Atonement atones for sins against God, not for sins committed against man, unless the injured party has been appeased” (Mishnah Yoma 8:9).

  Jesus was an ardent pacifist and commanded his followers to love the oppressor: “Offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well” (Matt. 5:39), and “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors” (Matt. 5:44). In contrast, Judaism demands that the wicked be offered powerful resistance. Only three events are recorded about Moses before God chooses him to be Israel’s leader, the first of which is his killing an Egyptian overseer who is beating an Israelite slave (Exod. 2:12). Moses obviously deemed it important to resist the wicked. In addition, Judaism does not demand that one love one’s enemies, though it is untrue to claim, as Matthew does, that Jewish law commands one to hate one’s enemies (see Matt. 5:43). What the Torah and later biblical writings insist on is justice, not love, toward one’s enemies. For example, if you see your enemy’s donkey lying down under its burden, you are commanded to help him raise the animal (Exod. 23:5). If your enemy is hungry, you are instructed to feed him (Prov. 25:21).

  Jesus claimed that people can come to God only through him: “No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). In contrast, the Hebrew Bible teaches—in a psalm recited by observant Jews at two of the
three daily prayers services—that “God is near to all who call unto Him” (Pss. 145:18). The Jewish teaching is that one can approach God directly without an intermediary, whereas the belief of many Christians to this day is that one can come to God only through Jesus.*

  In addition to the different aspects of religiosity new Christians chose to emphasize, Jesus’ personality and teaching persona are also quite dissimilar from Hillel’s. Most significantly, Jesus is portrayed as a healer and a miracle worker. The healings attributed to him in the New Testament are manifold: he is depicted as curing a leper (Matt. 8:2–3), a paralyzed man (Matt. 9:1–8), two blind men (Matt. 9:27–31), and a deaf man (Mark 7:31–37), among others. He is credited with performing additional miracles as well, the most famous of which is walking on water (Mark 6:45–52). No healings or miracles are attributed to Hillel.

  It is, however, in the context of Jesus’ healing acts that an unexpected aspect of his personality emerges. According to a widely ignored passage in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, it would appear that Jesus—unlike Hillel—might well have identified with the most nationalistic and anti-Gentile camps within the Jewish community. Matthew relates an incident in which Jesus is walking with his disciples in the northern areas of Tyre and Sidon.

  Then out came a Canaanite woman from that district and started shouting, “Sir, Son of David, take pity on me. My daughter is tormented by a devil.” But he answered her not a word. And his disciples went and pleaded with him: “Give her what she wants,” they said, “because she is shouting after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” But the woman had come up and was kneeling at his feet. “Lord,” she said, “help me.” He replied, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs.” She retorted, “Ah, yes, sir, but even house-dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.” (Matt. 15:21–28; see also Mark 7:24–30)