In this instance, Jesus is moved by the woman’s great faith in his abilities, but his general estimation of and concern for non-Jews seems to be very low. (Later on, and in contrast, Jesus is depicted as instructing his disciples to spread his message among the Gentiles.)
There are other differences as well between the two men. Hillel becomes the leader of his generation and the object of great acclaim. Jesus remains the leader of a small band of followers and seems to have been widely rejected by the broader society during his lifetime (though obviously, his teachings subsequently went on to become extraordinarily influential and have affected billions of people). Perhaps the most fundamental personality difference between the two men is that Hillel is a moderate by nature, for all the radical implications of several of his teachings; Jesus is a radical by disposition, one who often phrases his demands in the starkest of terms: “If anyone comes to me without hating his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Put these words in Hillel’s mouth, and they sound inconceivable. Yet Jesus, it would seem, meant these teachings to be taken quite seriously, though presumably not literally. When a young man instructed by Jesus to follow him responds, “Let me go first and bury my father,” Jesus answers, “Let the dead bury the dead. Your duty is to go and spread the news of the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:59–60). Obviously no act will so alienate a child from his family as not attending his father’s funeral. Once again, it is impossible to imagine Hillel demanding this of a follower.
Jesus’ lack of moderation carried over to the realm of money. The Gospel of Mark tells of a young man who asks Jesus what he need do to inherit eternal life. Jesus enumerates several of the Ten Commandments, then adds, “There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor” (Mark 10:21–22). In contrast, Hillel’s demands concerning the afterlife are more restrained: “One who acquires for himself Torah acquires for himself the life of the world to come” (Ethics of the Fathers 2:8).* As regards divesting oneself of all of one’s assets for charity, the Talmud ruled that one should not give away to charity more than 20 percent of one’s income (Ketubot 50a); the rabbis did not want a charitable person to end up being in need of charity himself.
Comparisons between Hillel and Jesus are inevitable, but will always be unsatisfactory because they inhabited two different religious spheres. Jesus (as is true of Hillel) is known from documents written after his death and after the destruction of the Temple, when the Temple sacrifices and worship of Hillel’s time had ceased and religious practices had undergone a radical shift. Jesus’ story was largely told by people who saw him as the originator of a new faith, not as one who saw himself as part of an old one. Stripped of his Jewish context—which many New Testament scholars have in recent years worked hard to restore—Jesus appears as the radical founder of a new religion. Hillel himself might have seemed to represent a fork in the Jewish road were he not presented inside a Talmudic culture that allowed radical disagreements and alternatives their place within Judaism.
It may be easy for Jews to say that what is true in Jesus’ teachings is not new (e.g., the emphasis on loving one’s neighbor and loving God), and what is new in his teachings is not true (e.g., the injunction to “offer the wicked man no resistance,” and the claim that he has the authority to forgive sins). But just as many New Testament scholars have been restoring the Jewish context of Jesus, so it seems appropriate for Jews to acknowledge not only that aspects of Jewish culture made their way powerfully into the teachings of Jesus, but that the openness Christianity displays to Gentiles was already comfortably embraced by Hillel long before Jesus had preached his first sermon.*
* Hillel lived most of his life in the first century B.C.E. and is presumed to have died in about 10 C.E.
* The words “You shall love the Lord your God” (Deut. 6:5) form part of the Shema prayer, which Jews are instructed to recite twice daily.
* As regards why Hillel might have offered a negative formulation of this verse, see this page.
* Jesus does reveal on a number of occasions a more lax attitude on the observance of several rituals related to Sabbath observance.
* For further discussion of these passages, see chapters 13 and 16.
* I am indebted for this insight to Alon Goshen-Gottstein, “Hillel and Jesus: Are Comparisons Possible?” in James Charlesworth and Loren Johns, eds., Hillel and Jesus: Comparisons of Two Major Religious Leaders, pp. 50–53.
* I am not a New Testament scholar, so I hope my generalization is not overly broad. The advocacy of study, though, is clearly not a theme associated with Jesus.
* See Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, pp. 85–87.
* On one issue in particular, divorce—which biblical law vested in the hands of the husband—Jesus’ teaching seems aligned to the position of the Shammaites, who ruled that the only ground for divorce was sexual betrayal (see this page and Matt. 5:31–32). Hillel permitted a man to divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever (in effect, favoring the rights of the husband over that of the wife; see this page).
* Is there a Jewish consensus on how Jews are to regard Jesus? Perhaps not, but no Jewish scholars with whom I am familiar believe that Jesus intended to start a new religion.
PART IV
Lessons from the First Century for the Twenty-first Century—and Beyond
13
“Teach Everyone”:
Outreach in the First Century
The School of Shammai’s approach is insular. Make sure to keep those already in the fold inside, and be very cautious before letting in others who might contaminate them. The Hillelites’ approach is inclusive. The Torah should not be seen as blessing the lives only of those who already possess it, but as offering life lessons and transformational teachings to everyone to whom it is conveyed. Hillel was essentially the earliest, or most prominent, advocate of outreach. No debate so highlights the difference between these two approaches—a difference that has enduring ramifications for the Jewish people today—as the argument between the schools as to which students should be admitted:
“The School of Shammai says: One should teach only one who is wise and humble, of good family and rich; but the School of Hillel says: One should teach any person, for there were many sinners in Israel who were brought near [to God] by studying Torah, and from whom descended righteous, pious, and honorable people” (The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan 2:9).
Though phrased in terms of positive attributes, the Shammaites’ underlying concern is to find reasons to exclude people. Reflect for a moment on the first demands they impose on applicants—wisdom and humility—and it seems as if they wish only to teach those who have already incorporated two of the most important lessons to be learned from the Torah. Additional years of study might deepen a person’s wisdom and humility, but the basic prerequisite traits must already be there for the Shammaites to be willing to admit him. Regarding the third requirement, good family background, this is definitely an asset, but what are those who don’t come from a distinguished background to do? Are they to be excluded from a life of study because of a factor over which they have no control? And then there is that strange and disturbing demand of wealth. We’ve already seen that they didn’t want their students to learn the teachings of Hillel and his followers; now it seems that they didn’t want them to relate in any but the most superficial way with anyone outside of their circles.
In addition, the requirement of wealth* seems almost to have been directed at Hillel who, as noted, enters Jewish consciousness as a poor man who comes to study Torah, and who is initially denied the opportunity to do so by a school gatekeeper who bars him from entrance until he makes a daily payment; in Hillel’s case, the payment comprises half of his earnings. The fact that Hillel was a day laborer who rose to become the most prominent rabbi of his age must have been known to Shammai’s disciples. That they were will
ing to exclude poor Jews from advanced educational opportunities might have reflected a lingering bitterness at Hillel and at the great acceptance accorded him by the Jewish masses.
If the House of Shammai’s statement was indeed a sly critique of Hillel, it is likely not the only time we find this sort of tactic used in Talmudic literature. Consider the only teaching in the Mishnah attributed to Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah (first–second century C.E.). An infamous figure among the rabbis, Elisha came from a distinguished and wealthy family, grew up to become a scholar of renown, and then, during a midlife crisis of faith, became a religious heretic and an admirer and supporter of the Romans, the rulers and oppressors of Judea.1 Nonetheless, when Ethics of the Fathers was compiled, the rabbis saw fit to include in it a teaching of Elisha’s on the seemingly innocuous topic of the importance of educating children when they are young: “He who learns as a child, to what may he be compared? To ink written down on new paper. And he who learns while old, to what may he be compared? To ink written on used paper” (Ethics of the Fathers 4:20).
The greatest sage of Elisha’s age was Rabbi Akiva, who started out as a poor shepherd and did not have the opportunity to study Torah until he was forty. Was Elisha’s mockery of those who start their learning at an advanced age directed at Rabbi Akiva? This is certainly a reasonable hypothesis (much as if a presidential candidate in the United States in 1860 who ridiculed those born in log cabins would have been suspected of mocking Abraham Lincoln).
There might well be a tinge of rabbinic irony, directed against Elisha himself, in including his provocative comment. Elisha, who learned Torah from a young age, ended up a heretic and an enemy of the Jews, whereas Akiva, whose study commenced at a relatively old age, ranks alongside Hillel in his enduring impact on Jewish law and life.
What, therefore, was the rationale of Shammai’s disciples in excluding the poor from the study of Torah? We know that in the Greek and Roman world, higher study was confined to the upper classes and perhaps, knowingly or unknowingly, the Shammaites were influenced by this elitist attitude. Another possible rationale: the study of Torah requires an enormous amount of time, many hours a day for many years; therefore, it made sense to them to open it up only to those who had the financial security to devote large amounts of time to this study.
A counterview, offered anonymously, is recorded in the Talmudic tractate Nedarim (81a): “Be careful [not to neglect] the children of the poor, for from them Torah will go forth.” The contemporary Israeli Talmudic scholar and commentator Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz argues that the author of this statement is none other than Hillel, and that it was Hillel who abolished tuition at the Jewish academies.2 He apparently didn’t want people excluded from study as he had been, an exclusion that had almost cost him his life (see this page).
What shines through in the teachings of Hillel and his disciples’ is a fundamental optimism about human nature and the capacity of Torah to affect people positively. It is not just that they don’t want the poor discriminated against; they don’t want anybody discriminated against, sinners, too. Let everyone be offered the teachings of the Torah, so that their lives can be shaped by them. From Hillel’s perspective, Shammai’s attitude would be like a hospital administrator admitting only healthy people for examination. Such a policy might make life easier on the hospital staff, but that is not the hospital’s purpose. If Torah has something to teach the world, its message cannot be restricted to those elite few who have already incorporated its teachings.
Once again, Hillel’s teaching has an important message to convey to modern Jews: Jewish schools must have generous admissions policies that enable students to attend who are from noncommitted backgrounds (in terms of Jewish observance) or who cannot pay high tuitions.
Has the House of Hillel’s position triumphed on this issue, or has that of the House of Shammai? In theory, certainly Hillel’s. The spirit of the Talmud and of later Jewish writings on education is that Torah must be accessible to everyone. In modern Israel, where the public school system includes religious schools, Hillel’s approach has certainly been incorporated. But in the Diaspora, where children’s Jewish education must be financed by the parents—and limited funds are available for scholarships—it is not clear that this has been the case. Unfortunately, the final part of Shammai’s statement, on educating affluent people from good family backgrounds, has been more the norm. Sadly, poor people from unimpressive family backgrounds still find it difficult to get a comprehensive Jewish education.
The consequences of this policy have been unfortunate. How many other Hillels have there been, their noses pressed against the window, who have never been admitted to Jewish study? We will never know. And yet, had the Shammaites’ policy prevailed in ancient Israel, we would not have had Hillel, and a century later we would not have had Rabbi Akiva. Had elitist policies prevailed in nineteenth-century America, we would not have had Abraham Lincoln as president. That Judaism would have been so different a religion without Hillel, and the United States so different a country without Lincoln, serves to remind us how important Hillel’s instruction to “teach everyone” was, not only in his day but in ours as well.
* Professor Shmuel Safrai argues that the word used for “rich” (ashir) is a copyist’s error, and the Shammaites actually spoke of admitting only those who were kasher, “virtuous” (Shmuel Safrai, The Literature of the Sages, p. 188). If Safrai is correct, and the majority of scholars who have written on the subject do not assume this to be the case, the Shammaites’ attitude would still be elitist, but would not discriminate on the basis of wealth.
14
“The Highly Impatient Person Cannot Teach”:
For Today’s Teachers and Parents
Probably few people in the ancient world (and even in the modern world until recently) focused, as did Hillel, on how disqualifying a trait a teacher’s angry disposition should be. In the Talmud, strictness in educational matters—including physical discipline—was generally esteemed and, on occasion, behavior that should have been regarded as criminal was condoned. The most painful passage I am familiar with in the Mishnah is the ruling in Makkot (2:2) exonerating from punishment a teacher who unintentionally kills a student while disciplining him.
How ironic that in the face of so potentially harsh an educational system, Hillel’s sensitive teaching is frequently cited. There are few Jews conversant with Jewish texts who are unfamiliar with Hillel’s three-word dictum, lo ha-kapdan lamed, “The highly impatient (alternatively ‘overly strict’) person cannot teach.” (Ethics of the Fathers 2:5)
But while Hillel’s statement gained currency in the popular mind, it made few inroads in Jewish law. The ruling about the teacher who kills a student was codified as official Jewish law a full two hundred years after Hillel.1 A millennium later, Maimonides incorporated this ruling into his code of Jewish law, along with the rationale that punishment is not inflicted on the homicidal teacher since the killing was done unintentionally and “while performing a mitzvah” (Mishneh Torah, “Laws of Murder and Guarding of Life” 5:6).* Some mitzvah!
What kinds of punishments did a ruling of this sort justify? Harsh ones, we can imagine, since nobody ever died from a lightly administered slap (which I am not justifying, either). But in addition to Hillel’s dictum about impatient teachers, the Talmud also contained some relatively enlightened rulings regarding corporal punishment, for example, “If you [feel you] must strike a child, hit him only with a shoelace” (Bava Batra 21a).
Hillel’s teaching is more than a humanitarian sentiment; it also contains profound pedagogical wisdom, the sort ignored by those who favor harsh discipline. If the goal of teaching is to impart knowledge and to develop a mind, when is that more likely to occur, in an atmosphere of fear and punishment, or one of calmness and kindness? Fear limits what students can learn, most obviously because a teacher’s bad temper will cause students to be reluctant to ask questions, out of concern that doing so will evoke the teacher’s wrath. Consequently, stude
nts of bad-tempered teachers are less likely to come out of the classroom understanding the material they have been taught. As yet another Talmudic text—in line with the thinking of Hillel—taught: “Rava said: ‘If you see a student whose studies are as hard for him as iron, attribute it to his teacher’s failure to show him a cheerful countenance’ ” (Ta’anit 8a).
I do not cite this earlier Mishnaic ruling to suggest that the Jewish classroom was the scene of more brutal punishments than those that prevailed in non-Jewish societies. We have enough accounts from non-Jewish writers of the cruelties perpetrated by teachers in Christian, Muslim, and secular schools to not cast Jewish schools into a worse light. Here is an early reminiscence of the fourth-century Saint Augustine: “I was sent to school in order to read. I was too young to understand what the purpose of the whole thing was, and nevertheless if I was idle in my studies, I was flogged.”
The fact that a man like Hillel so strongly advocated a kinder type of pedagogy—and that his words were so commonly disregarded—should not be overlooked or minimized. Nineteen centuries after Hillel, Chayyim Nachman Bialik, the great Hebrew poet, described in frightening detail how the harsh discipline in Jewish schools appeared to him as a young student:
[The teachers] knew only to hurt, each in his own way. The rebbe used to hit with a whip, with his fist, with his elbow, with his wife’s rolling pin, or with anything else that would cause pain. But his assistant, whenever my answer to his questions was wrong, would advance toward me, with the fingers of his palm extended, and bend before my face and seize me by my throat. He would look to me then like a leopard or tiger or some other such wild beast and I would be in mortal dread. I was afraid he would gouge out my eyes with his dirty fingernails and the fear would paralyze my mind so that I forgot everything I had learned the previous day.
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin Page 12
