In the first century BCE, Babylonian born
Hillel (later known as Hillel the Elder)
migrated to the Land
of Israel to study and
worked as a woodcutter, eventually becoming
the most influential force in Jewish life.
Hillel is said to have lived in such great
poverty that he was sometimes unable to pay
the admission fee to study Torah,
and because of him that fee was abolished.
He was known for his kindness, gentleness,
concern for humanity. One of his most famous
sayings, recorded in Pirkei
Avot (Ethics of the Fathers, a tractate
of the Mishnah),
is "If I am not for myself, then who
will be for me? And if I am only for myself,
then what am I? And if not now, when?" The Hillel
organization, a network of Jewish college
student organizations, is named for him.
Hillel and his descendants established academies
of learning and were the leaders of the Jewish
community in the Land of Israel for several
centuries. The Hillel dynasty ended with
the death of Hillel II in 365 CE.
Hillel the Elder’s
friendly adversary was Shammai, a native
of the Land of Israel about whom little is
known except that he was a builder, known
for the strictness of his views. He was reputed
to be dour, quick-tempered and impatient.
Both lived during the reign of King
Herod (37-4 BCE), an oppressive period
in Jewish history because of the Roman occupation
of the Land of Israel. Shammai was concerned
that if Jews had too much contact with the
Romans, the Jewish community would be weakened,
and this attitude was reflected in his strict
interpretation of Jewish law. Hillel did
not share Shammai's fear and therefore was
more liberal in his view of law.
Hillel was the more popular
of the two scholars, and he was chosen by
the Sanhedrin,
the supreme Jewish court, to serve as its
president. While Hillel and Shammai themselves
did not differ on a great many basic issues
of Jewish law, their disciples were often
in conflict. The Talmud records
over 300 differences of opinion between Beit
Hillel (the House of Hillel) and Beit Shammai
(the House of Shammai). The Rabbis of
the Talmud generally
sided with the rulings of the School of Hillel,
although the Sages believed that both views
were valid. Sixteenth-century kabbalist Rabbi
Isaac Luria (the “Ari”) said
that not only are both the words of the House
of Shammai and the House of Hillel enduring
on the conceptual level, but each has its
time and place on the pragmatic level as
well. In our present world, we follow the
rulings of the House of Hillel, but in the
era of Messiah,
the majority opinion will shift in favor
of the House of Shammai, and their rulings
will then be implemented. The Ari believed
that in our present reality, where divine
commandments must be imposed upon an imperfect
world, the rulings of the House of Hillel
represent the ultimate in conformity to the
divine will, while the rulings of the House
of Shammai represent an ideal that is too
lofty for our present state (which is why
we perceive them as “stricter” and
more confining), and can only be realized
on the conceptual level. In the era of Messiah,
the situation will be reversed: a perfected
world will embrace the more exacting application
of Torah law
expressed by the House of Shammai, while
the Hillelian school of interpretation will
endure only conceptually.
Hillel's rulings were often
based on concern for the welfare of the individual.
For example with regard to the remarriage
of an aguna,
whose husband is not known with certainty
to be alive or dead, the view of Hillel (and
most of his colleagues) was that she can
remarry even on the basis of indirect evidence
of the husband's death. Bet Shammai required
that witnesses come forth with direct testimony
before she was permitted to remarry. Another
example of his leniency as compared with
Shammai involves converts;
Hillel favored the admission of proselytes
into Judaism even when they made unreasonable
demands, such as one did by demanding that
the whole Torah be
taught to him quickly "while standing
on one foot." Hillel accepted this person
as eligible for conversion, whereas Shammai
dismissed him as not serious about Judaism.