Torah 365 Commentary – 10/31
Of the many Rabbis written about in the Talmud, few have the same name recognition as Hillel and Shammai. These two great leaders served as the last pair of sages in the Sanhedrin as Nasi (President) and Av Beit Din (Head of the Court) while providing leadership during an increasingly difficult political landscape. Perhaps Hillel and Shammai are most well known for their respective academies and students that argued with each other. Throughout the folios of the Talmud we find Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel at odds with each other in many of the different categories of Jewish law and thought. In fact, there were 316 total controversies affecting 221 Halachot and laws, 29 Halachik and legal interpretations and 66 Gezeirot (guard laws). Out of all of those disagreements, only 55 present the side of Beit Shammai on the side of leniency (see Encyclopedia Judaica).
With schools that did not see eye-to-eye in matters of Jewish law, it would be easy to assume that Hillel and Shammai themselves also did not tend to agree much. However, the Gemara in Tractate Shabbat (15a) writes that there were only three times in which Hillel and Shammai had different perspectives in matters of Halacha, Jewish law. In that respect they made for a very powerful and effective team as leaders of the Sanhedrin. In fact, a cursory reading of our Mishnayot this week would only further that notion. We find in Chapter 1 Mishna 12 that Hillel says that one must be of the students of the great Aaron the High Priest and live a life committed to loving and pursuing peace, and loving people and drawing them close to the Torah. Hillel teaches us the importance of building relationships with one another—that we need to approach people from a place of love and allow that to spread throughout the world bringing people closer to each other and to the Torah. Similarly, in Mishna 15 we find Shammai teach a comparable lesson—greet everyone cheerfully. In other words, you need to be nice and friendly to people so like Hillel says, we can build lasting and deep relationships.
Isn’t it wonderful when two Rabbis see the world the same way and agree? Yet, if only it was that simple. You see in truth Hillel and Shammai had very different perspectives when it came to how to live life and interact with people. The Gemara in Shabbat (31a) tells the story of two men that made a wager as whether one of them would be able to make Hillel angry. If he succeeded he would win 400 zuz. This man then went to the home of Hillel on the eve of Shabbat. With a knock on the door, the man asked, is there anyone here named Hillel? Washing his hair at the time in honor of Shabbat, Hillel quickly covered himself up and went out to greet this man asking what he wanted. To which the man said, I have a question for you. “Ask my son ask” Hillel replied. The man said, “Why do Babylonians have pointed heads?” Ignoring the tone of the question, Hillel calmly and patiently responded saying that the man had asked an important question, and that the heads were shaped that way because they have no skilled midwives. The man left Hillel’s home and returned an hour later asking again, “Is there a Hillel who lives here?” Hillel once again covered himself up and went to the door and greeted him. The man said I have come to ask a question. “Ask my son ask” Hillel responded. The man then asked, “Why are the eyes of the Tadmorians slanted?” To which Hillel once again patiently responded, “You ask an important question. Because they dwell among the deserts.” The man left and came once again just like the first two times to interrupt and derogatively ask Hillel a question. This time, the man asked Hillel, “Why do Africans have big feet?” Yet Hillel once again responded calmly and said, “My son, you ask an important question. Because they dwell among ponds of water.” Seeing that his strategy was having no effect, the man said to Hillel, “I have many questions to ask, but I don’t want to ask them all lest I offend you.” Yet despite the soon to be arriving Shabbat, Hillel responded, “Ask all the questions that you want to ask.” The man turned to Hillel and said, “Let there not be many more people like you, Hillel the Nasi.” Surprised, Hillel asked why not? To which the man replied, “Because I lost 400 zuz on your account!” Hillel turned to the man and said, “Don’t be upset. It is better that you should lose 400 zuz than that Hillel should lose his temper.”
This long story only emphasizes the type of person Hillel was. Not only did he teach that one should be an Ohev Shalom and Rodef Shalom, that one should love peace and pursue peace, but he lived his life like that every day. It was precisely this love for his fellow that helped bring many people closer to Torah. In fact, it is this personality trait that the Gemara continues to highlight in Tractate Shabbat (33a). It is there that we find the story of three different gentiles that came first to Shammai to convert to Judaism with specific conditions only to be rebuffed and turned on to Hillel. Perhaps most famous of those three stories, is the gentile that said to Shammai, “I will convert to Judaism on condition that you teach me the entire Torah Al Regel Achat, while I stand on one foot.” In reply to this disrespect, Shammai drove the man away with his rod. The gentile then came to Hillel making the same request, to which Hillel agreed saying “That which you hate do not do to another. This is the entire Torah and the rest is commentary. Now go and learn.” The Gemara concludes that these three converts that had been taken in under the gentle and kind arm of Hillel, all met one day at an inn and shared their stories with each other. When they heard of their fellow’s experience, they all exclaimed, “Shammai punctiliousness almost drove us away, but Hillel’s gentility brought us under G-d’s wing.”
Interestingly, not only did Shammai have a challenging personality when it came to interacting with gentiles that wanted to convert to Judaism, he held the same uncompromising and exacting attitude with his own family. The Mishna in Sukkah (2:8) tells the story that on the first day of Sukkot Shammai’s daughter-in-law gave birth to a baby boy. Despite the fact that the Mitzvah of educating one’s child only applies when a child reaches the age of understanding, Shammai insisted that the infant sleep in the Sukkah to fulfill this Mitzvah. Because the infant needed to be with his mother, Shammai broke a hole in the ceiling of his daughter-in-law’s room and covered it with branches to make a makeshift Sukkah. To say that Shammai was a little rough around the edges would be an understatement. How then can we attribute the lesson of Mishna 15 of “greeting everyone cheerfully” to Shammai? He certainly didn’t act in that way? Just ask those gentile converts or his daughter-in-law! Hillel was the patient and kind Rabbi, not Shammai?!
As we discussed earlier, Hillel and Shammai play a critical role in the transmission of the Mesorah, the tradition, to future generations. The Rambam in his Commentary to the Mishna explains that only after the time period of Hillel and Shammai do we find an increase in the level of disputes between Rabbis due to the weakening of minds and the lessening of diligent study. It was under these conditions that Hillel and Shammai share their teaching with us. At the core of their message in this week’s Mishnayot is the importance of the Torah and its study. In that light, perhaps the focus of Mishna 12 is not on our relationships with others but rather with the Torah. Read from that perspective Mishna 12 becomes sequential—be like the students of Aaron and love and pursue peace. Why? So that you can bring people together and truly love your fellow. Why must you love people? To bring them closer to Torah. After all, people are much more likely to listen to people they feel close to. Hillel is teaching that we need to bring peace to the world not for peace’s sake, not because it is the right thing to do, but because that is the best way to get people closer to Torah.
Hillel continues in Mishna 13 by giving the impression that Torah is the be all, end all; “One who does not study Torah deserves to die.” The Midrash in Vaykira Rabbah connects the idea of this Mishna to the famous verse from Mishlei (20:27) that Ner Hashem Nishmat HaAdam, that the candle of G-d is the soul of man. Explains the Midrash that G-d says to man that, “My candle is in your hands and the candle within you is in My hands. My candle in your hands is the Torah, and the candle…in My hands is your soul. If you guard Mine, I will guard yours. But if you put out my candle, I will put out yours.” So critical was this message of Torah study being the life source of man that Hillel chose to teach over this Mishna in Aramaic so that even the common man could understand and take action. After all it was Aramaic that was the common language understood by many Jews.
The theme of this week’s Mishnayot therefore seem to be that nothing matters as much as Torah and its study. Not only must every action that we take be rooted in Torah, we must prioritize its study over everything else. In fact it is Shammai that gives us practical advice while continuing the focus on Torah in Mishna 15 by emphasizing the need to set up regular times to study Torah. From this week’s Mishnayot it would seem to suggest that one’s sole obligation in life is Torah study. For most of us, myself included, that is a hard and extremely high bar to reach. Most of us have jobs or other responsibilities that preclude us from studying Torah all day. How are we supposed to embody the teaching of this week’s Mishnayot?
Rabbi Meir Lehman in his commentary Meir Nesiv offers an insightful explanation of the words of Shammai to help shed light on this difficulty. Following Shammai’s teaching about the importance of setting up set times for learning, he continues and teaches, Emor Miat V’Aseh Harbeh, say little and do much. In other words, Shammai is teaching that in addition to dedicating ourselves to Torah study we must also make time for good deeds and helping others. You absolutely must dedicate yourself to Torah, but not at the cost of doing good. While you might think that it is enough to study Torah and do good deeds, Shammai continues his teaching that we must greet people pleasantly. Despite one’s other obligations, acting kindly is just as important as one’s other responsibilities. Shammai affectively takes his shared message with Hillel of the importance of Torah study and qualifies it with the equal importance of building strong relationships and helping others. Never should one of these actions replace or prevent you from doing the others.
Perhaps this explanation helps us understand Shammai’s disposition in life. Of course, Shammai like Hillel observed the law of “loving your neighbor.” His initial interaction with people was always friendly and positive. After all, dealing kindly with others as Shammai taught is no less important than learning Torah and performing good deeds. However, Shammai’s abrasive actions throughout the Talmud teach us that while acting kindly is important it cannot be one’s sole focus. In other words, Shammai’s actions serve as a commentary on how one should live life. It is not enough to spend our entire life and day only studying Torah. We need to find time to do good deeds and to be kind to others. Similarly, on the other extreme, it is not enough to only do good deeds or to be kind to others. One must also hold the value of Torah study as equally important. Therefore, it was Shammai’s distaste and lack of patience for those that would dare disrupt or disrespect the Torah that caused his ‘insensitive’ behavior. Shammai not only taught that Torah and interacting with the outside world were values that needed to be held together equally, but he also lived his life in that way.
As our Mishnayot have progressed throughout this first chapter we have seen the importance of the home, the community, and the individual. At the core of it all teaches Hillel and Shammai is Torah and its study. While just learning Torah is important, Hillel and Shammai also teach us that there is still so much more for us to do as ambassadors of Torah. As Hillel writes in Mishna 14 Im Lo Achshav Eimatai, if not now then when? In Judaism, there is no room for procrastination. There is a famous maxim, that if you want to get something done—give it to a busy person. Being Jewish by definition means that we are always busy. There is always more for us to do whether it is in Torah study, good deeds, or being kind to others. As Jews we need to just do it all.
The Mishna in Eduyot (1:4) teaches that Hillel and Shammai are considered to be the “fathers of the world” because of the lasting impact they had. Despite our busy lives with work, family, and friends, may we each carry forward the torch of Hillel and Shammai keeping Torah, good deeds and kindness as the focal points of our lives.
-Rabbi Lehrfield