הלל הזקן

Hillel the Elder came up from Babylon in dire poverty, and his love of Torah became a model for the generations. The Talmud relates that he had no money for the fee of the study hall, and one winter night he climbed and lay upon the skylight of the roof to hear Torah from within, until the snow covered him. When they found him frozen in the morning, they revived him, and said: for such a man it is worthy to desecrate the Shabbat (Yoma 35b). Since then no poor man can say 'I had no time.'

Hillel became the Nasi of Israel, yet his greatness is remembered precisely in his boundless humility. Facing him stood Shammai, exacting and strict, and both were truth, but Hillel's way was the way of drawing near.

A gentile came and asked to convert on condition that he be taught the whole Torah while standing on one foot. Shammai pushed him away with the builder's cubit in his hand. Hillel converted him and said: 'what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow, that is the whole Torah, and the rest is its commentary, go and learn' (Shabbat 31a). A great principle in a few words.

His patience was legendary. Two men wagered whether they could provoke Hillel to anger, and one of them pestered him with foolish questions again and again at a sensitive hour, and Hillel answered each one calmly, 'you have asked a great question, my son' (Shabbat 31a). One who does not grow angry teaches more than any sermon.

His teaching is engraved in Pirkei Avot: 'if I am not for myself, who is for me, and if I am only for myself, what am I, and if not now, when?' (Pirkei Avot 1:14), 'do not separate from the community' (Pirkei Avot 2:5), and 'in a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.'

The House of Hillel and the House of Shammai differed on hundreds of laws, and the law was fixed according to the House of Hillel, because they were pleasant and humble, and taught the words of the House of Shammai before their own. Humility itself decided the law.

Hillel teaches that Torah is acquired through the love of people and through patience, and that the truly great one is not the one who wins the argument but the one who brings a single heart near to Torah. To this day we live by the light of the House of Hillel.