3. Even when one’s life is at stake, it is still forbidden to murder an innocent person, engage in sexual offenses such as incest (see Yoma 82a; this does not mean, however, that a victim of incest rape should put her life at risk by resisting), and practice idolatry. It is not fully clear, though, when this last law applies. Rabbi Ishmael rules that if one is told, “Engage in idol worship so that you will not be killed,” one should comply with the demand as long as the act is not done in the presence of ten or more adult Jews, a minyan (see Sanhedrin 74a). Other rabbis command a Jew to martyr himself even if the only other person present is the idolater issuing the threat. Rabbi Ishmael’s ruling strikes me as more compelling. Why would God prefer that a good person die when no irrevocable evil will ensue (as would be the case if one killed an innocent person to save one’s life)? Surely the world will not be a better place if the good person is martyred while the idolater who murders him continues to live; indeed, it seems to me that the world will become a worse place.
4. For more examples of tikkun olam (and its outgrowth, darkei shalom, to achieve peace), see Mishnah Gittin 4:2–7, 5:3, and 5:8–9. In one uncommon instance, Gittin 4:5, the School of Shammai cites the principle of tikkun olam in the course of an argument with the School of Hillel, and Hillel’s disciples recant and accept Shammai’s ruling (see pp. 110–11).
6. Five Traits
1. Judges 14:10–20 tells of a bet Samson made with thirty men, which had tragic results.
2. Given that Hillel was himself from Babylonia, the question might well have been intended not only to waste Hillel’s time, but as an insult (see Michael Katz and Gershon Schwartz, Searching for Meaning in Midrash, p. 139).
3. Adin Steinsaltz, Talmudic Images, p. 10.
4. Elie Wiesel, Sages and Dreamers, p. 168.
5. There are two instances in rabbinic literature in which Hillel expresses annoyance; see pp. 15–16.
6. Two comments on this story: “The same Hillel who taught that having servants can only cause trouble [“the more servant girls the more promiscuity, the more man-servants the more theft”; Ethics of the Fathers 2: 7] took it upon himself to give this man what he was accustomed to, even though he himself considered it of little value” (Jonathan Duker, The Spirits Behind the Law, p. 77). “This story … emphasizes his understanding that respect and honor are as essential for some people as food and drink are to others. Hillel, who himself was able to manage with very little, undarstood that others lived by different standards” (Adin Steinsaltz, Talmudic Images, p. 8).
7. I am indebted for this point to Danny Siegel.
8. I first came across this idea in the writings of Miriam Adahan, author of, among other books, “Nobody’s Perfect”: Maintaining Emotional Health, but I cannot locate where in her books I first found this idea.
7. Hillel the Interpreter, Shammai the Literalist
1. In some editions of the Tosefta, it is Yoma 5:2. The text doesn’t record who it was who ordered him to feed his son more generously. Another text roots Shammai’s behavior in his belief that the general prohibition on washing one’s hands on Yom Kippur should not be suspended to feed a child (most parents of small children would wash at least one hand before feeding them). However, the rabbis, fearing that handing over food with unwashed hands could endanger a child’s health, ordered Shammai to wash both hands and to feed the child with both. That, at least, is my understanding of a somewhat obscure text in Yoma 77b.
8. Thieves, Brides, and When Lying Is a Virtue
1. Of course, it was not necessarily only a sense of literalism that shaped Shammai’s reasoning. Professor Louis Ginzberg (1873–1953), the great Talmudic scholar of the Jewish Theological Seminary, rooted many of the disagreements between Hillel and Shammai and their schools in socioeconomic issues. Shammai, he argued, consistently ruled in accordance with the interests and practices of wealthier Jews, whereas Hillel’s rulings favored the interests and practices of poorer ones (the position discussed elsewhere, that the School of Shammai advocated restricting access to higher Jewish education to “the rich,” already suggests such a bias; see pp. 145–47). Similarly, you would have to have an innate sensitivity to society’s poorer elements (rather than a commitment to the “letter of the law”) to recognize that demanding of a penitent thief that he destroy his home will likely destroy any chance that the person will repent. While Ginzberg, I believe, does not discuss this particular case, he does cite several other Hillel/Shammai conflicts in support of his thesis. For example, the School of Hillel requires a blessing over bread at the beginning of a meal (ha-motzi), following which, even if other foods are eaten, no additional blessing is required. The School of Shammai rules that the blessing over bread covers the bread and only the bread; all other dishes require their own blessing. Superficially, one might argue that the Shammaites were more punctilious in their ritual observances and searched out additional opportunities to bless and thank God. Ginzberg offers an altogether different rationale: “The reason for their disagreement was that bread was the main dish of a poor man’s meal and, therefore, once he recited a benediction over it, he thereby blessed the entire meal. For the rich man, however, who ate meat, fish, and all kinds of delicacies, bread was not the main dish. The School of Shammai consequently maintained that even cooked foods were not included in a benediction over bread” (Louis Ginzberg, On Jewish Law and Lore, p. 104; the discussion of the impact of economic factors in the variant rulings between the two schools is found on pp. 102–18). What strikes me as a counterargument to that offered by Ginzberg is the Mishnah in Gittin 4:5, in which the School of Hillel favors slave owners, while the School of Shammai favors the slaves (see this page). Consistent with the thesis offered in this volume, Ginzberg attributed many other disputes between the schools to Shammai’s emphasis on fulfilling the precise acts ordained by the Torah, and to Hillel’s greater emphasis on the significance of intention: “The School of Shammai … considered deed more important than thought … as over against the progressive view of the School of Hillel who taught that an act not accompanied by intention is not to be considered an act” (Ginzberg, On Jewish Law and Lore, p. 119). Professor Shmuel Safrai has challenged Ginzberg’s socioeconomic explanation of the Hillel/Shammai disputes and notes that we only have information about the economic status of four disciples, two of each school’s. “About Rabbi Eliezer it is stated that he was in fact rich, as opposed to Rabbi Joshua ben Chananiah, the representative of the House of Hillel, who was extremely poor. However, of the other two … the Shammaite Rabbi Yochanan ben He-Horanit was very poor, while Rabbi Tzadok of [the School of Hillel] was apparently rich,” and sent food to Rabbi Yochanan when he heard about his poverty (Shmuel Safrai, ed., The Literature of the Sages, p. 188).
2. For a further, more nuanced analysis of this debate, see the Midrashic text Kallah Rabbati 10:1.
3. The Tosafot commentary on the Talmud argues that Shammai intended people to praise the bride, but to confine their praise to those features that were truly attractive, for example, “her eyes or hands if they are pretty.” If this is correct, it still makes sense why Hillel advocated a general, though sometimes untruthful, formula for praising all brides. If wedding guests restricted their praise to one or two features, it might well have the effect of reminding everyone of the bride’s less attractive, though unmentioned, features.
4. Perhaps, one might argue, in contrast to both Hillel and Shammai, if one thinks the bride unattractive, it would be better to say nothing at all. Indeed, a later Talmudic commentator, the Maharam Schiff, raises the question of why, in such a case, the wedding guests don’t simply remain silent about the woman’s looks. Doing so, the rabbi writes, “would be repulsive,” since other brides are praised for their beauty. When was the last time you attended a wedding in which you didn’t hear people tell the bride, “You look so beautiful.” Therefore, saying nothing about the bride’s appearance is in effect the same as calling her unattractive, though obviously saying so outright would be worse
.
10. Shammai Beyond Stereotype
1. The price he asks for is 400 shekels of silver. The book of Jeremiah, written many hundreds of years later (ca. 600 B.C.E.), records that a small plot of land, likely comparable in size to the plot sold Abraham, was sold for 17 shekels of silver (Jer. 32:9).
2. As Judah Nadich explains, once Yonatan came into legal possession of the property, “it was his to do with as he liked, and he therefore was not violating the deceased’s wishes for it was not the latter’s property Yonatan gave to the sons, but his own” (Judah Nadich, ed., Jewish Legends of the Second Commonwealth, p. 229 n. 90). The above citation is not the precise and tersely worded response offered by Yonatan; I have basically followed Nadich’s summary of the event.
3. It is possible, though the biblical text does not say this, that Uriah heard rumors in the palace of the king’s clandestine affair with his wife (David had had Bathsheba brought to him), and that is why he refused to go home to be with her.
4. Though it does correspond to the “letter of the law,” as understood by the biblical prophet Nathan.
11. Two Torahs
1. In the first case, Shammai rules that a menstruating woman is tamei (the opposite of a state of purity, and therefore forbidden to be in physical contact with her husband) from the time she discovers a discharge of blood, while Hillel regards the woman as tamei starting with the last time she had examined herself. In the second instance, Shammai rules that challah, a dough offering, must be separated from a portion of dough containing at least one kav (a measurement equal to the volume of twenty-four eggs) of flour, while Hillel rules that it is to be taken from two kavs of flour. In the third case, Shammai rules that if a mikvah contains nine kavs of drawn water, it becomes invalid for use, while Hillel rules that it becomes invalidated by a hin (three kavs) of drawn water. Ironically, and despite Shammai’s reputation for strictness and Hillel’s for leniency, Hillel’s view is the more stringent in the first and third of the three cases.
2. Shmuel Safrai, ed., The Literature of the Sages, p. 186.
3. Ibid., p. 191.
4. In nine instances, the School of Hillel deferred to the School of Shammai (see, for examples, pp. 99–100 and 109–11), and in several cases, the law does not follow either (see, as noted, Eduyot 1:1–3). Professor Safrai argues that there isn’t a single instance of the School of Shammai accepting a view of the School of Hillel, though the commentary on the Mishnah, Tiferet Yisrael, argues that Terumot 5:4 seems to indicate an acceptance by the School of Shammai of a ruling of the School of Hillel; see also, Herbert Danby, The Mishnah, p. 58, n. 3).
5. The Ethics of the Fathers contrasts the high-minded disputes of Hillel and Shammai with the self-aggrandizing behavior of Korach, who challenged and tried to overthrow Moses in the desert (Num., chap. 16). The disagreements of Hillel and Shammai are referred to as “a dispute for the sake of heaven” because the disputants were motivated by the desire to find truth; no personal benefit accrued to them if their position was accepted (that is why it was easier for the disputants to generally remain on friendly terms). In contrast, Korach, as depicted in the Torah, was driven by the desire for personal gain, in his case, power. As regards those few instances in which the law does not follow the teachings of either Hillel or Shammai, the Mishnah asks why their opinions are therefore cited, since they will not be followed. The answer? “So as to teach generations to come that a person should not hold stubbornly to his opinions, for the fathers of the world (that is, Hillel and Shammai) did not hold stubbornly to their opinions” (Eduyot 1:4).
6. See Safrai, Literature of the Sages, p. 196.
12. The Jewish Sage and the Christian Messiah
1. This was a decision that paved the way for large-scale conversions to Christianity. It was, for example, much easier for males to accept a new faith that did not require them to be circumcised. Jesus’ earlier followers, headed by his brother, James, insisted, in conformity with Jesus, that Torah laws were still binding. The New Testament book of Acts (10:14) notes that Peter, whom Catholics regard as the first pope, kept kosher. Acts 2:46 and 3:1 record that Jesus’ disciples regularly prayed at the Jerusalem Temple (which, by the way, would have been very unlikely if they believed the Jews responsible for crucifying Jesus). James sent out emissaries to teach that the law of circumcision still applied (Acts 15:1; see also Gal. 2:12), and he also ordered Paul to observe Jewish laws (Acts 21:24). Paul, however, rejected James’s command: “We conclude,” he taught instead, “that a man is put right with God only through faith and not by doing what the Law commands” (Rom. 3:28). It was Paul’s, not James’s, teachings that prevailed in Christianity. Paul’s opposition to Torah law was basic to his theology. If it was true, as Judaism taught, that observing the Torah’s laws could make one righteous in God’s eyes, then that would mean that people could achieve righteousness through their own efforts. And if that were so, Paul reasoned, there was no need for Jesus, no purpose to the Crucifixion, and “Christ would have died in vain” (Gal. 2:21). Once Paul marginalized the Torah’s law and dropped the legal requirements for converting to Judaism, Christianity ceased being a Jewish sect and became a separate religion. As I have noted elsewhere, “From the perspective of Christianity, this made Paul into a great hero, Saint Paul. Most Jews find it hard to regard him with equal adulation” (Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy, p. 126).
2. The first half of the citation is from Hyam Maccoby’s The Mythmaker, p. 24, and the second half is from his Early Rabbinic Writings, p. 62.
13. “Teach Everyone”
1. One of the great works of modern Jewish literature, As a Driven Leaf, is an attempt by Rabbi Milton Steinberg to comprehend what could have driven so great a rabbi to become so great an enemy of his people. Despite Elisha’s cooperation with the Romans, Steinberg regards Elisha as more tragic than evil, a man alienated from Judaism on intellectual grounds who ultimately becomes alienated from Roman philosophy and culture on both intellectual and moral grounds, and ends his life as a broken, utterly lonely man, believing in nothing.
2. Adin Steinsaltz, Talmudic Images, p. 11.
14. “The Highly Impatient Person Cannot Teach”: For Today’s Teachers and Parents
1. The same passage also frees from punishment a father who kills his son while disciplining him. Technically, the discussion simply exonerates such a person from enforced exile to “a city of refuge,” the punishment for “a manslayer who has killed a person unintentionally” (see Num. 35:9–15). However, the rabbinic discussion of this ruling makes it clear that no punishment was inflicted as long as the father (or teacher) could argue that the punishment was inflicted “to incline the child in a different [better] path” (Rashi on Makkot 8a).
2. So serious is the crime of humiliating another that the Talmud declares, “Whoever shames his neighbor in public, it is as if he shed his blood” (Bava Metzia 58b). The rabbis go on to say that one who shames another in public forfeits his or her place in the world to come (Bava Metzia 59a). Fortunately, given that most of us have been guilty of this offense at least once, Maimonides teaches that such punishment is exacted only from those who routinely engage in such behavior (“Laws of Repentance” 3:14). Furthermore, this prohibition applies to humiliating children as strongly as it applies to adults (Bava Kamma 86a–b). Indeed, children are more vulnerable than adults to all kinds of attacks, including humiliation. The guiding principle for teachers should be the words of Ethics of the Fathers: “Let the honor of your students be as dear to you as your own” (Ethics of the Fathers 4:12). My friend Rabbi David Woznica comments that “since the most important teachers in a child’s life are his or her parents, this lesson, that ‘the highly impatient person cannot teach,’ is particularly important for parents as well.”
15. “One Who Is Bashful Will Never Learn”
1. See pp. 12–16 re Bnai Beteira.
2. Adin Steinsaltz, Talmudic Images, p. 126.
3. See Norman Lamm, “Knowing vs. Learning: Which Tak
es Precedence?” in Susan Handelman and Jeffrey Saks, Wisdom from All My Teachers, p. 18 n. 7.
18. Final Thoughts
1. Deuteronomy 22:10 prohibits plowing one’s field with animals of unequal strength (e.g., an ox and a donkey) harnessed together; Deuteronomy 25:4 forbids muzzling an animal while it is working in the field, and thereby preclude the creature from eating; Leviticus 22:28 prohibits slaughtering an animal and its young at the same time. The widely accepted Sefer Ha-Chinukh, a study of the Torah’s 613 laws and their rationales that was published in thirteenth-century Spain, explains that the rules of ritual slaughter were intended “so that we don’t cause too much suffering to the animal, for though the Torah permitted man … to use animals for food and for all his needs, it is forbidden to cause an animal needless pain” (Commandment #451).
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin Page 18