[Illustration: _MOSES HYAMSON (born in Suwalki, Russia, in 1863, came
to England in childhood). Rabbi and jurist; educated at Jews' College
and University College of London; for thirteen years Senior Dayan of
the London Beth-Din (Jewish Court of Arbitration), in which capacity,
because of his erudition in both the Jewish and the common law, he
rendered notable service to the British community. In 1913 he accepted
a call from the Congregation Orach Chayim of New York. Besides being a
contributor to the Jewish Quarterly Review and other learned
publications, Dr. Hyamson has published "The Oral Law and Other
Sermons" (1901), and an annotated edition of the medieval "Collatio
Romanorum et Mosaicarum Legum" (1912)._]
As the students and teachers in the famous school of Shemaya and
Abtalion assembled for worship one wintry Sabbath morning, they were
astonished to find their lecture-hall exceptionally dark. On looking
up they descried what seemed to be a human form lying prone across the
skylight. Willing feet ascended the roof and willing hands swept away
the snow from a young lad's half-frozen form. They brought him down,
and although it was the holy Sabbath, kindled a fire to revive the
chilled body. "Worthy is Hillel," they exclaimed, "that the Sabbath
should be desecrated for his sake!"
So runs the Talmudic tale. The incident happened in Palestine in the
century before the common era. The boy Hillel had come from his
obscure home in Babylon, bent upon study at the most famous school in
Palestine, whose teachers, Shemaya and Abtalion, were heads of the
Synhedrion, the Supreme Court of Jurisdiction. Poor and proud, Hillel
supported himself by manual labor while he was securing his education.
Like Abraham Lincoln, he was a woodchopper. One half of the small
amount he earned daily served for his meals, and the other half he
paid to the porter at the college for his admission in the evening. On
this short Friday in mid-winter he had been able to earn nothing, and
in his keen anxiety not to miss the lecture and discussion, he
clambered to the roof of the college hall, braving snow and cold for
the words of the living God as expounded by his teachers.
Within a few short years Hillel himself had succeeded his teachers as
the head of this famous school, and also as President of the
Synhedrion. Hillel's career is a shining example of the democratic
principle which has always prevailed in Jewish life, of the
opportunity open to all men of talents, however humble their origin,
to achieve position in the republic of Jewish learning. And learning
combined with noble character, as in the case of the great Hillel,
carried authority in Jewish life. It is true that Hillel was not
without letters patent of nobility; though he came from poverty and
obscurity and from an alien land, he was, according to tradition, of
the blood of David. It is not, however, to this accident of birth,
known only later, that Hillel owed his quick rise and supreme eminence
in Jewish life, but to his distinguished attainments, to his profound
learning not only in the Jewish Law but in many secular fields of
knowledge, to his bold and original mind combined with a pious
devotion to tradition, to his indomitable energy and industry, his
nobility of character, his sympathy with the people and his
understanding of their needs.
"_What To Thee Is Hateful Do Not Unto Another_"
It was Hillel who first enunciated the Golden Rule, although in
negative form. The story that is told in the Talmud is one of the most
familiar; yet no repetition can lessen its point and charm. A heathen,
it is related, came to Shammai, the leader of a rival school,
requesting to be received into Judaism and instructed in the whole of
the religion while he stood upon one leg. Shammai, an architect by
profession, threatened the heathen with his builder's measuring rod
and drove him out. The man went to Hillel with the same request.
Hillel, gentle, patient, democratic, received the man hospitably and
answered: "The whole of Judaism can be summarized in one short
sentence: 'What to thee is hateful do not unto another.' That is the
essence of the whole Torah; the rest is commentary."
And in the interpretation of that "commentary" which, together with
the Torah itself, enshrined the spirit of Judaism and made it a
throbbing reality in the life of the nation, Hillel brought out the
humanity of every regulation, the true intent behind it, whenever
literal enforcement would have worked hardship or might have defeated
its true intent because of the changed circumstances since its
enactment. While keeping faithfully within the spirit of Jewish
tradition, Hillel struck out into innovations, new precedents and
legal institutions, which testified at once to the remarkable insight
and boldness of his mind as a jurist and to his tact and sympathy as a
leader of the people. Some of his innovations anticipate in a striking
way the developments under similar circumstances of the common law of
England and the United States many centuries later.
_Hillel As A Jurist: His Sense of Social Justice_
For example, it happened that the first year after Herod's accession
was a Sabbatical year, which, according to the Deuteronomic provision
(Deut. 15, 2), set up a Statute of Limitations and effectively barred
the recovery of all debts. The people, impoverished by the exactions
of the Government and by the failure of the harvest, were compelled to
have recourse to money lenders. But those who were able to accommodate
the needy were reluctant to do so on account of the imminence of the
Sabbatical year and its legal bar to the recovery of past debts.
Hillel's keen mind and sympathetic heart found a way out of this
difficulty. He set up the institution of the Prosbul, by which a
creditor received the right, when making a loan, to register the debt
in court. In this way the great jurist anticipated in a remarkable
manner a principle accepted so many centuries later in the common law
of England and America, namely, that the Statute of Limitations does
not apply to recorded judgments. Such judgments can always be sued on
and recovered. And so the new ordinance established by Hillel removed
the hardship of the Biblical enactment, the purpose of which was
humanitarian. By Hillel's innovation, the true spirit of that law was
maintained, and applied in accordance with its real intent in an age
when the economic conditions were vastly different from the time when
the law itself was established. Our modern lawyers and reformers in
this country may well take a leaf out of this progressive conservatism
of our great democratic teacher Hillel.
Other decisions of Hillel equally significant could be cited. To
lawyers especially, the study of them is fascinating; they are full of
startling relevancy in the present time of unrest and agitation for
legal reform in this country. And not without reason. What we are keen
for now is a greater measure of social justice in a democratic
community. A study of Hillel's jurisprudence--both the theory and the
decisions affecting the workaday life of the people--will give one an
appreciation not only of the beautiful spirituality of the master, his
erudition and his imagination, but the characteristic coalition of
letter and spirit, the emphatic sense of social justice, which has
prevailed in the whole system of Jewish law.
_Hillel's Public Spirit and Humanity_
Thus Hillel, while head of his famous school of instruction, became
the founder of a school in another sense--a school of interpretation
of the Torah. This school, as already indicated, was marked by a
leniency and elasticity of interpretation of the traditional law quite
in contrast to the harshness and rigidity of the contemporary school
of Shammai; it is the school of Hillel, leaning to the spiritual and
the humane, that has prevailed ever since in Jewish law. Hillel made
the people realize the truth of the famous text about the Torah: "It
is a tree of life to them that grasp it, and of them that uphold it,
everyone is rendered happy. Its paths are paths of pleasantness and
all its ways are peace." Those who have mistakenly conceived the
Jewish law as something dour and rigid, unlovable, unspiritual,
should study the decisions and dicta of this great master.
Hillel's character is illustrated by a number of pregnant sayings of
his that have been recorded in the Talmud. "Do not separate yourself
from the community," was one of his characteristic sayings which
genuinely expressed his public spirit. His sense of individual and
social responsibility is summed up in his three famous questions: "If
I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am for myself alone,
what am I? And if not now, when?" His peace-loving nature and humanity
found voice in his counsel: "Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving
peace, pursuing peace, loving God's creatures and bringing them near
to the knowledge of the Law." His disinterestedness, his liberal
pursuit of the Law, that is, of knowledge, made him confidently say:
"He who aggrandizes his name, his name shall perish. He who does not
add to his store of learning and good deeds will suffer diminution. He
who does not teach deserves death. He who uses the crown of the Law
for selfish needs and personal advancement will be destroyed." Who had
a better right than Hillel, graduate of poverty, to warn his
contemporaries: "Do not say I shall learn when I will have leisure;
perhaps you never will have leisure." And in every case, even when the
conduct of a man seems most reprehensible, as when one of his
colleagues Menahem left the Synhedrion to take service under the
tyrant Herod, Hillel holds to this advice: "Judge not thy neighbor
until thou art in his place."
Many a tale is narrated of Hillel's patience, unfailing courtesy and
tact, tolerance and humility, even under the greatest provocation. The
man who bet 400 Zuz that he would break Hillel's patience by silly and
far-fetched questions lost his own temper at the consideration with
which he was treated. And so the proverb became current, "Patience is
worth 400 Zuz." And other tales are told of Hillel's considerate
dealing with heathens who wished to embrace Judaism, in contrast to
the harsh treatment meted out to them by his contemporary Shammai.
_Sage and Saint_
His perfect consideration and charity had in it even something of the
quixotic. When a man came to him for assistance, he was wont to help
him according to his previous position in life. Thus, in one instance
where a man had formerly enjoyed great wealth but had suffered
reverses, Hillel not only provided for him according to his previous
standard of living but, it is related, even hired a horse for the man
to ride on and a footman to run before him. It is added that on one
occasion, when Hillel could not obtain a runner, he himself served in
that capacity.
His wife, we learn, was a fit helpmeet to the sage and saint. Their
domestic life was a perfect harmony. Once on returning from a journey
Hillel heard a sound of quarreling in the neighborhood of his house.
"I am certain," said he, "that this noise does not proceed from my
home." On another occasion Hillel sent his wife a message to prepare a
sumptuous meal for an honored guest. At the appointed hour Hillel and
his guest arrived. But the meal was not ready. "Why so late?" asked
Hillel. "I prepared a banquet," the wife replied, "according to your
desire. But I learned that a couple were to be wedded to-day and they
were too poor to provide a marriage feast, so I gave them our meal for
their wedding banquet." "Ah, my dear wife, I guessed as much."
But the greatest and most constant hospitality was shown by Hillel to
a guest who was always with him and uppermost in his thoughts. Every
day it was his habit to withdraw for a while for private meditation.
"Whither art thou going?" asked his colleagues and disciples. "I have
a guest to whom I must show attention." "Who is this guest?" "My
soul," was the solemn reply; "to-day it is with me, to-morrow the
heavenly visitant may be departed and returned home."
Is it any wonder that, after forty years of activity in the
Patriarchate, when Hillel died (in the year 10 of the common era), men
said of him: "Meek and humble-minded, a saint has departed from among
us, a disciple of Ezra the Scribe." The title fitted his career, for
he came like Ezra from Babylon to Palestine and like Ezra he restored
the Law when it was threatened with destruction. Great as a student,
he was great also as an inspirer of other students. He left eighty
distinguished disciples, of whom the youngest was that famous Jochanan
ben Zakkai who became the savior of Judaism at the destruction of the
second Temple.
[Illustration: Signature: M. Hyamson]
EDITORS' NOTE--Dr. Hyamson's portrait of Hillel is the
first in a series of character sketches of Jewish
Worthies to appear in THE MENORAH JOURNAL. The second
paper will be on Hillel's disciple, Jochanan ben
Zakkai.