Summary: Shadal suggests it is a decree, but everyone agrees what the peshat and actual meaning of the pasuk is. Then, a lengthy presentation from Shadal in Kerem Chemed as to the nature of Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai. Why were they called that, if Hillel and Shamai almost always agreed. And I present my own resolution to some of the difficulties posed.
Post: Consider this pasuk and then Rashi in parashat Bo:
| 44. And every man's slave, purchased for his money you shall circumcise him; then he will be permitted to partake of it. | מד. וְכָל עֶבֶד אִישׁ מִקְנַת כָּסֶף וּמַלְתָּה אֹתוֹ אָז יֹאכַל בּוֹ: | |
| you shall circumcise him; then he will be permitted to partake of it: [I.e., he means] his master. [This] tells [us] that the [failure to perform the] circumcision of one’s slaves prevents one from partaking of the Passover sacrifice. [These are] the words of Rabbi Joshua. Rabbi Eliezer says: The [failure to perform the] circumcision of one’s slaves does not prevent one from partaking of the Passover sacrifice. If so, what is the meaning of “then he will be permitted to partake of it” ? [“He” in this phrase is referring to] the slave. — [from Mechilta] | ומלתה אתו אז יאכל בו: רבו, מגיד שמילת עבדיו מעכבתו מלאכול בפסח, דברי רבי יהושע. רבי אליעזר אומר אין מילת עבדיו מעכבתו מלאכול בפסח, אם כן מה תלמוד לומר אז יאכל בו, העבד: | |
Shadal has an interesting take on the nature of this machlokes. He feels that Rabbi Eliezer says peshat and Rabbi Yehoshua / Chachamim agree, but that this is a Rabbinic gezeira with an asmachta thrown in. And so, Rabbi Eliezer adamantly opposes such innovations, as we see elsewhere. Thus, Shadal writes:
"וְכָל עֶבֶד -- the circumcision of slaves is an obligation on the master from [the time of] Avraham and on (Bereishit 17:12). We are also commanded that slaves should rest on Shabbat and Yom Tov. And all of this raises up the status of the slave, that he is [but] a bit less than his master. and therefore, immediately when he is circumcised, he made eat of the paschal offering like his master.
And at the end of the second Temple, good traits were corrupted via the kings of the house of Herod and Israel learned the ways of the gentiles. And in particular, the kings, nobility, and the wealthy loved to make themselves similar to the Romans. And we know that the Romans were cruel to their servants, and so there were in Israel some masters who did not wish to circumcise their slaves such that they [=the slaves] should not consider themselves Israelites and human beings.
Then, the Sages of Israel arose and decreed that one who does not circumcise his slaves will not be able to eat of the paschal offering. And their intent, in my opinion, is that one who does not consider slaves to be human is not fit to be considered among those who celebrate the festival of freedom. This was the thought-process of most of the Sages; and [so] it is taught without attribution in the Mechilta. (And according to the girsa of Rashi here, it is the position of Rabbi Yehoshua, while according to the girsa of Tosafot in Yevamot 70b it is the position of Rabbi Akiva.) But Rabbi Eliezer says that the circumcision of one's slaves is not a requirement for being able to eat the paschal offering, for he seized upon the path of Shamai, which I explained in Kerem Chemed, page 220, and he did not with that anything be innovated at all, which was not in the Torah or in Kabbalah (tradition), and he did not say anything unless he heard it from his teacher. Meanwhile, the rest of the Sages of Israel were innovating institutions {takkanot} according to the needs of the times, and they needed to place Rabbi Eliezer in cherem, for he rose up against anything which leaned away from that which he received from his teacher (29 Sivan, 5614)."
Here is what Shadal explains in Kerem Chemed (volume 3):
Behold I will record before you, my dear friend, that which I wrote three years ago regarding the matter of Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel. And I wrote this at a time that it arose in my heart to explain the language of the Mishnah (see Bikkurei HaItim, page 123). And I began from מאמתי {J: in the beginning of Masechet Berachot} and I explained every single word precisely until the end of the fourth perek, with intent to order afterwards the items in alphabetic order. And after that I abandoned the labor, in order to direct my heart towards the studies which I was called to study in this collegium, which did not leave me free to turn at all to other studies. And this is its language:
Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai, a name of two groups of Sages who were in Israel at the end of Second Temple times, and who were divided in many matters in details of the particulars of the Torah. Hillel the Babylonian was the Nasi of the Sanhedrin in the year 100 before the Churban. And Shammai was the Av Bet Din under him. And Hillel was the Nasi and head for a span of 40 years. And Hillel and Shammai only argued in two or three matters (Shabbat 15a), and (Sotah 47b) when their students who did not sufficiently serve [their teachers] increased, disputes increased in Israel, and the Torah was made into two Torahs.
And there is to ask: Why were these called the students of Shammai and these called the students of Hillel, after the difference in their positions did not extend to them from their teachers, but rather from their own logic, while their teachers Hillel and Shammai did not argue, and the Torah of Hillel is the same Torah of Shammai, and when the students divided
Besides which, according to what it seems, Hillel did not have specific students and Shammai have specific students. And so wrote as well the author of Sefer HaYochasin, and this is its language:
For all of the students of Hillel were also to Shammai, for I have already seen that they said that there were 80 students to Hillel Hazaken, and R' Yochanan ben Zakkai was one of them. And despite that they say in Avos: R' Yochanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai. For they were always om the bet midrash together, one as the Nasi and Shammai as the Av Bet Din. And so too all the pairs.End quote, in the entry on Shammai Hazaken.
And if so, why should these be called Bet Hillel and these be called Bet Shammai?
And what seems to me is that since Hillel was humble in his character traits, a lover and pursuer of peace, who loved people and brought them close to Torah; and as he said to that gentile, 'Love your neighbor as yourself; that is the entirety of Torah'. From there extends that most of the students who did not serve [their teachers] sufficiently and cleaved to Hillel to learn his traits and to follow in his path, when they had a doubt in a matter of one of the chukkim or mishpatim, they chose to be lenient, in order to draw the common folk to Torah, so that the yoke upon their necks should not become too weighty, such that they might cast it off their necks entirely. And these students were called Bet Hillel, since they seized the path of Hillel, despite the fact that these details in which they argued did not come out to them from his [=Hillel's] mouth.
And so the reverse. Shammai was a strict, insistent man. And he was insistent in every matter not to lean from the line of the law even a hairsbreadth. And this is as we have seen, that he pushed off with a builder's measuring rod that gentile who said to him 'teach me Torah on one foot', as well as to the one who said to him 'Convert me on condition that you make me a High Priest.' And some of the students chose his path, and when a doubt came about for them because they did not serve sufficiently, they chose to be stringent. And they are called Bet Shammai since they were drawn after the position of Shammai who was insistent to be stringent, despite their reasoning not coming to them from him.
And we have already seen Shammai Hazaken say like the words of Bet Hillel and not like the words of Bet Shammai. Thus, Bet Shammai says it even renders impure, and Bet Hillel say it only renders impure once it possesses an egg's volume. Duschai, a resident of Kfar Yatma was of the students of Bet Hillel, and he said 'I heard from Shammai Hazaken who said that it only renders impure once it possesses an egg's volume (Orlah 2).
And similar to this in Masechet Eduyot, perek 1: Bet Shammai say 1/4 of the bones, whether from two or three, etc. Shammai says even from a single bone. Thus it is explicit that Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai did not receive their reasoning from Hillel and Shammai, for the Torah of Hillel was the same Torah of Shammai. But their students did not serve [their teachers] sufficiently, as they said in Sotah daf 47b and Sanhedrin daf 88, and when there was a doubt, these inclined to be lenient and these to be stringent.
As an example, if one stole a beam and built it into a citadel, Bet Shammai say that one uproots the entire citadel and returns the beam to its owner,
(this is the trait of Shammai, and so is the midat hadin, not that Shammai said this), while Bet Hillel say that he only has the value of the beam, (such was the trait of Hillel, and so is the midat harachamim) (Gittin daf 55). And so too, how do they dance before the bride, Bet Shammai say they describe the bride as she is (midat hadin), and Bet Hillel say 'beautiful and kind bride' (lover and pursuer of peace) (Ketubot daf 16).And despite this, we find that there are a few things which are of the stringencies of Bet Hillel and the leniencies of Bet Shammai (Eduyot perek 4 and 5), and also in these, Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel did not budge from their positions.
For example, Bet Shammai permits the co-wives to the brothers and Bet Hillel forbids. That is to say, one who marries a woman who is an erva {prohibited relation} to his brother, such as that he married his brother's daughter, and he has another wife or other wives beside her, and he dies without children, and his brother comes to perform levirate marriage upon one of the wives of deceased, Bet Shammai permit him to perform levirate marriage upon the woman who is permitted to him, even though her co-wife is an erva to him, and Bet Hillel forbid one to perform levirate marriage upon the co-wife of an erva.
Behold, here Bet Shamai stood firm in their words upon the line of the law and permitted, for there is nothing that prohibits the taking of a woman just because her co-wife was forbidden. However, Bet Hillel saw that the nature of the co-wives was to hate one another, and a person's way was to love his relatives. Ad behold the arayot {prohibited relations} mainly loved and were loved by the person to whom they were an erva, for they were of his flesh. And what extends from this was that if a person took the co-wife of an erva {to him}, in most cases he would not have peace with her, for his relatives would hate her, and they would endeavor to extinguish the love between them. And his wife as well, since she hates his relatives, the matter is likely that she would also hate him. And therefore, Bet Hillel, who loved and pursued peace forbade the co-wives {of erva} to the brothers, for they saw that their match-up was not successful**.
And at times, the intent of Bet Hillel was to make a fence
For example, fowl may ascend together with cheese upon the table but may not be eaten {together}, in accordance with the words of Bet Shammai (the line of the law) and Bet Hillel says it may not ascend and may not be eaten (a fence to the Torah, to distance man from sin).
And so too an egg which was laid on Yom Tov, Bet Shammai say one may eat (for there is, in truth, nothing which forbids it consumption), and Bet Hillel say you shall not eat, as a decree because of fruits which drop off, and this and that so that one should not ascend {the tree} and pick it off. And since the matter is one which involves no loss, for tomorrow it is permitted, and even today if he needs an egg, he can find another one readily, Bet Hillel decreed, in order to distance man from sin.
And in terms of halacha like the words of whom, so they said in the Talmud: For three years Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel argued. These said 'the halacha is like us' and these said 'the halacha is like us'. A bat kol came out and said 'These and these are the words of the Living God, and the halacha is like Bet Hillel.' Now, since both of these are the words of the Living God, why did Bet Hillel merit that the halacha was established like them? Because they were patient and sustained insult, and taught both their position and that of Bet Shammai; and not only that, but that preceded the words of Bet Shammai to their own words (Eruvin daf 13). And this as well is testimony to what I said, that Bet Hillel seized the traits of Hillel in their hands, and therefore there is not to be surprised that they merited to have the halacha established like them, for the trait of humility and peace are beloved Above and considered dear below.
They also said: The halacha is always like Bet Hillel, and the one who wishes to act like the words of Bet Shammai may do so; like the words of Bet Hillel may do so; from the leniencies of Bet Shammai and the leniencies of Bet Hillel is a rasha; like the stringencies of Bet Shammai and the stringencies of Bet Hillel, upon him the verse says 'and the fool walks in darkness'. Rather, if like Bet Shammai, it is in their leniences and stringencies, and if like Bet Hillel, it is in their leniencies and stringencies. This contains an internal contradiction. You have said that the halacha is like Bet Hillel, and then you turned around and said that one who wishes to act like Bet Shammai may do so! This is no contradiction. Here was before the bat kol and there was after the bat kol. Or alternatively, both of these are after the bat kol, and it is Rabbi Yehoshua, who pays no heed to a bat kol (Eruvin daf 5).
They also said (Yevamot 14b):
Although Beth Shammai and Beth Hillel are in disagreement on the questions of rivals, sisters,15 an old bill of divorce,16 a doubtfully married woman,17 a woman whom her husband had divorced18 and who stayed with him over the night in an inn,19 money, valuables, a perutah and the value of a perutah,20 Beth Shammai did not, nevertheless, abstain from marrying women of the families of Beth Hillel, nor did Beth Hillel refrain from marrying those of Beth Shammai. This is to teach you that they shewed love and friendship towards one another, thus putting into practice the Scriptural text, Love ye truth and peace.21
We see that Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol is called Shamutei (Shabbat daf 130). And some explain this as a language of shamta (ban), for his colleagues placed him under a ban in the dispute about the oven of Achnai, that he did not wish to admit to the consensus of the majority of the Sages, even though a bat kol came out and said 'What have you verses Rabbi Eliezer, for the halacha is like him in every place' (Bava Metzia 59). And from the Talmud Yerushalmi it is apparent that he is called Shamutei because he was from Bet Shammai. And behold, if Rabbi Eiliezer held fast to the words of Bet Shammai, it is a bat kol contradicting a bat kol, since a bat kol stated that the halacha was like Rabbi Eliezer in every place, and a bat kol said that the halacha was not like Bet Shammai. And perhaps a person can say to explain that the halacha is like him in every place where it is his own opinion and not the opinion of Bet Shammai. And this as well is not possible, since this was the trait of Rabbi Eliezer, that he did not ever say anything that he did not hear from his teacher (Succah daf 27). And behold, we know that the principal teacher of Rabbi Eliezer was R' Yochanan ben Zakkai, who was of the students of Hillel Hazaken, and then it does not seem that Rabbi Eliezer was from Bet Shammai.But according to what I have explained in the beginning, the problem goes away, for Rabbi Eliezer is not called Shamutei by virtue of being of the students of Shammai, nor because he seized upon the reasoning of Bet Shammai. Rather, he is called this because he seized upon the trait of Shammai, which is insistence and the harsh midat hadin, which most of the world cannot withstand.
And know that the Karaites, in order to suspend themselves by a tall tree, say that they as well are of the students of Bet Shammai, and that therefore they seize upon stringencies; and that Rabbi Eliezer was a Karaite, and that therefore his colleagues condemned him. However, this is entirely falsehood which has no legs, for behold Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel, and Rabbi Eliezer as well, all of them accepted upon themselves the Oral Law, and did not throw off the its from upon their necks; and this is as the Raavad za'l writes in the sefer haKabbalah: Chazal never argued in the principal aspects of the commandment, but only in its toldot, for they heard the principal from their teachers and did not ask them about their toldot, since they did not serve [their teachers] sufficiently. They did not argue if one lights the Shabbat candle or not, but upon what did they argue? With what may one light and with what may one not light. And how different is the path of these Sages from the path of the Karaites!
Padua, in the fourth (month), in the 25th of the month, 5591.
Shmuel David Luzzatto."
While I can stand back and admire this explanation, I don't find it persuasive. First, here is how I would answer some of the early questions which serves as an impetus for this explanation. Shadal wrote:
Why were these called the students of Shammai and these called the students of Hillel, after the difference in their positions did not extend to them from their teachers, but rather from their own logic, while their teachers Hillel and Shammai did not argue, and the Torah of Hillel is the same Torah of Shammai, and when the students divided into two groups, they should have been called by the name 'the stringent ones' and 'the lenient ones', or some other innovated name, but not based on the name of Hillel and Shammai, for not from them came the mishap of dispute*.My (presumably more conventional) assumption is that, though Hillel and Shammai agreed about most things, and indeed worked together in the Sanhedrin, they established their own respective academies. And these academies had students, and thus these were the Academies of Hillel and of Shammai.
Now, it is true that the takalah of machlokes did not come from Hillel and Shammai, whose Torah was identical. However, Hillel and Shammai only taught the law that applied in some cases. It is inevitable that some cases are not discussed, either for lack of time, lack of comprehensiveness, or lack of imagination. But when you have a body of law, you don't only know the conclusions. You also hopefully know, or develop, a system or a methodology which produces those conclusions. Thus, there are the laws as stated in the Rambam's Mishneh Torah, and schools of lomdus have arisen to explain those laws, and to explain surprising deviations within that law. There is cheftza vs. gavra, for example. And that analysis, and that sevara, not explicitly present in the Rambam's words, can then be applied to help address new or in-between cases that arise. Or in the gemara, you have a brayta or Mishna stating a Tannaitic dispute, and Amoraim suggest different motivations for the dispute. And depending on the motivation, there will be important nafka minahs for new cases. Why can't the height of a Succah exceed 20 cubits? If we adopt Rabbi Zera's explanation, about tzel succah vs. tzel defanos, then perhaps a wider succah, wider than 4 X 4 cubits, may exceed 20 cubits in height. This is within the give and take of the gemara itself.
So too Hillel and Shammai. They said the same laws. But given there very different personalities, they might have used different language to express those same laws. And then there were cases which were not explicitly covered, but relied upon the background system to produce those laws. And the students in the respective academies, due to not attending their teachers sufficiently, did not correctly grasp the system in many cases. In many cases, but not all or even the majority of cases. We only know of the disputes between Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai. But in the vast majority of cases, there is no dispute. Still, sometimes, one or the other did not correctly grasp the underlying system, and this produced a dispute.
Or, say what I said in the preceding paragraph, but without the need to say that there was a difference in the expression by Hillel and Shammai. Say instead (or as well) that in any academy, there is a culture of thought, and so in those gaps, the students discussed among themselves and created a system. And so, different systems arose in the two academies.
What about the following?
Besides which, according to what it seems, Hillel did not have specific students and Shammai have specific students. And so wrote as well the author of Sefer HaYochasin, and this is its language:I would say that R' Yochanan ben Zakkai was of the students of Hillel. But Hillel and Shammai had the same Torah, with only a few disputes between them, and so the next chain in the tradition, which until that point was Hillel and Shammai, was Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai. All sorts of other explanations are possible. For instance, he principally studied under Hillel but also learned a bit from Shammai.
For all of the students of Hillel were also to Shammai, for I have already seen that they said that there were 80 students to Hillel Hazaken, and R' Yochanan ben Zakkai was one of them. And despite that they say in Avos: R' Yochanan ben Zakkai received from Hillel and Shammai. For they were always om the bet midrash together, one as the Nasi and Shammai as the Av Bet Din. And so too all the pairs.
What of the general trend towards leniency vs. stringency? Shadal reads it as a deliberate application of their traits, taken from Hillel and Shammai. Thus, for instance:
From there extends that most of the students who did not serve [their teachers] sufficiently and cleaved to Hillel to learn his traits and to follow in his path, when they had a doubt in a matter of one of the chukkim or mishpatim, they chose to be lenient, in order to draw the common folk to Torah, so that the yoke upon their necks should not become too weighty, such that they might cast it off their necks entirely. And these students were called Bet Hillel, since they seized the path of Hillel, despite the fact that these details in which they argued did not come out to them from his [=Hillel's] mouth.I would imagine that some would label this as beyond the pale. But I would stress that Shadal is not saying that this one or that one perverted the law to be in accordance with their traits. He is not saying that where there is a Rabbinic will, there is a halachic way. Rather (at least in his particular examples), he is saying that there was room to establish a gzeira (or takkana) or not. They agreed what the primary Biblical law was, but the only question is what sort of institutions one should establish.
How would I account for Bet Shammai generally being more stringent than Bet Hillel? Well, Hillel and Shammai had drastically different personalities, which may have been reflected in how they presented the material. In turn, this would have influenced the models the students built up to support the data. Alternatively, certain types of people are drawn to teachers with certain personality types, more or less as Shadal wrote above. If so, the sorts of models they would come up to explain the data would reflect their personalities.
What about the occasional kulot of Bet Shammai and occasional chumrot of Bet Hillel? I think Shadal's explanation of it is a tad ridiculous. It is creative, I will grant. But it seems to me a bit farfetched, and a way of kvetching the data to to work with his theory.
Straightforwardly, I would just say that different underlying models produce chumros in one area and kulos in other areas. This is likely inevitable. And so, even if in most places, Bet Hillel is lenient, being consistent within the system entails endorsing certain stringencies over Bet Shammai's system. And this consistency is a positive, and intellectually and spiritually honest thing. Thus, one who simply adopts the leniencies of both systems is called a rasha.
I am not going to try to untangle the issue of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai as a student of Hillel and his student Rabbi Eliezer being labeled a Shammaite. There are ways to untangle it, certainly, but I don't feel compelled to resolve every single difficulty. I'll point to what someone wrote on Wikipedia about Rabbi Eliezer [ben Hyrcanus]:
The main feature of his teaching was a strict devotion to tradition: he objected to allowing the Midrash or the paraphrastic interpretation to pass as authority for religious practice. In this respect he sympathized with the conservative school of Shammai, which was also opposed to giving too much scope to the interpretation. Hence the assertion that he was a Shammaite, though he was a disciple of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, who was one of Hillel's most prominent pupils.
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