Rashi's house in Worms, Germany. Now a museum.

In this post, I would like to discuss Rashi, the greatest of commentators to the Torah and Talmud. “Rashi” is an acronym for the name Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, but Jewish tradition tells us it also stands for “rebbe shel Yisrael,” which means, “the teacher of the Jewish people.”

Rashi occupies a unique place in the Jewish world, on par with Moses. The sages who wrote the Mishnah and Talmud and even the Rambam were not the teachers of the entire Jewish people. They were the teachers of scholars, of those who were able to appreciate them.

Rashi is our kindergarten teacher. When little children learn his commentary on the Bible for the first time, it makes perfect sense to them. Then, as we graduate to Talmud, Rashi takes us by the hand and leads us through that vast sea of unpunctuated words, telling us, “The sentence ends here. This is what it means. This is the question. This is the answer.” So as we grow older and hopefully wiser, we realize that Rashi was not only our kindergarten teacher, Rashi signed our PhD.

But Rashi’s commentary is not just intellectual. His love of humanity shines through. There’s not one denigrating word in his entire commentary, which is an extraordinary accomplishment. Some teachers will wipe the floor with you. I’ve had a few. But effective teachers don’t holler. “Words of the wise men are heard when spoken softly.” _{(Ecclesiastes 9:7)} That’s Rashi. He’s soft-spoken. He’s gentle. He’s your friend.

Rashi began his magnum opus, his commentary to the Talmud, when he was a young man at the yeshiva in Mainz. The printing press had not been invented yet, so there were only a few copies of the Talmud available. Rashi’s correspondence mentions approximately one copy for every 25 students. So they studied by keeping notebooks on the lectures and sharing with each other. These notebooks then became even more important than the text because they explained what the text meant.

By the time Rashi entered the yeshiva in Mainz, it had existed for 65 years. Over those years, a general notebook had been composed – the work of three generations of students, called the Kuntres Mainz. But whereas many of the other students adopted the notebook whole, Rashi sought to improve it. From his youth until his last day, he kept rewriting, erasing, and adding words to it. That perfectionism is the mark of supreme intellectual honesty.

Much of Rashi’s commentary was not written in his own hand but by his daughters. He dictated, and they wrote down what he said. This explains, in part, his prodigious output. There are legends that his daughters sometimes corrected him. But whether true or not, it is without question that he raised his daughters as scholars in an age when most women were illiterate, and they helped promulgate his great commentary.

Rashi’s grandson Rabbeinu Tam said, “I could have written my grandfather’s commentary to the Talmud, but his commentary to the Bible is something unique.” Rashi made the Bible accessible to everybody – from the smallest child to the greatest scholar. How did he do it? As he tells us over and over again, “I am only coming to tell you the simple meaning of the text.” Rashi was not a philosopher. He just explained the meaning of each and every word, and from there, you can piece together the overall picture on your own level.

Rashi’s commentary is also interspersed with Talmudic legends, which are our bridge to Biblical times. With all due respect to archaeologists and their attempt to open a window to life back then, they may uncover genuine artifacts, but they haven’t got a clue as to what the Jewish people were like. A Jew does not feel a connection to King David by seeing his sword in the Israel Museum. A Jew connects to King David through the stories of the Bible, and those stories come to life through the Talmudic stories cited by Rashi.

It is no exaggeration to say that the Jewish people could not have made it through the exile without Torah. Torah gives us a connection to God, an understanding of where we come from, and why we’re here now. But without Rashi, the Torah would have been forgotten. And perhaps most amazingly of all, he lived during the First Crusade when the exile turned really bloody, yet he writes as though he’s sitting in the middle of paradise without a worry in the world except the simple meaning of the text.

That’s greatness. That’s our teacher. And that is how he preserved the Jewish people.

For more about the life of Rashi, please check out our film, Rashi: A Light After the Dark Ages.

Two Sephardic Jews with an Ashkenazi in Jerusalem, 1895

The two main pillars on which all of Jewish scholarship rests are Rashi and the Rambam (a/k/a Maimonides). They differed not only on issues of philosophy but in overall style and approach. Part of the reason for this is that Rashi was Ashkenazi and the Rambam was Sephardi. Each was a product of a distinct tradition.

Generally speaking, the Sephardic commentators looked at the broad picture of Judaism, the forest and not the trees. The Ashkenazim, on the other hand, focused more on the trees than the forest. They concentrated on words, nuances, and the nitty-gritty of the Talmudic give-and-take. Therefore, the Rambam’s writings are quintessentially intellectual and philosophical, whereas Rashi’s greatness is his ability to take you through the Torah and Talmud detail by detail, word by word.

These differences did not grow in a vacuum. They developed from specific historical forces. In terms of time, the Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities developed simultaneously, but in terms of experience, they lived in two completely different worlds. In order for us to really get a handle on them, we have to look at each one separately.

After the Jews were sent into exile in 70 CE, the main Jewish community in the Diaspora was Babylonia. It was the only place in the world where Christianity did not take over, and therefore, the Jews thrived there. They built their own yeshivas and lived autonomously. Thus, they were free to engage in the centuries of scholarship that produced the Talmud.

In the 9th century, the Jewish community in Babylonia began to decline, so many Jews went to North Africa, which was populated by two Moslem tribes: the Berbers and the Moors. The Berbers were fierce warriors, while the Moors were artisans, mathematicians, and merchants – the cutting edge of civilization. Together, they became a tremendous force in the world.

The Jews saw they had opportunity with them, particularly with the Moors, who were less religious and therefore, more tolerant. In other Moslem countries where the Jews lived, they had to accept the status of dhimmi, second-rate citizen. Their synagogues had to be unobtrusive, and they had to keep a low profile. All that changed with the Moors. Their alliance with the Jews lasted almost 400 years, and by the time the Moors were emigrating from North Africa into Spain, they brought along the Jews not as dhimmis, but as equals.

Thus, the Sephardic Jews lived in an open and intellectually advanced society. The study of philosophy abounded, so Sephardic Jewish scholarship became philosophical. The Jews also rose in public life, becoming government ministers. Maimonides was court physician to the Sultan of Egypt. Individual Jews sometimes suffered assaults from their Moslem neighbors, but there were no Crusades, no pogroms per se, no Holocaust.

Ashkenazi communities in Rashi's times

The Ashkenazic Jew, on the other hand, never had a good day. He lived in a primitive world full of constant danger. Western Europe had sunk into the Dark Ages; less than 1% of the population was literate. Even the great king Charlemagne, the first to invite the Jews to Europe, could not sign his own name.

Charlemagne extended his invitation to the Jews with the offer of land, equal rights, and imperial protection. A small group of Jews left Babylonia and settled in the German Rhineland, mostly in the cities of Worms, Speyers, and Mainz. But because the Church converted the native pagans, Christianity became a religion full of superstition and brutality. This, in part, gave rise to the Crusades and the pogroms of the Black Death. It’s mind-boggling that Ashkenazic Jewry survived those early centuries, but not only did it survive, it grew.

So, while the Sephardim viewed their Moslem neighbors as equals, the Ashkenazim looked at their illiterate Christian neighbors with disdain. They led an insular existence, and their sole intellectual pursuits were Torah and Talmud. And this is what accounts for the different traditions and characteristics of Sephardim and Ashkenazim.

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki

One of the tendencies of modern historiography is to debunk past heroes. Revisionist historians have blackened the names of some of the greatest people of the past by dwelling extensively on their human foibles and personal difficulties. Not only does this attitude reinforce the false idea that there are no real heroes in the world, it indirectly absolves all of us from ever attempting to be a hero.

One of the sources of this problem is the confusion of true heroism with infallibility. But Judaism teaches that there are no perfect people. The heroes of the Bible have faults and make errors in judgment, yet remain heroes because of their accomplishments and leadership.

Rabbi Moses ben Maimon

It is essential beyond words to preserve this concept of human heroism in our age. It has been cheapened by the elevation of celebrities and sports figures as heroes. But there is a great difference between being well-known and being heroic. True heroes weather the ravages of time and inspire people for generations after their departure from this world.

All of this is to point out two of the greatest heroes in Jewish history: Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak) and Maimoinides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon a/k/a the Rambam). It is over 900 years since Rashi’s passing and over 800 since Maimonides’, yet both of these great heroes of Judaism have stood the test of time well. It is no exaggeration to say that they are probably known to more people in our generation than they were in their own generations.

It is difficult to imagine the Jewish world without these two great heroes. How would we be able to study Torah and Talmud without the serene guidance of Rashi’s commentaries? Rashi is the master of concise language, deep insight, and sensitivity to the text and its readers. He anticipates the problems and difficulties, clears away the stumbling blocks, and effortlessly guides scholar and novice alike into the open plain of understanding of the wonders of the Torah and the Talmud. 900 years after his passing, Rashi remains fresh and alive – the teacher of Israel, the eternal hero of the Jewish people.

Similarly, Maimonides took the entire compendium of Jewish thought and scholarship that existed until his time and organized it so that its transmission to all future generations became easier and clearer. He codified all of Jewish law in his magnum opus, the Mishnah Torah. He blazed a path for Jewish philosophy in Moreh Nevuchim (i.e. The Guide to the Perplexed). He laid down the guidelines for Jews living under persecution in his correspondence with the Jews of Yemen. It is not for naught that the Jewish people say of him, “From Moses to Moses there arose none as great as Moses.”

Today’s celebrities will surely be replaced by others. But for the scholarship and wisdom that has preserved the Jewish people over the centuries, Rashi and Rambam will remain heroes to us for all seasons and all times.

For more on Rashi and Rambam, please see our films Rashi: A Light After the Dark Ages and Rambam: The Story of Maimonides.

German bankers carrying sacks of money, 1923. Photo by Georg Pahl. Published with permission from the German Federal Archive.

March 5, 1933 was the date of the election that gave the Nazis control of the Reichstag. Because of that, I’d like to discuss Hitler’s rise to power, which is one of the most dramatic and yet unbelievable stories in the history of man.

Hitler is a terrible example of how all of civilization can be irrevocably changed by the presence of one individual. The question is: How could Hitler have done what he did and why did the world let it happen? A study of history shows that the ground was prepared for him. He did not appear in a vacuum.

The German government after the First World War was called the Weimar Republic, controlled basically by two centrist parties, the Social Democratic Party and the Catholic Alliance. Because of the vengefulness of France and England after the war, Germany was required to pay tremendous war reparations. But the armistice allowed the reparations to be paid off in German currency, so in order to meet the payments, the Weimar Republic purposely debased their currency.

In other words, let’s say the German government had to pay a billion marks. A billion marks could, at one time, have been worth a billion dollars, but when you print a billion marks and just throw them out there, then a billion marks is worth ten cents. The Weimar Republic began printing money in denominations of billions and trillions.

That policy effectively knocked the reparations down, but it also destroyed the German middle class. People who had pensions or who lived on fixed incomes were left with nothing. People had to go grocery shopping with wheelbarrows full of money. It has become history’s classic case of hyperinflation. And most of all, it created a large class of dissatisfied people who hated the Weimar Republic.

Nazi propaganda poster that reads, "No one shall go hungry! No one shall go cold!" From the German Propaganda Archive, collected by Professor Randall Bytwerk of Calvin College.

In the midst of this turmoil, arose two extremes, each of whom wanted to topple the Weimar Republic. On the left were the Communists, and on the right were the “volkishe” parties, of which the Nazi party was only one. This was the fissure that cracked open German society. There were violent strikes in the streets, back and forth fighting, rioting, the red flag waving. People were killed. And the people of Germany, who feared Communism and abhor chaos, sided with the “volkishe” parties, who promised to establish law and order. Better to have law and order and break a few heads than to live with that chaos. In fact, part of the Nazis’ early success was that they mobilized most of the leftist street forces and brought them in under their banner. They performed just as well for Hitler as they would have for the Communists. There’s a certain identity of purpose and style with totalitarian dictators.

Hitler still may not have made it. The Nazi party was not a major force in German politics in the 1920’s. But then, destiny intervened with the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Depression wreaked havoc in Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people were unemployed. People were starving. And the Weimar Republic was incapable of dealing with it.

People want instantaneous, easy, solutions. They want a savior. They also want a scapegoat. Hitler provided both. He was the savior, and the Jews were the scapegoat. And that lethal message brought more death and destruction than was seen in all human civilization.

For more on the dramatic yet tragic 20th century, please check out our documentary film series, Faith and Fate.

Jerusalem today. Photo by David Shankbone.

History is made up of all sorts of interesting twists of fate, and the story of the development of Jerusalem is full of them.

It began with the “chance” meeting of Sir Moses Montefiore and Rabbi Shmuel Salant in Damascus. Sir Montefiore had just made his historic visit to Damascus to advocate on behalf of the Jews imprisoned in the Damascus blood libel. Rabbi Salant, originally from Eastern Europe, was en route to Jerusalem to make a new home for himself. From this “chance” meeting grew a friendship that would bring about the entire development of the city.

Sir Montefiore was a trustee of the will of the great Jewish philanthropist, Judah Touro. He passed away in 1854, leaving $300,000 to Jewish charities – an enormous sum in those times. The will specified that $50,000 should go to benefit the Jews of the city of Jerusalem, but it did not say precisely how. So with $50,000 burning a hole in his pocket, Sir Montefiore visited his friend Rabbi Salant in Jerusalem. The rabbi advised that they buy land outside the walls of the Old City because the Old City was getting too crowded.

Sir Montefiore approached a certain Arab about the purchase of the land and made him an enormously generous offer. The legend is that the Arab refused, saying, “I’ll never sell this land out of my family. I’ll give it to you, Sir Moses Montefiore, but I won’t sell it to you.”

Sir Montefiore was astute enough to know that this Arab wasn’t interested in giving the land away. So he approached him a second time, a third time, and a fourth time until finally the price hit the critical mark and the Arab said, “I won’t sell it, but if you’ll give the money toward ‘a good cause,’ then I’ll ‘give’ the land to you.”

Those were the terms on which the deal was struck.

The Montefiore Windmill today

The land he bought was right outside the walls of the Old City, 18,000 dunam in size, and they named it Neve Shaananim. The next neighborhood Sir Montefiore bought was called Yemin Moshe, named in his honor. There he built the famous windmill, which is still a tourist attraction today. Unfortunately, it has never been anything more than that. The plan was that it would be a grain-milling station that would provide employment for people, but the builder failed to realize that a windmill in dry, landlocked Jerusalem does not work the same way as the mills on the coast of Holland.

The problem was that the Arabs in those times were much like the Arabs now. Jews could not go out safely at night. People were reluctant to move out of the Old City, where they were protected by the walls. That was the significance of the name “Neve Shaananim,” which means “the home of those who are at peace.” In reality, after the apartments were built and the first settlers went to live there, the danger was so real that people would go to the new city during the day so that there would be a Jewish presence there, but at night, they would return to sleep within the Old City walls. And since Jerusalem was under the control of the Ottoman Turks, there were no policemen for the Jews to appeal to. Therefore, it was not until 1872 that a group of seven young families agreed to buy land outside the walls and actually sleep there at night. That neighborhood is called Nachlat Shiva, “the inheritance of the seven.” It was no-man’s land between 1948 and 1967, but it was the first Jewish presence that took hold outside the Old City.

Bikur Cholim Hospital today

Another great accomplishment of this remarkable team was the founding of Jerusalem’s first hospital, Bikur Cholim Hospital. Sir Montefiore purchased the building and supplied drugs and equipment from Europe, items which were scarce if not non-existent under the Ottoman Empire. And the hospital proved its worth in 1866 when there was a terrible cholera outbreak in Jerusalem in which hundreds of people died. The hospital tended to Jew and Arab alike, though it was primitive medicine. In fact, for the first thirty years, the hospital did not even have a registered doctor, but it was still some sort of place for the sick. It exists today, though no longer in its original location in the Old City. It is best known for its neo-natal unit.

Sir Montefiore, Rabbi Shmuel Salant, and the rabbi’s son Binyamin Beinish continued to develop Jerusalem for the rest of their lives. In fact, in 1909, months before Rabbi Salant passed away, he laid the cornerstone for the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shaarei Chesed, where I live now. He was old, weak, and blind, but he would not miss the dedication of a new neighborhood. And that was their life’s work; under them, Jerusalem multiplied a thousand fold. Without them, it would not be what it is today.

Dr. Gideon Mer, 1938

Notwithstanding all of the economic progress of Rosh Pina in the early 1900’s, there were great social and administrative tensions within the settlement. Due to the constant strife between the administrators and citizens, the Baron finally tired of the enterprise and eventually withdrew his financial support. The silk industry also faltered; silkworms require a great deal of tender loving care, though some of the original mulberry trees may still be seen, verdant and flourishing, today.

By the beginning of the First World War, Rosh Pina had reverted to its original, rather primitive agricultural base. The winery and the tobacco industry were matters of the past. By 1917, when the Turkish army was being driven from the country by the British Force under General Allenby, the Jewish population throughout the land of Israel declined. Rosh Pina dwindled to about 100 people, and most of the fields lay fallow. Many of the buildings were deserted and deteriorating. But in spite of these setbacks, a new spirit of optimism, fueled by the Balfour Declaration and the ensuing British Mandate over Palestine, swept the Jewish settlements in Palestine, Rosh Pina included.

In the 1920’s the “new” settlement of Rosh Pina began, mainly with the addition of immigrants from Eastern Europe who were imbued with the socialist-Zionist ideology of the time. Slowly, the agricultural base of the settlement again expanded, and its population grew. However, the scourge of that area of the Galilee struck: malaria. The swamps of nearby Huleh Lake were a natural breeding ground for the mosquitoes that transmitted the dreaded disease. Many areas of the land of Israel were afflicted with the epidemic. But it was in Rosh Pina that an enterprising medical researcher, Dr. Gideon Mer, established a research laboratory dedicated to the task of eliminating malaria from the country. In order to further his experiments, Dr. Mer even allowed himself and some of his family to be infected by malaria. Eventually, his research bore fruit, and through his pioneering efforts, the spread of the malaria epidemic was reversed. Eventually, the scourge of the disease was eliminated from the land of Israel entirely. Dr. Mer went on to serve as an expert in the British Army Medical Corps, fighting malaria in Africa and Asia. Needless to say, Dr. Mer’s accomplishment brought Rosh Pina fame and positive publicity.

The residents of Rosh Pina were always on good terms with the inhabitants of the larger, neighboring Arab town of Ja’ouneh for seventy years. In 1948, Ja’ouneh was home to 4500 people. But when the Arab armies of Lebanon and Syria invaded the Galilee in 1948, the Arab High Command ordered the Arabs of Ja’ouneh to leave their homes for a few weeks in order to help facilitate the Arab conquest of Jewish Palestine. The Arab High Command warned the Arabs of Ja’ouneh not to be swayed by the entreaties of their Jewish neighbors of Rosh Pina to stay put. So one night in the spring of 1948, all of the residents of Ja’ouneh left their village and crossed over into Lebanon. They never returned, and the village and buildings of the town slowly disappeared from the face of the earth.

After the establishment of the state of Israel, Rosh Pina accommodated new immigrants from all over the world. It continued as an agricultural settlement, but also became a town of professionals who worked outside of the community. The old sections of Rosh Pina, the buildings built by Baron Rothschild in the 1880’s, gradually fell into ruin as the citizens of Rosh Pina built new housing for themselves in newly-established neighborhoods.

Rosh Pina today

In 1978, a council came into being to help foster the restoration and preservation of the “old” Rosh Pina and to turn the site into an attractive tourist locality. The village is currently thriving and is a beautiful and memorable place to visit. Put it on your itinerary for your next visit to the Galilee. You will see, in a microcosm but nevertheless in full reality, the fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy that “the stone that the builders had rejected has now become the top cornerstone, the rosh pina.”

Rosh Pina, early 20th century

Years ago, I visited the northern village of Rosh Pina, and because its story represents in a microcosm the story of the Jewish settlement in the land of Israel, I want to focus on it now.

In 1878, a group of eighteen young and idealistic yeshiva students from Safed left their home city and decided to find an agricultural settlement where they would earn their livelihood by tilling the soil part of the day and studying the rest. They had no practical experience in farming, but they were willing to learn and felt that enthusiasm would overcome all obstacles. With the meager financial resources that they possessed, they purchased land from the local Arabs near the village of Ja’ouneh. They named their little farming settlement Gai Oni (literally, “the valley of my strength”) because of its similar sound to Ja’ouneh.

The young men were really raw to farming. They planted potatoes and were crushed when the expected crop did not appear on the surface of their fields. Disappointed, they turned over the soil in order to plant a new crop and discovered their precious potatoes growing in the ground! But in spite of this early success, they could not make a go of their venture, and faced with disease and hunger, they disbanded three years later. Most returned to Safed, but two or three remained, hoping for a miracle that would allow them to continue with the development of the farming settlement.

At around this time, the movement called “the Lovers of Zion,” was founded. Predating Herzl’s movement, its sole aim was to support Jewish immigration to the land of Israel. Unlike Herzl’s movement, it had no aspirations for a Jewish state. In 1882, some members of this group arrived at Gai Oni and decided to settle there. They renamed the village “Rosh Pina,” which means “the top cornerstone.” The name was taken from the verse in Psalms that reads: “The stone that the builders had rejected has now become the top cornerstone.”

The realities of Rosh Pina were no less difficult and painful than they were for Gai Oni. By 1883, the settlement was once again faced with ruin and abandonment.

Then appeared on the scene one of the wondrous personalities of Jewish life: Baron Edmond de Rothschild. He adopted the settlement and extended to it his patronage and wealth. But there are no free lunches, and together with the Baron’s largesse came his administrators, mainly French Jews who looked down with scorn on their Eastern European brethren. The numerous complaints Baron Rothschild received from the residents about the behavior of his administrators brought only sporadic relief to the tense situation.

In spite of this, the community prospered. By 1900, the settlement numbered over 500. It included an administration building, a school, a synagogue, and other public buildings. The agricultural effort was now deflected from potatoes to tobacco and mulberry trees (for the cultivation of silkworms that would produce silk). A winery, the Baron’s favorite agricultural industry, was also constructed, and soon wine bottling and sales began.

And so, by the first decade of the 20th century, Rosh Pina became the center of Jewish settlement in the Galilee.

The Tombs of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan, Iran. Photo by Nick Taylor.

The victory for the Jews in Purim comes about through King Ahasuerus marriage to Esther, one of the strangest, most unlikely stories imaginable. Esther, a woman of great modesty and piety, is taken against her will to join a beauty contest to be forced to sleep with the King Ahasuerus.

The Talmud describes that Esther was a completely passive participant in the matter, something which should have diminished her chances of winning over the king. Again, we are talking here about an oriental potentate. Women were not in any great shortage as far as he was concerned. That he should end up marrying poor, gentle Esther is itself one of the great ironies of history.

The Zohar, the great book of Kabbala, states that Esther was miraculously saved from the ministrations of Ahasuerus. Through a disembodied spirit, Ahasuerus “lived with” her, but it was not her actual body. And so, he makes Esther his queen.

The king is a very jealous person. After a while, he realizes that Haman not only means to take over the government, he suspects he wants to steal Esther as well.

What tips Ahasuerus off about Haman’s intentions, at least regarding political power, is his answer to the question, “How should I honor my most loyal servant?” When Haman hears that, he thinks, “Who else is entitled to honor other than me? The king must have me in mind!” That is the arrogance and conceit of power.

Esther, together with Mordechai, is wise enough to exploit it. And the other power brokers in Ahasuerus’ court also take advantage. When someone rises to high power in the court of an oriental potentate, it is certain that there are plenty of lesser officials ready to shoot him down. So while the Jewish people do not have friends, there are people who are willing to take up the cudgel against Haman.

It reminds me of the United Nations vote that proclaimed the state of Israel. The Cold War was on, yet the Soviet Union and the U.S. were on the same side of the issue, each for a different reason. Russia wanted England out of Palestine, and Stalin believed that since Ben Gurion was a socialist, the Jewish state would support Soviet interests. This was a grave misjudgment about Ben Gurion, who, though a socialist, was above all a pragmatist. He aligned himself with the West from the beginning. So everyone was at cross-purposes, but it worked out in the best possible way for the Jews.

Similarly, in the Purim story, all sorts of methods events came together to bring about the desired goal of saving the Jewish people. Ultimately, Purim teaches how indestructible the Jewish people really are.

Solomon enunciated the principle, “God creates one thing opposite another” (Ecclesiastes 7:14), which means that God always balances things out. When evil arises in the world a corresponding good arrives with it. This was the situation beginning in the decades just before the Common Era. At the same time that the murderous madman Herod came to power God gave to the Jewish people a man whose goodness offset – more than offset — his evil. That man was Hillel.

In the discussion we will have of early Christianity we will see that much of the personality that the early Jewish-Christians used to describe their founder is really borrowed from the personality of Hillel. They did so to try to gain a certain amount of acceptance among the Jewish people.

In any event, Hillel was the gentlest, kindest and most patient of people. His influence is felt throughout the world until today.

Hillel the Babylonian

The Talmud sometimes refers to him as “Hillel the Babylonian,” which refers to the fact that he came from Babylon originally. While war, chaos and turmoil reigned in Judea the Jewish Babylonian community was relatively stable, tranquil and churning out great Torah scholars. Hillel was one of them.

Hillel actually came twice to Judea. The first was in his youth and he studied in the Academy of Shamaya and Avtalyon, who were converts (or descendants of converts). He left Judea when Herod came to power, as did many Torah scholars whom he persecuted horrifically. Most departed for Egypt or Babylonia. Hillel returned to his home in Babylon.

It is not known exactly when and under what circumstances he returned to Judea the second time. Whenever it was, this time Hillel returned as a fully developed scholar, albeit someone whose stature was unknown at first (see Pesachim 66a).

Hillel was descended from the House of David. The House of Hillel, in fact, will rule longer than the House of David, a total of more than 400 years. From Hillel’s time onward, for 15 consecutive generations, the “Prince” — the leader of the Jewish people – would be a direct descendant of Hillel.

With Hillel the leadership of the people passed out of the hands of the Hasmoneans — who were priests (i.e. descendants of Aaron the Levite) — back to the House of David, the tribe of Judah, as the Torah prescribed (Genesis 49:10) and previous generations of Pharisees had tried to implement.

Hillel’s Innovative Attitude Toward Politics

Until the time of Hillel, the leading scholars often had political and even military clout, and believed it their duty to exert it, taking the king and government on head-on. Hillel decided that that approach would not work with a madman like Herod. It would only lead to a bloodbath. So Hillel withdrew from the fray. He said, in effect, that the task of the sages was to build the Jewish world from within. Herod and Romans would not prevail anyway in the long run.

One of Hillel’s famous aphorisms was uttered one day when he saw a skull floating on the water: “Because you drowned [i.e. murdered], you were drowned, and in the end those who drowned you will be drowned” (Pirkei Avos 2:7). In the broader sense, that really was Hillel’s national policy. History exacts its own retribution. Evil will not stand forever. Eventually it will fall. Therefore, we need not confront it head on. We need not destroy the Jewish people while we are trying to save the Jewish people. If Herod will afford us the freedom to develop our own unique, Jewish spiritual life, then we need not oppose him openly.

That was a new departure.

Herod never quite figured out that Hillel had outfoxed him. Hillel had gained the love and respect of the people – a love and respect that Herod never had, and that he desperately wished to have. In effect, Hillel had built up a parallel system of government that co-existed with Herod’s. And the Jewish people were more loyal to the “Kingdom” of Hillel than they were to the Kingdom of Herod.

Hillel and Shamai

Shamai was Hillel’s contemporary. Whereas Hillel was born in Babylon and poor, Shamai was born in Judea and wealthy. More than that, Shamai had a completely different personality than Hillel. Nevertheless, with their diametrically opposite styles, together Hillel and Shamai steered the Jewish people through one of its most troubling periods — and it was more than troubling in just an outward, political sense.

Until the time of Hillel and Shamai, Jewish law was always agreed upon; differences of opinion were settled by the Sanhedrin. Nevertheless, from the time of Hillel and Shamai onward the strain on the Jewish people and their educational system were so great that new, monumental disputes in many areas arose among the Jewish intellectual leadership.

Hillel and Shamai had a minimum amount of legal disagreements between themselves; only three, in fact. However, each founded his own renowned academy of Torah learning and there arose numerous and contentious disagreements (312 to be precise) among the disciples. Eventually, it went beyond the mere number of disputes and became almost two diametrically opposed viewpoints.

There is a danger to oversimplify this, but generally the Academy of Shamai is thought to be stringent where the Academy of Hillel tends to be lenient. Generally, the Academy of Shamai looks at the potential whereas the Academy of Hillel looks at the actual. There are many theories advanced in the Jewish authorities throughout the centuries attempting to explain the central core of their disputes.

The greatness of the Academies of Shamai and Hillel is that despite their serious differences they married between themselves, ate by each other and generally behaved as one people. There was a difference in education and outlook, but not in lifestyle. That was the key.

In the world of the Torah scholars, a meritocracy and democracy prevailed. Their differences were eventually decided democratically by majority vote and the Talmud concluded that the law follows the opinion of the Academy of Hillel (with few exceptions).[1]

Mass Conversion in the Roman World

The turbulence in the Jewish world at the time of the rise of Herod paralleled in many ways the turbulence in the Roman world. As people in the Jewish world turned more and more to the world of the spirit, the Roman world, too, experienced a type of soul searching that, first, manifested as disillusionment with paganism, and, then a wide-spread interest in Judaism.

The Jewish population in the world at the beginning of the reign of Herod was approximately four to six million. A century later, after the destruction of the Temple, there were almost ten million Jews, representing an enormous increase.[2] The reason was not simply related to an increased birth rate, but that hundreds of thousands – if not millions – converted to Judaism. It was a time of mass conversion in the Roman world.

Roman historians wrote that approximately one out of every ten people in the Roman Empire was Jewish. Today, Jews are about an eighth of one percent of the world population. One can imagine the influence Jews had when they were ten percent.

The main reason is simple: Roman paganism began to break down. It was a victim of its own success. The Romans had developed their own culture with their own provincial ways. As their empire expanded they came into contact with a great and wide world. Suddenly, belief in all of their superstitions and fairy tales began to seem petty and empty. People who were enlightened enough to impose the Pax Romana (“Roman Peace”) on the world suddenly found it very hard to swallow their own religion.

The Jews held almost a fatal attraction for the Romans. Much of the Roman upper class converted to Judaism. If the Jews would have waived the requirement of circumcision who knows how many Romans would have become Jewish. Later, Paul — one of the leaders of early Christianity — would capitalize on that to win adherents to his new religion. In effect, Paul told them that they could have all the benefits of Judaism without any of the pain and liability.

The Talmud discusses how non-Jews came to Hillel seeking conversion with outlandish conditions. Nevertheless, Hillel found ways of convincing them to convert. That does not mean he converted people at random or without requirements. But, it demonstrates how it was a time of mass conversion.

Even more remarkable is that it happened despite the fact that Judaism is not a proselytizing religion; it does not go out and look for non-Jews to become Jewish. Nevertheless, this was an exceptional period that lasted 100 to 150 years in which the Jewish population perhaps doubled. That was mainly because of converts.

Many Jewish commentators attribute it to the fact that Hillel himself had been a student of converts (Shamaya and Avtalyon) and was thus partial to converts. Hillel’s support of his teachers – his constant quoting of them and attributing his knowledge to them – strengthened this movement of converts throughout the Jewish people.

In either event, this infusion of outside blood in such a relatively short period of time remains one of the unique phenomena of Jewish history.

In times of terrible crisis, God provides singular people who enable the Jewish people to survive. Hillel was such a person. He arrived as a counter-balance to the madman Herod. His strength of character and nobility of spirit was the inspiration of the Jewish people not only of his generation, but of Jews even today 2,000 years later. It was Hillel, not Herod, who reestablished the true Kingdom of the Jews, which is the Kingdom of Torah, of goodness and kindness.

[2] According to other estimates, there were three or four million Jews in the century before the destruction and six million afterward.

The end of the era of the Hasmoneans is probably the most turbulent time in Jewish history. It is hard to imagine a “Jewish” government more antithetical to Jewish principles and ideals than that of Herod and his successors, whose murderous, tyrannical ways would eventually lead to the destruction of the Temple and the beginning of the long exile that Jews find themselves in.

It is no coincidence that the turmoil of the post-Hasmonean period coincided with rise of Rome and its intrusion into Jewish affairs. In essence, the leaders of the Jewish state were mirror images of Roman leaders and politicians, espousing Roman values, including pursuit of power at any cost and the disregard for life.

Hail Caesar

After Julius Caesar defeated his arch-rival Pompey, he abolished the semi-democratic nature of the Roman system of government and established himself as Emperor/Dictator with absolute powers.

Pompey had earlier divided Judea into five sections, in effect making a small country even weaker and easier to control. Only three of the five areas were Jewish: the Galilee, Jerusalem and Jericho.

Pompey not only hemmed the Jews into these areas, but lopped off from the Jewish state the entire seacoast. In place of Jews, he settled Greek, Roman and other foreign peoples. Temples to Jupiter and other gods dominated these cities. Jewish places of worship and life were virtually nil. Beforehand, only Caesarea and Ashkelon were Greek/Roman seacoast cities. Now there were a good 20 foreign cities on the shores of the Mediterranean.

When Caesar came to power, he revoked the harsh decrees and burdensome taxes imposed on the Jews by Pompey, allowed the walls and fortifications of Jerusalem to be rebuilt and restored a number of other coastal cities to Jewish rule.

He also realigned the political leadership of the land. Hyrcanus — the man who had been king and expected to be made king again — had helped Caesar defeat Pompey. Caesar restored him to the position of High Priest and permitted him to bear the title “Prince,” but not “King.” Instead, he gave the real power to Antipater, the man who had been Hyrcanus’ advisor.

Antipater was an Idumean, a non-Jew whose ancestors had been forcibly converted to Judaism. Forcible conversion is against Jewish law and thus their mass conversion was not considered valid by the Jewish authorities (the Pharisees). However, Jewish law did not stop the Sadducee-influenced rulership of the time from conducting the conversions.

Now the impropriety of that unauthorized action would come back to haunt the Jewish people.

Herod’s Beginnings

Herod grew up in Rome where he was given a full Roman education and formed friendships with children of the Caesar, establishing great connections that would serve him later. He had a magnetic personality and was a genius in many ways. However, he also exhibited signs of mental illness and schizophrenia. At his worst, he was a certified madman prone to extreme violence aimed against foe and friend.

Antipater ruled from Jerusalem. Around the year 46 BCE, he managed to get his two sons – Herod and his brother Phasael — appointed governor of each of the other Jewish provinces, Jericho and the Galilee: Phasael over Jericho and Herod over the Galilee. Herod was only in his twenties at the time.

From the beginning, he established himself as a great builder. The remnants of his fortresses can still be seen today. Many of these were later rebuilt by the Crusaders when they came over a thousand years later. In fact, many of these fortresses were even later rebuilt by the British in the early 1900s. The reason was because all of Herod’s almost impregnable fortresses were strategically placed, overlooking main roads. The irony is that all of these fortresses, which Herod built under Roman auspices (albeit with Jewish money, slaves and builders), would be used by the Jews to fight the Romans about a century later.

Et Tu Brute?

Meanwhile, back in Rome, jealous senators fearing limitations on their own power (and wealth) schemed against Caesar. Brutus, head of the Roman Senate, conspired with other senators to assassinate Caesar (in 44 BCE) in an act that became immortalized by Shakespeare’s play and other literary works.

It was a cataclysmic event in the Roman Empire. Caesar had been enormously popular. His assassination set off shock-waves throughout the Empire.

Eventually, a Triumvirate was appointed to rule Rome. Its two most powerful members were Marc Antony and Octavian (also sometimes referred to as Octavius), who later took on the name Augustus, which in Latin means all-powerful and all-respected. The Romans were not known for their modesty.

In the year 42 BCE, the forces of Brutus and his partner Cassius contested the forces of Marc Antony and Octavian for control of the Roman Empire. There was a great battle at Philippi (in modern-day Turkey, near Greece). Antony and Octavian won, causing the deaths of Brutus and Cassius in the process.

Herod’s Revenge, Part I (of Many Parts)

A few months before the battle, Antipater was poisoned. It was very dangerous to eat in those days[1] — especially if you were a Roman official.

Herod suspected that his father had been poisoned by the men of Hyrcanus, and swore revenge. A rebellion rose to depose Herod, but he prevailed, captured the leaders and executed them publicly without trial in a barbaric fashion.

The Sanhedrin in Jerusalem sent him a summons to stand trial before them. There then ensued one of the great confrontations in Jewish history.

Herod came to Jerusalem, but with an armed guard. No one on the Sanhedrin wanted to stand up to him — except for Shamai, the head of the Sanhedrin. This was the great Shamai, the contemporary of Hillel, who was known for his unyielding strength.

“Herod, stand on your feet,” he said.

Unfortunately, none of the other judges supported him. As a result, the trial was postponed to the next day, something the Sanhedrin never did.

Hyrcanus, well known for his weakness of character, visited Herod at night and struck a deal. Rather than a head-on confrontation, he told Herod to leave and allow him to smooth it over with the Sanhedrin. The unspoken part of the deal was that if Herod came to power, he and Hyrcanus would be partners in running the country.

Herod slipped away from Jerusalem, never to face the Sanhedrin again. However, he remembered every member of the Sanhedrin and when the day would come they would all pay the price – except for Shamai. Herod punished them for their weakness, but let Shamai live out of respect for his strength.

A Real Life Soap Opera

After the battle of Philippi, Marc Antony and Octavian divided the Roman Empire between themselves. Antony took the eastern half, with its headquarters in Alexandria, while Octavian remained in Rome.

Antony then married Cleopatra, which is another event made world-famous in subsequent literature. She was a schemer equal to any Roman. When the snake bit her you did not know who got poisoned. Antony fell completely under her spell.

The Hasmoneans decided to take a calculated risk and bet that Cleopatra would convince Marc Antony to remove Herod, whom she hated. Antony indeed called him to trial. This time Herod could not bring his armed guard along.

Nevertheless, during the course of the trial Marc Antony became convinced that Herod was much more valuable to him alive than dead. (Josephus writes that Herod bribed Marc Antony.) Despite Cleopatra, and all the evidence to the contrary, he not only reconfirmed Herod as ruler of the Galilee but as the ruler in Jerusalem as well.

Herod emerged from this in a much stronger position than before.

Pax Romana

Then a tremendous war broke out between Antony and Octavian. It would be the last of the great civil wars in Rome. The next 250 years are what are called in Roman history as Pax Romana, “Roman Peace.” In truth it was no peace – but it was not civil war at least. The man who brought Pax Romana into being was Octavian/Augustus. He is the one who emerged victorious in the battle with Marc Antony and united the entire Empire.

Herod had bet on the wrong horse, Marc Antony. Once more, Jews felt that here was another chance to get rid of Herod.

At that time the Parthian Empire – who ruled the area that today encompasses Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India — decided to strike back at its old enemy, the Romans. They attacked the legions in Asia Minor and defeated them. Then they captured Damascus and came all the way to Judea and laid siege to Jerusalem.

The city fell and they killed Phasael. However, Herod escaped. The Parthians then appointed Mattathias Antigonus (son of Aristobulus) the High Priest and crowned him king.

Once more, a Hasmonean ruled in Jerusalem. Coins from the period have survived. On one side of the ancient coins are the words, “Mattathias Antigonus, High Priest and Compatriot of the Judeans.” On the other side of the coin was the Menorah, which was the symbol of the Jewish people in the ancient world. The modern Israeli government patterned its coins after those from the time of Mattathias Antigonus (and Bar Kokhba).

Herod’s Nine Lives

The story of Herod should have ended there, however, like a cat he had many lives. He had been the enemy of Octavian/Augustus, now the undisputed Emperor of Rome. The Parthians, who had invaded the country, were looking for him and would have killed him had they found him. The Jews, too, were looking for him to turn him over.

Josephus tells us that for a year Herod disguised himself and traveled to Rome in what can only be described as a series of adventures on par with Homer’s The Odyssey. Then, he had the audacity to seek an audience with Octavian, which he was granted. He identified himself as Herod and admitted that he had been on the side of Marc Antony, but he was now ready to serve Octavian. He convinced him that he was not going to get a better man than him to do his bidding.

Remarkably, Octavian agreed and gave Herod not just Jerusalem or the Galilee but all of Judea! He was going to unite all five provinces back into one with Herod as king. Furthermore, he gave him two Roman legions to secure his throne.

However, it was a Faustian deal. He only gave it to Herod because Herod would be his king, not king of the Jews. To guarantee it he took Herod’s two sons. They were to be educated in Roman ways, as he had been, but in effect they were hostages.

Herod joined the two legions into Judea as they besieged Jerusalem. Jerusalem had already been besieged by the brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobulus; it was then besieged by Pompey; it was besieged again in the war with the Parthians. And how it was besieged by Herod. Even before the outcome the morale of the population was sapped.

Herod prevailed and beheaded Mattathias Antigonus, whose reign lasted two years (until the year 37 BCE). He also took revenge on those who killed his brother Phasael, as well as the members of the Sanhedrin.

According to Josephus, over 13,000 “political prisoners” were killed by Herod after the siege. Finally, he now sat as the undisputed ruler on the throne of Judea.

The Last of the Hasmoneans

Even though Herod was a certified madman and murderer he had moments of genuine concern about the welfare of the country and the desire to be loved. In the end, he wanted to be Jewish. He was just not willing to give up his grandiose dreams to do anything about it.

To further reinforce his claims to the throne, as well as the illusory claim that he was part of the Hasmonean Dynasty, Herod prevailed upon Hyrcanus to give him his granddaughter, Mariamne (Miriam), in marriage. It appears from Josephus and Roman historical accounts that Herod truly loved her. However, it was unrequited. She viewed herself as the victim of an arranged marriage.

Distraught, Mariamne attempted to commit suicide, but was unsuccessful. Herod then had her tried and executed. According to the Talmud (Baba Basra 3a), the last Hasmonean was a young princess, and upon hearing that Herod intended to marry her and make her queen she committed suicide. Herod preserved her body in honey so that he could claim that he wed the daughter of a royal house.

No one held any illusions that Herod was anything but a raving lunatic. The problem was that he was still the king – and would remain so for more than a decade.

In any event, no living remnant of the Hasmoneans was left alive. The Talmud (Kiddushin 70b) declared that anyone who claimed to be from the House of the Hasmoneans was really descended from slaves.

Eventually, the people realized that there was no good way to contend with Herod or the political institutions, such as the priesthood, that he controlled. As a result, they no longer looked for spiritual guidance and support from the government or the official priesthood (controlled by the Sadducees), but from the great Torah leaders (the Pharisees).

The real power over the people gradually shifted from the formal institutions of State to “unofficial” and humble leaders like Hillel and Shamai. They would be the ones to offer the people inner strength and substance; to give them a reason to hope in a bloody, hollow Roman world gone mad.