JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ple, with regard to spiced oil, Bet Shammai declares it liable
to tithing by one who buys it from an *am ha-areẓ (a person
who in his ignorance is not scrupulous in observing the laws
concerning priestly and levitical dues), whereas Bet Hillel
exempts it (Dem. 1:3). If one slaughters with a scythe with a
forward movement (i.e., not against the serrated edge), Bet
Shammai maintains that the slaughtering is invalid, while Bet
Hillel declares it valid (Ḥul. 1:2).
(3) Halakhic Midrashim. For example, Bet Shammai
maintains that in the evening a man should recline (on his
side) and recite the Shema, and in the morning he should
stand, according to the verse (Deut. 6:7), “When thou liest
down, and when thou risest up.” Bet Hillel, however, declares
that a man should recite it as it suits him, since it states (ibid.),
“When thou walkest by the way.” Why then does the biblical
verse state, “When thou liest down, and when thou risest up?”
This means at the times when people customarily lie down and
at the time they rise up (Ber. 1:3). Again, Bet Shammai states:
“A man should not divorce his wife unless he finds some unchastity
in her, since it says: ‘because he hath found some unseemly
thing in her” (Deut. 24:1), but Bet Hillel states: even if
she has merely spoilt his food, since it says: “because he hath
found something unseemly in her” (i.e., anything the husband
personally finds unfitting) (Git. 9:10).
(4) Aggadah, religious philosophy, and ethics. For example,
Bet Shammai asserts that it were better if man had not
been created at all, whereas Bet Hillel maintains that it is better
for man to have been created than not (Er. 13b).
Only three controversies between Hillel and Shammai
themselves have been preserved, but more than 350 are reported
between Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai, most of which
are in the Zera’im, Mo’ed, Nashim, and Tohorot sections of
the Mishnah. They deal with personal life, with blessings and
prayers, the separation of priestly dues and tithes, marriage
and divorce, levitical cleanness and abstinence, and in a very
few instances with sacrifices and the priestly service, and with
civil and capital cases. In some of these controversies Shammai
himself disputes the opinions of both Bet Shammai and
Bet Hillel (Eduy. 1:7, 8, 10, 11). In several instances where the
view opposed to that of Bet Shammai is quoted anonymously
(tanna kamma) or in the name of the sages (Ber. 6:5; Dem.
3:1), the version is late as this is how the opinion of Bet Hillel
was recorded after it had been adopted as the definitive ruling.
Proof of this is found in a number of cases where the view of
the tanna kamma or of the sages quoted in a Mishnah occurs
in a baraita as that of Bet Hillel (cf. Ter. 4:3, with Tosef., Ter.
5:3, et al.). Generally, Bet Shammai is mentioned before Bet
Hillel, and tradition sees in this an expression of the latter’s
humility (Er. 13b).
Many of the controversies between the two schools took
place in Second Temple times. There is, for example, the argument
whether on a festival hands could be laid on burnt
and peace offerings, a subject on which Hillel and Shammai
themselves held conflicting views (*Semikhah on Sacrifices). A
dispute concerning this halakhah took place in the forecourt
bet hillel and bet shammai
of the Temple between Hillel and the pupils of Bet Shammai,
and between them and those of Bet Hillel. On this question,
the halakhah was decided during the existence of the Second
Temple (Ḥag. 2:3; Tosef., Ḥag. 2:10–12; and parallel passages).
During this period Bet Shammai once achieved ascendancy
over Bet Hillel in the Temple Chamber of Hananiah b. Hezekiah
b. Garon with the adoption of the “Eighteen Measures” –
restrictive decrees that increased the barrier between Jews and
non-Jews (TJ, Shab. 1:7, 3c; and parallel passages). This event
is believed by several scholars to have taken place shortly before
the destruction of the Second Temple. The early date of
other controversies is evident from the conflicting views of
tannaim living in the period of the destruction of the Second
Temple in formulating the disputes between Bet Shammai
and Bet Hillel (Tosef., Pe’ah 3:2). There are, however, controversies
about problems raised by the destruction of the Temple,
e.g., procedure at the time of removal of *ma’aser sheni
(Ma’as. Sh. 5:7).
Very little is known about the identity of the pupils of
Hillel and Shammai. A baraita states that “Hillel the Elder
had eighty disciples… the greatest of them was *Jonathan b.
Uzziel, the least *Johanan b. Zakkai” (Suk. 28a). None of the
teachings of Jonathan b. Uzziel has been preserved, and while
Johanan b. Zakkai’s statements reflect the outlook of Bet Hillel,
it is difficult, as a matter of chronology, to assume that he
studied under Hillel himself. Several of Shammai’s pupils are
known, most of them from the period of the Second Temple,
their connection with Bet Shammai being stressed in tannaitic
literature. They are Bava b. Buta, a contemporary of Hillel
(Tosef., Ḥag. 2:11; and parallel passages); Dostai of Kefar Yatmah
who transmitted a tradition he had heard from Shammai
(Or. 2:5); Joezer, master of the Temple, who once put a question
to Gamaliel the Elder in the Temple court (Or. 2:12); and
Johanan b. ha-Ḥoranit of the generation of the destruction of
the Temple (Tosef., Suk. 2:3). Sometimes “the elders of” Bet
Shammai and Bet Hillel are mentioned (Suk. 2:7; Tosef. RH
4:11; Men. 41b et al.). According to a genizah fragment of Sifrei
Zuta on Ḥukkat (Tarbiz, 1 (1930), 52), Bet Shammai had
Idumean pupils, their halakhic statements corresponding to
those of R. Judah who taught the view of Eliezer b. Hyrcanus
“ha-Shammuti” (Men. 18a). According to Rashi, Nid. 7b, this
refers to the fact that R. Eliezer was excommunicated, but
this interpretation is inacceptable. As Tos. in loc points out,
it means “a Shammaite” (cf. also Rashi to Shab. 132b, where
he gives this as an alternative). Eleazar b. Hananiah, the general
for Idumea in the Jewish War against the Romans (Jos.,
Wars, 2:566), also followed the line of Shammai (cf. Mekh.,
Ba-Ḥodesh, 7 with Beẓah 16a).
The circumstance that gave rise to the two schools is
given in a tannaitic tradition: “At first there were no controversies
in Israel…. When anyone had need of a halakhah he
went to the Great Sanhedrin…. If they had heard (such a halakhah),
they informed him of it, but if not, they decided the
matter by taking a vote…. From there the halakhah would
spread in Israel. With the increase in the pupils of Shammai
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 531