Shammai says: Make your Torah fixed; say little and do much; and receive everybody with a smile on your face.
1:
For the last several mishnayot we have been concentrating on sayings attributed to Hillel, so it is possible that we have forgotten the general format of this present chapter: since around the year 180 BCE each generation has been represented by a pair of sages. These pairs were the religious leadership of the Pharisaic movement, one hailing from the more proletarian, urban faction and the other from the more bourgeois, rural faction. At the time which we presently study the urban faction is headed by Hillel. Our present mishnah now brings a teaching attributed to his colleague, Shammai.
2:
Of all the sages whose name is more well-known to the casual student that of Shammai is probably the one which has suffered over the centuries the greatest – and certainly unintended – 'character assassination'. Most have a mental picture of a dour, morose, irate and impatient sage – the antithesis of the homely, patient and friendly Hillel. While it is reasonably easy to see where this picture comes from that does not mean that it is accurate.
3:
Let us first of all recall that Shammai was not the 'first choice' as Hillel's 'running mate'. A mishnah we have already had occasion to quote often [Ĥagigah 2:2] states that
So Shammai was a second choice, and only became President of the Court after a certain Menaĥem had "left" in circumstances shrouded in mystery. (Probably he entered the service of King Herod.)
4:
About Hillel's early biography we have quite a bit of information, but about Shammai we know little. However, one element in his biography is known to us and it teaches us much about the man that would otherwise be unknown. We must first place this anecdote in its proper historical setting. We are in the years immediately before Herod attained power: some time just before the year 40 BCE.
When we studied Tractate Sanhedrin we noted that kings who were not of the house of David could not be prosecuted in court. The sages made this decision because of the severe repercussions that followed a court battle between Shim'on ben-Shataĥ and Alexander Yannai. (This courtroom drama must have taken place some fifty years before the incident which we shall now describe.) This incident is not recorded by the sages, but it is recorded by Yosef ben-Matityahu (aka Flavius Josephus) in his "Antiquities of the Jews" [14:9:3-5].
As we have seen [Avot 044], one of Yannai's sons – Yoĥanan Hyrkanos II (named for his grandfather, apparently) – was the nominal head of state. He had taken as a personal advisor one Antipater. (Antipater's father had been forcibly converted to Judaism by Yoĥanan's grandfather as part of his general coercion of the whole of the Edomite population to Judaism. Whether or not the Edmomites recognized this conversion is moot; the sages did not recognize it.) Antipater had used the power of nepotism to get his sons installed in key positions and the youngest, Herod, had been appointed Governor of Galilee. Galilee at that time was rather like the American wild west of the mid-nineteenth century, but the ambitious Herod lost no time in hunting down and arresting the chief bandit, one Hezekiah, whom, together with his henchmen, he then summarily executed without benefit of trial. Yoĥanan Hyrkanos was getting very fidgety – as well he may – at the brazen use of blatant power that the young Herod was displaying. He rightly feared for himself and his régime. Having been persuaded that Herod's act was illegal he summoned Herod before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem to stand trial for the murder of Hezekiah and his colleagues. Herod, being of half a mind to laugh it off, was persuaded to turn up for the trial. On the appointed day the judges entered the courtroom to find it packed by Herod's soldiers with arms drawn. Herod himself appeared dressed in imperial robes, and the justices got the meaning of his not very subtle message very quickly. The court was about to absolve Herod when one of their number stood up to address the court. The name of this sage was Shammai,
a righteous man who therefore knew no fear. He said [according to Josephus], 'Your Majesty and members of the Sanhedrin: I cannot recall, nor do I think that you can, that at any time in the past a person who was summoned to appear before us did so in such a manner! It matters not who he might be: any person appearing before this Sanhedrin to be judged would stand before us in respect and would have the demeanour of a person fearful for his life who was begging for mercy. He would be unshaven and wearing black. But this young upstart, Herod, who is charged with murder and has been summoned to appear before us on that charge, stands here wearing a purple robe, crowned with an olive-wreath, hair barbered and surrounded by armed men who are to kill us if we find him guilty at law, and to remove him safely from here if that fails. But I have no complaint against Herod if he prefers the practical over the legal! My complaint is against you, his judges and against you, Your Majesty, for giving him such licence. I want you to know, as God is great, that this man whom you wish to free this day will take his revenge on you all and on the king…'
Shammai, of course, was not wrong. Herod did usurp power in 40 BCE and ruled, as we have already seen [Avot 045], a cruel and pitiless despot until 4 BCE. He killed off all surviving members of the Hasmonean family, and also killed off many members of his own family whom he suspected of planning his own assassination – including Mariamne his beloved wife, a Hasmonean princess. The carnage in this family was so great that you may recall that the Roman Emperor Augustus was once heard to remark at a dinner party that he "would rather be a pig in Herod's sty than a member of his family" – because Jews do not eat pork; therefore the pigs in his sty could expect to live out their natural life – which could hardly be said for the members of his family! According to Josephus there was only one person that Herod feared, and that was the one person who stood up to him: Shammai. (It has given me no small amount of pleasure to recount this story, since I believe that it sets Shammai in a more positive light than the one we usually feed to our children (based upon one solitary story in the Talmud) that Hillel was the nice guy and Shammai was the one who was always losing his temper.)
To be continued.
