Rabban Gamli'el used to say: Make yourself a master, escape all doubt, and do not tithe by estimation too often.
8:
The Rabban Gamli'el of our present mishnah must be Rabban Gamli'el the Elder, since it is unlikely in the extreme that his grandson and namesake, Rabban Gamli'el of Yavneh, would have phrased advice in terms of making someone else one's master. It is also logical that the teachings of Hillel should be followed by those of the sage who followed him in the presidency of the Sanhedrin.
9:
Rabban Gamli'el the Elder must have assumed the presidency of the Sanhedrin upon the death of his father, Hillel, some time during the first two decades of the common era. The most accurate guess one could make would be to say that he assumed the presidency not before the year 10 CE and not after the year 20 CE. The period of the presidency of Rabban Gamli'el was a very stormy period politically. King Herod had died in the year 4 BCE. Herod was succeeded by one of his sons, known to us as Herod Archelaus. In his father's last will and testament Herod Archelaus was appointed king, but the Roman emperor Augustus wrote him that he had to content himself with the title of ethnarch. (It is historical irony that this title had been invented for Yoĥanan Hyrkanos II, whom Herod had ousted from power nearly forty years previously after having wrested from the Romans the right to the title of King of the Jews.)
10:
The reign of Archelaus was one unmitigated disaster. Immediately after his accession in 4 BCE, things began to go wrong. When Herod had fallen into his last terrible illness, two popular figures, Yehudah and Mattityahu by name, had incited their students to remove the golden eagle from the entrance of the Bet Mikdash. In typical fashion, Herod had gained the admiration of the people for having rebuilt the Bet Mikdash magnificently and then lost it by trying to please the Romans by crowing the main entranceway with two golden eagles, the execrated symbol of Roman power and overlordship. The teachers and their pupils had been burned alive [March 13th 4 BCE]. The new king now had to face an angry crowd that demanded rehabilitation of these 'martyrs' and some three thousand Jews were killed during the ensuing celebration of Pesaĥ. When all seemed to have quietened down Archelaus went to Rome to have himself installed by the emperor Augustus. In his absence, there were fresh riots. The leaders were a robber named Yehudah, a royal slave called Shim'on, a shepherd named Athronges and his brothers. This was a period of intense messianic expectation and all these insurgents had messianic pretensions. Archelaus' troops were unable to cope with them, and the Roman governour of Syria, Publius Quinctilius Varus, had to intervene in a major military operation. Two thousand people were crucified, but not all the leaders were caught. Herod Archelaus ruled so badly that the Judeans and Samaritans made a united appeal to Rome that he should be deposed. In 6 CE, Archelaus was banished to Vienne in France and after a bloody revolt led by another would-be messiah, Yehudah of Galilee, Judah became a province of the Roman Empire, and for the next sixty years was governed directly by Rome.
11:
It thus becomes clear that Rabban Gamli'el assumed the presidency of the Sanhedrin, the leadership of the Pharisaic movement and a position of great moral influence among the Jewish people at a time of extreme political unrest and acute messianic fervour. While we have historical knowledge of his moderating influence in public affairs, as we shall see, his teaching as handed down in our present mishnah reflects none of this turmoil.
To be continued.
When we discussed the nature of Shammai in the previous mishnah (in which Shammai instructs us to "receive everybody with a smile on your face") I suggested that Shammai may not have been the bad-tempered sage that popular tradition has chosen to picture him as being.
Ron Roth approaches this issue from a different angle:
I have taught this Mishnah many times and to the beauty is in both the self awareness of Shammai and his ability to critique himself. I accept that he was born with "grumpy genes" but he was able to say in the Mishnah, "I know I am teaching you something that I struggle with. I am not a naturally positive and happy person, so understand that I must teach the right way to act, especially in areas that I struggle with myself" Sometimes those who have an innate tendency for a specific ability don't realize how difficult it is for others to emulate them. I take this statement as an example of self awareness of a fault.
