Hitchhiker's Guide to Religion
Jewish

Hillel the Elder

The Patient Sage

Jewish Halakhic interpretation, ethics, peace-making, the Golden Rule
Attribute Value
Combat
ATK 35
DEF 80
SPR 92
SPD 50
INT 95
Rank Tanna / President of the Sanhedrin (Nasi)
Domain Halakhic interpretation, ethics, peace-making, the Golden Rule
Alignment Holy / Rabbinic
Weakness Patience perceived as weakness by adversaries; outshone in legal stringency by Shammai
Key Act Summarized the entire Torah on one foot: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary -- go and learn." Founded the House of Hillel, whose rulings prevailed over the House of Shammai in nearly all disputes
Source Mishnah, Avot 1:12-14; Shabbat 31a; Talmud passim

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” — Pirkei Avot 1:14

The most quoted rabbi in Jewish history. Hillel arrived in Jerusalem from Babylon broke, slept on rooftops to listen to Torah lectures through the skylight, and rose to become Nasi of the Sanhedrin (Pirkei Avot 1:13). His school’s lenient contextual readings became the dominant tradition; the stricter House of Shammai survives in the Talmud mostly to be argued against. His Golden Rule formulation predates Jesus’s “do unto others” by roughly two generations.


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Combat Radar

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