jospe hillel's rule

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Hillel's RuleAuthor(s): Raphael JospeSource: The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 81, No. 1/2 (Jul. - Oct., 1990), pp. 45-57Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1455253

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THE JEWISHQUARTERLYEVIEW,LXXXI, Nos. 1-2 (July-October, 1990)45-57

HILLEL'S RULE*RAPHAEL JOSPE, The Open University of Israel

ABSTRACTThe late Mordecai M. Kaplan suggested that the term ?1 mentionedin the story in BT (bShab 31a) of Hillel's conversion of a Gentile toJudaism "while I stand on one foot" (nnlKt 1 5) may be a bilingualpun, if '1 is understood as the Latin regula, rather than literally as theHebrew wordfor "foot."The term regula could have been known tofirst-century Jews throughboth Greek and Latin usage. Although a literal reading ofS18 as 'foot"here is certainly justified, and gives the story much of its charm, thereare also literary, if not historical or etymological, grounds for Kaplan'sreading of the story.First, the Latin connotations of regula might make sense to a Gentilespeaker. Second, Hillel is associated in several rabbinic passages withformulating seven hermeneutic "rules" rn1l), and this association couldunderlie our story's portrayal of Hillel as interpretingthe Torah in termsof one basic rule (regula) of behavior. Third, in addition to the meta-phoric usage of 'foot" as a principle or foundation of the Torah in ourstory, "standing" may also be employed metaphorically. Other rabbinicstatements refer to basic principles on which the world "stands,"i.e., theethical foundations of the world. Fourth, our story clearly contrastsShammai, who angrily rejects the challenge posed by the Gentile andpushes him away with his builder's cubit, whereas Hillel welcomed thechallenge and employed his regula (= 'l = rule, ruler, or rod) to bringhim to the Torah.

The statement attributed to Hillel the Elder in Avot 2.4, "Donot say, 'When I have leisure I will study,' for perhaps you willnot have leisure" (;r,ln XKKXU,3 K M;DKOV 'ItXn '1) mayinvolve a Greek double entendre, since the term aookfi meansboth leisure and study.l* My thanks are due to Shraga Assif, Jonas Greenfield,Zev Harvey, and Daniel

Sperber for their helpful suggestions and gracious assistance.Raanana Meridor,"A GreekPlay on Wordsin the Mishna?," n Scripta classicaIsraelica 1 (1974): 131. Cf. Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford,1968), where aXoXaotKo6g s also defined as "devoting one's leisure to learning."This view was also adduced several years earlier by Henry A. Fischel, who pointedout that the GreekoXoXaontKc6, ike the Hebrew 1t31, alludes to leisure. (Cf. H. A.Fischel, "Greek and Latin Languages, Rabbinical Knowledge of," Encyclopaedia


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Another statement attributed to Hillel the Elder may also in-volve a bilingual word play or double entendre, this time Latin.2The late Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881-1983), founder of the Recon-structionist movement and for decades a teacher at the JewishTheological Seminary in New York, is said to have suggested thatJudaica, 7:884-887). The idea that batlan, which usually means an idler, can alsoconnote a scholar (in the sense of an otherwise unoccupied person who has the lei-sure for full-time study), is based on the talmudic references to "tenbatlanim in thesynagogue,"which Rashi (bBQ 82a) explains as meaning "tenable men who are idlefrom their work in order to engage in community service, who come early to thesynagogue to ensure a quorum at the time of prayer, and who support themselvesfrom public funds" (cf. bMeg 21b and yMeg 1.6, 70b). Rashi's interpretation isadopted in Nathan ben Yehiel's(1035-1110) 'Arukh.Cf. Alexander Kohut's edition(Vienna, 1926), 2:41; Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Complete Dictionary of Ancient andModern Hebrew, 1:517;Avraham Even-Shoshan, ut'n;l11O1 (Jerusalem, 1967),1:211;and Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim,the Talmud Babli andYerushalmi,and the Midrashic Literature (New York, 1903), 1:158. Zvi Kaplansimilarly renders batlanim as "menof leisure,"and describesthe term as "originallyan honorable title conferred on those who either wholly or partly abstained fromwork to free themselves for community service" ("Batlanim," Encyclopaedia Ju-daica, 4:325).We may also note that the term ooXokIhas also often been suggested as an ex-planation for the Hebrew nlhtuX, used in referenceto the scholarly "pairs" m1lT)mentioned in Avot 1, of whom Hillel and Shammai were the fifth and last "pair,"succeeded by Yohanan ben Zakkai. Benjamin Mussafia (1606-1975) makes thissuggestion in his commentary Musaf he-'Arukh to the 'Arukhof Nathan ben Yehielof Rome (in 'Arukh ha-Shalem, 1:311-313; on Mussafia, cf. Encyclopaedia Ju-daica, 12:717). Mussafia's view is shared by such modern scholars as SolomonSchechter (Studies in Judaism, Third Series [Philadelphia, 1924], p. 198), but isquestioned by others, including Eliezer Ben-Yehuda(Dictionary, 1:417),AlexanderKohut, and Immanuel Low. Cf. Alexander Kohut, in 'Arukh ha-Shalem, 1:311-313. Kohut suggests that nl1VlDX should be understood as referring to scribes,since the scribes were responsible for developing the type of Jewish interpretationin which the halakhic meaning is derived and drawn from the text itself. Kohut'sconnection of textually derived interpretation with the scribal art or profession isinteresting in light of the story of R. Akiva in BT (bMen 29b). According to thestory, Moses ascended to heaven and saw God as a scribe, "sitting and attachingcrowns to the letters"of the Torah. God explained to Moses that the crowns werenecessary because "there will be a man after some generations, whose name will beAkiva ben Joseph, who will interpret(WT1) very stroke (ylp) and every curl (rln)ofthe letters." Cf. also Immanuel Low, Index to Samuel Krauss, Griechische undLateinische Lehnworterim Talmud,Midrasch,und Targum Berlin, 1898), p. 677b.Cf. the discussion in Daniel Sperber, Essays on Greek and Latin in the Mishna,Talmud,and Midrashic Literature(Jerusalem, 1981), p. 62, n. 43.A different possible explanation for the use of nl31lqK as a metaphorical termfor people occupying high positions of religious leadership may be suggested by the

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the term 1nmentioned n connectionwith Hillel'sconversionofa non-Jew to Judaismcan be understood as the Latin regula,rather hanthe Hebrewwordfor "foot."3The storyin bShab31aclearly ntendsto differentiatehe per-sonalitiesof Hillel andShammai,andreadsas follows:Syriac term D10, hich, like the Aramaic 5 D0,K11I in the Targum and Talmud,and like the Hebrew 51DWt,means a bunch or cluster of grapes (cf. Jastrow,Dictionary, 2:953b; and F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew andEnglish Lexicon of the Old Testament [Oxford, 1968], p. 688b). The ThesaurusSyriacus of R. Payne Smith (Oxford, 1901), p. 2524 lists, in addition to the obviousmeanings of bunches or clusters of grapes, the metaphorical usage of ?1,D relatingto Jesus, who was held in the arms of Simeon ("de Simeone Christum in ulnasrecipiente"),as well as the metaphorical term by which Christianmartyrswere latercalled ("vocantur martyres").The entry lists two sources for these definitions. Thereference to Jesus being held by Simeon is from Dawkins, Codices Dawkinsiani inBibl. Bodl., xliii, 69, which is not accessible to me. The referenceto the martyrs isfrom a hymn by Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa, in J. Joseph Overbeck, S. EphraemiSyri, Rabulae Episcopi Edesseni, Balaei aliorumque, Operaselecta (Oxford, 1865),p. 246. The shorter companion volume of J. Payne-Smith Margoliouth, A Com-pendious Syriac Dictionary (Oxford, 1903), p. 360b, accordingly lists the meta-phorical meaning of "the life-giving cluster, said of our Lord and of the holymartyrs."The sources and precise meaning of these metaphorical usages are not immedi-ately evident, and they seem to reflect later Greek metaphor rather than NewTestament usage. The reference to Simeon is presumably based on Luke 2:25-32,where the righteous Simeon took the eight-day old Jesus in his arms and blessedGod for showing him the Savior. However, the Syriac Peshitta has no mention of1D10n this passage, nor does the Greek text in any way suggest such a reading.(I consulted the following Syriac editions: (1) The New Testament in Syriac, pub-lished by the British and Foreign Bible Society [London, 1955, based on earliereditions]; (2) the New Testament in the Syriac Bible of the Syrian Patriarchate ofAntioch and All the East [Damascus], published by the United Bible Societies[1979]; (3) the "New Covenant"-Peshitta, Aramaic Text with Hebrew Transla-tion," published in Hebrew letters by the Bible Society of Israel [Jerusalem, 1986]).The reference to the martyrs as5710 is based on the title of a hymn by Rabbula(d. 435 CE), who succeeded Diogenes as Bishop of Edessa, ca. 411 CE.The hymn isincluded in a section called "Supplicatory hymns of every kind, arranged accordingto the eight tones." The hymn is entitled K55n i11tx D I7;D01,and praises these"blessed martyrs," for "the community is sweetened (or: improved, pleased, de-lighted)by yourwine(nn=lonl y'15 xK1n 1i1rn'nx x:a),' nl0)." Cf.William Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum,pp. 353-354. The hymn is found in MS 39 (thirteenthcentury, Melchite), folio 71b,and was published by J. Joseph Overbeck in S. Ephraemi Syri, pp. 245ff. Ourpassage is found on p. 246, 1. 4. I am grateful to Shraga Assif for his assistance ininterpreting this passage. This metaphorical usage of 51,0 in Syriac texts pre-sumably reflects Patristic-era Greekusage of 36TpuI (a cluster of grapes)for Christ


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48 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEWn:3a 5y WJl> ,;7n 17:X ,KXtDU""^ X3W IlnK $333 IWSD 3tWpnni n?K3 n-r rnKnx 5x ,I=y KW3Unmnnn w3 bSnWi.T`3n xKMan=m 3 SnY;n?-ni .nrpT,55nn3inr .irnn K.Tnw5?Tx1nnorps)IXKI n*: ;rnn o NX;?nTA Gentilecame to Shammaiandsaid to him,"Convertme[toJudaism],provided hatyou teach methewholeTorahwhileIstand on one foot." Shammai pushed him away with thebuilder'scubit that he held in his hand. The [Gentile then]camebeforeHillel,whoconvertedhim. He saidto him,"What-ever is hatefulto you, do not do to your fellow. This is thewhole Torah n its entirety,andthe restis its commentary.Goandstudy.4

and the prophets. Cf. Geoffrey W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford,1961), p. 301, where these and other metaphorical usages of botrus are listed.However h1D came to be a metaphorical appellation for Jesus and the martyrs,the parallel is striking:outstanding religious figuresin Judaism (Hebrew n*fS:lN)and Christianity (Syriac 110Ond Greek Po36pu;) re called "grapeclusters"! Never-theless, how both cultures came to use the same metaphor, and whetherthe one in-fluenced the other, cannot yet be determined.2 For another possible bilingual pun, cf. note 7 below.

3 I have not been able to locate this interpretation in any of Mordecai Kaplan'spublished books. I have the information orally from Kaplan's disciple Jack J.Cohen of Jerusalem, and it is confirmed by Kaplan's son-in-law and successor, IraEisenstein.4 A parallel story is attributed to R. Akiva in Avot de-Rabbi Nathan (ed.S. Schechter [New York, 1967],version B, chap. 26, p. 53):"Once someone came toR. Akiva and said to him, 'Rabbi, teach me the Torah all at once [nnK:].'[R. Akiva] said to him, 'My son, Moses, our teacher, spent forty days and fortynights on the mountain (of Sinai) before learning it, and you say, Teach me theTorah all at once! Instead, my son, this is the general principle (573) of the Torah:Whatever you hate to have done to you, do not do it to your fellow. If you want noperson to harm you or what is yours, do not harm him. If you want no person totake what is yours, do not take what is your fellow's.'" Cf. the English translationby Anthony J. Saldarini, The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan, version B(Leiden, 1975), p. 155. Saldarini also understandsnnri: in the temporal sense of"atonce." In this story Akiva, unlike Hillel, explicitly formulates a general principle(55f ) epitomizing the Torah's ethics and adds further illustrative examples, but hefails to add Hillel's all-important proviso, "The rest is commentary; go and study."Akiva's formulation of the general principle ('75) of the Torah is also found inyNed 9.4, 42c, where Akiva says that "Love your fellow as yourself" (Lev 19:18)"isa great principle of the Torah (;mr1n:511 5)," in contrast with Ben 'Azzai whoregarded Gen 5:1 as the Torah's great principle. In fact, Akiva's two generalprinciples may well be positive and negative formulations of the same idea, with the"Golden Rule" constituting his interpretation of the commandment to love one'sfellow. The positive formulation is also, of course, attributedearlier to Jesus (Matt7:12 and Luke 6:31). For a discussion of various Jewish, Near Eastern, and Greek


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The term 1a1 ere is usuallyunderstood n its literalmeaningof "foot," and the story makes sense and derives much of itscharmfromthat literalunderstandingf "standingon one foot";it is thuscited,for example, n EliezerBen-Yehuda'sDictionary.5A literalreadingof "standingon one foot" is further ustifiedby the fact thatknowledgeof LatinwasfarlessextensiveamongJews thanwastheirknowledgeof Greek.6On the otherhand,theexistenceof manyLatin as well as Greek oanwords n rabbinicHebrew has been widely documentedin modernresearch,al-though"'Latin' oanwords n Hebrew .. were often loanwordsalready n the Greekfrom whichthey had been borrowed."7 nany event, no Latin influence s necessary or us to understand

parallels or antecedents of the Golden Rule, cf. Albrecht Dihle, Die Goldene Regel:Eine Einfiihrung in die Geschichte der antiken undfrtihchristlichen Vulgarethik(G6ttingen, 1962). According to Dihle, the Golden Rule originated in GreekSophist literatureof the second half of the fifthcenturyBCE,and came into Judaismin the second pre-Christian century (p. 84). Ahad ha-CAm Asher Ginzberg)arguesagainst equating the positive formulation of Jesus with the negative formulation ofHillel, and thus against the tendency of some liberal Jews to equate Christianethics, which he saw as based on altruism that ultimately is reverse egoism, withJewish ethics, which he saw as based on absolute justice. Cf. his essay "'Al Sheteha-Se'ipim" (Kol Kitve Ahad ha-'Am [Jerusalem, 1965], pp. 370-377) which wasoriginally published in 1910 in response to the publication in 1909 of GlaudeG. Montefiore's commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. The title, which can betranslated as "Betweenthe Two Branches"or "Between the Two Opinions," meanssomething like the English expression "straddlingthe fence," and is a reference toElijah's challenge to the people on Mount Carmel, "How long will you skipbetween the two opinions" (1 Kings 18:21). The essay was translated into Englishby Leon Simon under the title "Judaism and the Gospels" (in Ten Essays onZionism and Judaism, 1922), and was subsequently partially reissuedby him underthe title "Jewish and Christian Ethics"(in his Essays, Letters, Memoirs, 1946).5 13:6424.

6 Cf. Henry A. Fischel in Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v., 7:884-887, and theextensive discussions in Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York,1942), and "How Much Greek in Jewish Palestine," in Alexander Altmann, ed.,Biblical and Other Studies (Cambridge, MA, 1963).

7 Cf. Henry A. Fischel, in EJ 7:885. Cf. the arguments for Latin influences inHoward Jacobson, "Greco-Roman Light on Rabbinic Texts," Illinois ClassicalStudies 5 (1980): 57-62. Jacobson suggests that the interpretation of Exod 34:29(Moses' face "shone"[p'7]) in Midrash Tanhuma (ed. S. Buber, p. 51) in terms ofMoses' receipt of God's crown may be a bilingual pun of 1'p1 nd the Latin corona;cf. also his "More Roman Light on Rabbinic Texts" in Illinois Classical Studies 8(1983): 165-167. For Latin and Greek legal terminology cf. Daniel Sperber, ADictionary of Greek and Latin Legal Terms in Rabbinic Literature(Ramat Gan,1984).

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however, understanding 5a' in its Hebrew sense as meaning 'aperiod,' and thereforeunderstands the term 1'5T171l to mean the'period of divorce.' Whereas Sperber thus restores 5'l to normalHebrew usage, Tur-Sinai, who may have been the first to makethe connection between 1D1'1n 51l and regale repudium and tosuggest the possible corruptionfrom legale repudium, goes furtherin the direction of Latin by suggesting that the second term in thephrase should also be taken as Latin, and not as the Hebrew root?71, and that 'sT1M may thus be a hebraizing corruption of7"~s' = repudium, so that what we have here is a completelyLatin phrase, 1"T'D1 :n1 =regale repudium).12Whatever the merits of understanding 5?1 in the legal contextof 7'1'77r 'l as the Latin regale, we now come back to Kaplan'ssuggestion that ?11 in the story of Hillel and the non-Jew beunderstood in terms of the Latin regula, 'a rule.' In the absence ofany historical information, what literary arguments can be ad-duced for such a Latin play on words, whether intentional orunintentional?Since to the best of my knowledge Kaplan did not discuss thisinterpretation in any of his voluminous writings but merely pre-sented it orally to his classes, we do not have the benefit of hisreasoning, nor his sources (if any). It seems to me, however, thatthere are four literary, if not etymological, grounds for Kaplan'sunusual reading of our passage.

First, the person who spoke the words nnr 51n 5S was notHillel or Shammai but the non-Jew. A Latin connotation, how-ever unlikely in the mouth of a Jew, might be more likely in themouth of a non-Jew.Second, Hillel the Elder is credited in at least three separaterabbinic passages with having formulated the rnl'tn uV, sevenrules of biblical hermeneutics.13Hillel's seven hermeneutic ruleshad a major influence on subsequent rabbinic thought and the

later hermeneutic formulations of R. Ishmael's famous thirteenrules (which came to be included in the daily morning service)1412 Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Dictionary, 13:6447,n. 3. This note is evidently the viewof Tur-Sinai and not of Ben-Yehuda, although the parenthesis indicating Tur-Sinai's authorship is missing.13 Hillel's seven rules are found with slight variations in tSanh 7 (ed. Zucker-mandel, p. 427); Sifra, 1.7 (Venice, 1545), p. 2b; ARN(ed. Schechter), version A,37, p. 110.14 Ishmael's thirteen rules are found in the Introduction to the Sifra.

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and the thirty-two rules attributed to R. Eliezer ben Yose ha-Gelili.'5 Accordingly, the association of Hillel with hermeneuticrules (IlT'n) is natural, and this association could underlie ourstory's portrayal of Hillel as interpreting the Torah in terms ofone basic rule (regula) of behavior, in the Latin sense of a basicprinciple, rule, pattern, model, or example.16Third, not only may the "foot" in our story be understoodmetaphorically as a principle or foundation of the Torah, but somay the word "standing."Other rabbis also attempted to epito-mize reality by basic principles upon which the world "stands."For example:

'Y ,IMlY U'?1Z1 W'=1iVrV 'Y :VM1K , ... ?PnTM7Y?1V.M-)570 *)M Yl -,732Y;lrY7l . 779 IWSimeon the Just. . . used to say: The world stands on threethings: on the Torah, on service, and on kind deeds.'7

And similarly:nnxn 5Y,-I Y M'IXnD13-17 5Y IMMK ln 7- .py1V 1pRabban Simeon ben Gamaliel says: The world stands on threethings: on truth, on justice, and on peace.18

This metaphorical usage of "standing"is explicitly connected tothe term 'nl as a moral principle or foundation of the world in analternate version of R. Simeon ben Gamaliel's statement:nrvan 7nmK1;xviTin 13z1 nn ,5KXV3 1 711yn'1 n8XtY ,79IMYM'IY;711=1 ;7t1t7I 7Y930b-nn11IWwlb77 1 -5Xlnrw1m7;nx n'tn DKvnV IM- In . V ni nnKn n p7,'n.r1'Vbt 1nK In-IVM'I5Y nX yTYIT

15 On the various versions of the hermeneutic rules and their development cf.Herman L. Strack, Introduction to the Talmudand Midrash (Philadelphia, 1945),p. 93-98; Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Hermeneutics,"8:366-372.16 Cf. "Regula"in C. T. Lewis and S. Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1969),p. 1553, and in P. G. W. Glare, Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1976), p. 1602,and the root "Rego," p. 1601.17 Avot 1.2. Cf. yTaCan4, 68a and yMeg 3, 74b.18 Avot 1.17 (18). In some versions the alternate D3"j s used instead of r1MY.Cf. yTacan 4, 68a, and yMeg 3, 74b. The PT passages also have R. Jacob bar Ahasaying that the world "stands"on the principle of sacrifices.

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R. Simeon ben Gamaliel said: Do not ridicule justice ('r7), forit is one of the three foundations of the world (1i;yn '5:).This is why our sages have taught that the world stands onthree things: on justice, on truth, and on peace. Consider: ifyou pervertjustice, you shock the world, since it is one of [theworld's] foundations.19"Standing," accordingly, has the metaphorical connotation ofan ethical or other foundation of a system, and thus complementsthe metaphorical usage of 571 as a fundamental principle (regula).The phrase lnnf 5:1 5 may thus be doubly metaphorical, andmay indicate an ethical principle ("foot") upon which the Torahis founded ("stands").20Fourth, we come back to the obvious contrast drawn betweenHillel and Shammai, which seems to be the main point of thestory. Shammai angrily rejected the challenge and physically

pushed away the challenger with his builder's cubit. Hillel, insharp contrast, welcomed the challenge and the challenger withhis regula,which can also mean 'measuringrod' or 'ruler'as well as'rule'or 'example.'This juxtaposition was clearly recognized by Samuel Edels(1555-1631) in his commentary Hiddushe 'Aggadot to our pas-sage.21According to him,Hillel's intent was to teach us that all the Torah should haveone basis and foundation ('101' 5V). It says that Shammaipushed him [the Gentile] away with the builder's cubit... Hethus hinted to him that just as a building cannot stand on onefoundation, so the Torah extends to all its commandments,and cannot be given only one foundation... But it says [also]that Hillel taught him, "Whatever is hateful to you," etc., sinceit is written in the Torah, "Love your fellow as yourself" (Lev19:18).

19 DeutR on Deut 16:18.20 The concept of the world standing on three foundations was not limited torabbinic literary sources. Saul Lieberman, Yewanitwi- Yewanut be-'Eres Yisra*el(Jerusalem, 1962), pp. 81-82 discusses a North African love amulet from the thirdcentury (although the material is certainly much older), invoking the God ofAbraham, Isaac, and Israel who established the earth on three foundations.21 Maharsha, Hiddushe Halakhot and Hiddushe 'Aggadot, in standard editionsof BT. On Edels, cf. Encyclopaedia Judaica 6:363-364.

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In this context we should note that regula has also been suggestedby some scholars as the root of the Hebrew and Aramaic b1D,'ruler.'22Moreover, regula could conceivably have been known tofirst-centuryJews through Greek as well as Latin, since as notedabove, Jewish knowledge of Greek was more extensive than wasJewish knowledge of Latin, and we may have at least one instanceof regula as a Latin loanword in a later Greek-Roman text. TheGreek Edict of Diocletian (301 CE) refers to regla (part of awagon)23and reglion (a bar of gold).24T'PyXawas also the nameof the strickle, a tool used for striking grain.25 The fifth-centuryLexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria, which is based on earlierlexica, also lists peyXat as iron bars or rods.)26In all these cases,the common element seems to be a straight object in the shape of

22 The identification of ~'10 with regula appears first in Nathan ben Yehiel's'Arukh,ed. Kohut, 6:131-132). Avraham Even-Shoshan's vnrlnr l5n (Jerusalem,1967),4:1843 lists regula as the probable derivation of :'10,but posits the Aramaicroot 71Das another possibility. Jastrow (Dictionary 2:1023) suggests that 51X10sthe saf'el form of the root 5:1 (and thus means to lead the writer in ruling ordrawing lines); this view is shared by M. Z. Segal in his note in EliezerBen-Yehuda,Dictionary, 8:4203-4204, n. 1, who adds "some derive it from the Latin regula."Samuel Krauss (Griechische und Lateinische Lehnwdrter im Talmud, Midrash,und Targum, 2:412b-413a) also derives 110O rom regula, but Immanuel Lowrejects this view in his note and in the index (p. 683a), and posits instead a Syriacorigin for the term. I have been unable to substantiate Lbw's view in the Syriacdictionaries which I consulted. Payne-Smith (Thesaurus Syriacus, pp. 2728-2729)offers "regula"as the meaning of XXVn1D,but has nothing relating to 5nID.

23 Cf. Edictum Diocletiani et collegarum, ed. Marta Giacchero, (Genoa, 1974),1:166-167. Section 15 concerns the wooden post (or pole, or peg, t6kov) on awagon. 15:13then has pI'Yka ipyaoclvri in Greek, and regulafabricata in Latin.Cf. H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Supplement, p. 130b.E. A. Sophocles (Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods [Cam-bridge, 1914], p. 969a) suggests that peyka may mean the peg at the end of thepole of a vehicle. My thanks to Daniel Sperber for calling these sources to myattention.24 Cf. Edictum Diocletiani, pp. 206-207. Section 28 deals with gold, and 28:1arefers to pcyXiov as a bar of standard gold (Greek, Xpuooi p3p6nC; Ev pcyXt6tS;Latin, aurum obryzae in regulis). Cf. Liddell and Scott, A Greek-EnglishLexicon,Supplement, p. 130b, 5eykiov.25 Cf. E. A. Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods,p. 969a, eyXCa,rom which is also derived pEyXtdCco,o strike grain to a level withthe measure.

26 Hesychii Lexicon, ed. Joannes Alberti (1746), 2:1109. Cf. notes 16 and 17 top7yXat.

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a bar or pole, which would be consistent with the shape of theLatin regula.27Greek culture might thus have served as a conduit for the Latininfluence which Kaplan posited. One scholar, Albrecht Dihle, hasventured far beyond our interest in possible Latin connotationsof the Hebrew phrase "standing on one foot," going so far as tosuggest that we must look to Greek culture for the sources of the"Golden Rule" itself. According to Dihle, this popular ethicalrule did not arise in the Jewish sphere at all, but originated firstamong the Sophists in the second half of the fifth century BCE,and must have come into Judaism in the second century BCE,whereupon it rapidly became a "solidly naturalized innovation."28Whatever the merits of Dihle's thesis, our aim is more modestand limited. As long as Mordecai Kaplan's interpretation of 511as regula is at least historically plausible, what does it add to ourunderstanding of our story? For even if Kaplan's interpretationcannot be conclusively demonstrated on historical or etymologicalgrounds, it enhances our literary appreciation of the story bymaking us more sensitive, through the Latin, of possibilities notimmediately evident in a literal reading of the expression "stand-ing on one foot." We need not, therefore, attempt to proveconclusively or disprove Kaplan's theory on historical or linguisticgrounds alone, however interesting they may well be. When we

27 "Regula"has also been suggested as an equivalent of the term 1'7:,. In his dis-cussion of this term the late Professor Saul Lieberman refers to the 15;i tax in Ezra4:13 as a land tax, similar to the Babylonian ilku tax in the laws of Hammurabi. InLieberman's words, "It is possible that the term ,;5;i, regula, fixed rule (;,5;1a:IXjp)has its origin in the name of the fixed land tax" (Lieberman, "The Publica-tion of the Mishnah," in Hellenism in Jewish Palestine [New York, 1950], p. 83,n. 3). The precise type of tax referredto as 15; in Ezra 4:13 is not clear; the taxesreferredto in this verse are also found in Ezra 7:24. The NJPS translation (Phila-

delphia, 1982) also translates 15; here as "land-tax." Jacob M. Myers translates itas "duty," and notes that the three terms in our verse occur in Akkadian: mndh=mandattu (tribute); blw-biltu (tax); hlk=ilku (income from labor) (cf. Ezra, in TheAnchor Bible [New York, 1965], p. 34). Jastrow (Dictionary, 1:353) suggests that1t'[ means the sustenance of marching troops. Such traditional Jewish commen-tators as Rashi understood the term as the toll paid by travelers on the king'shighway. Cf. also the references to these terms for taxes in bBB 8a and especiallybNed 62b, where according to R. Judah, ;'ltO means "the king's portion," 1*: is"the poll tax," and 1M; s the K3131X=Latin annona), the tax on the year's crop.28 Cf. Albrecht Dihle, Die Goldene Regel, pp. 84, 95-96.

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read a poem or look at a picture, we may find some meaning thatthe poet or artist did in fact intend, or could have intended,which however we have no evidence to prove. Peshat is always ofparamount importance, and derash is always accountable to thepeshat. Nevertheless, the dividing line between them is not alwaysclear, and so long as we keep within the limits imposed by thepeshat may we not explore rabbinic texts as the rabbis exploredthe biblical text-as literaturecapable of multifaceted meaning?The contrast in our story is thus complete. Whether or not thechallenger literally stood on one foot, and whether or not Hillelhad a regula (measuring rod) in his hand as Shammai did, Sham-mai's regula was used to reject the challenger, whereas Hillel'sregula (= r'rn = rule) was used to bring him to the Torah.29

29 Zev Warren Harvey arrives independently at very similar conclusions in hisforthcoming article, "Rabbinic Attitudes toward Philosophy," in Studies in Mem-ory of Rabbi William Braude, ed. Ben Braude et al. Cf. especially Section 7 andnotes 48-51 for a discussion of our story. Cf. also his "Love: The Beginning and theEnd of Torah," Tradition 15 (Spring, 1976): 5-22, especially p. 17, n. 1. Onpossible parallels between rabbinic and philosophic ethics, cf. Shlomo Pines andZev Warren Harvey, "To Behold the Stars and the Heavenly Bodies," Immanuel(1985): 33-37 (which first appeared in Hebrew in Jerusalem Studies in JewishThought 3 [1984]: 507-511).In his "Rabbinic Attitudes toward Philosophy," Harvey challenges the prevailingscholarly consensus that the rabbis knew Greek(to a greater extent) and Latin (to alesserextent) and employed loanwords from Greekand Latin legal terminology andmaterial culture, but that they had no direct knowledge of Greek philosophy anddid not read Greek philosophical works. As Saul Lieberman summarized that con-sensus in his "How Much Greek in Jewish Palestine?,"in Alexander Altmann, ed.,Biblical and Other Studies (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 123-141:

None of the sources... indicates direct Greek philosophical influence. Thereis ... no evidence that the rabbis knew about the teachings of Epicurus morethan the current general phrases ...Professor Harry A. Wolfson declared(Philo I, 92) that he was not able to discover any Greek philosophic term inrabbinic literature. I want to state more positively: Greekphilosophic terms areabsent from the entire ancient Rabbinic literature.(Cf. his Greek in Jewish Palestine, pp. 1-2.) Lieberman then continues: "Certainelements of most of the Greek sciences of that time were known to the rabbis inPalestine, and the formulations and the definitions in natural sciences are verysimilar to those of the Greek scholars. But here again there is no evidence forrabbinic quotations from first-hand sources; all their information may have beenderived from secondary sources." In the case of the rabbis and Gnosticism, accord-ing to Lieberman, the situation is similar: "Certainbasic teachings of the Gnosticswere not entirely foreign to the rabbis ... However, even in this domain the early

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rabbinic iteraturenevermentionsa singleGreek philosophic'ermusedby theGnostics"pp.132,141).Cf. Fischel nEJ,p. 886:"The oanwords overallaspectsof life,butareespeciallyprominentncertainareasof material ivilization.. andpubliclife... All of these observations,however,do not give any informationregardinghe rabbinicknowledge f writtenGreek ources."Harvey's hesis is that this absenceof Greekphilosophic ermsfrom rabbinicliterature s all the morepeculiar,not onlybecause he rabbis as documented oimpressivelyy Liebermanndothers)often hadextensive,f indirect,knowledgeof Greek ources,butalsobecause herabbiswere nterestednissuesof philosophicconcern cosmology,ethics,etc.). The absenceof philosophicermswouldmakesense if the rabbisknewnothingof Greek anguageandculture,or if the rabbis'interestshadnothingncommonwiththose of thephilosophers.Under he circum-stances,Harvey uggests,herabbinic ilence ntheseareas spuzzling,andmay nfact notbe accidental.Whatever he answer o thequestionposedby Harvey,histhesis s allthemoreintriguingpreciselybecause of the difficultyof arguing rom silence(a lack ofevidence).Harveyhus seesourstoryas anattempt o provideaJewishalternativeo StoicandEpicureanummationof theirsystems n one basicprinciple GreekKiavOv,Latinregula),andheconcludes: Thean,cdote,rooted n thetriplepunonregula,is thus a satirical esponseo thepractice f thephilosophers""RabbinicAttitudestowardPhilosophy").

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jospe hillel's rule

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