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Masechet Shabbos Daf 15
Jun. 2nd, 2020 09:14 amDaf 15
Rav Huna teaches that Hillel and Shammai only ever disagreed on three things. So the classic trope of Hillel and Shammai constantly disagreeing needs some revision. Hillel and Shammai rarely disagreed, but their students, Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai, disagreed on many things. That said, their disagreements were shem shamayim, for the sake of heaven. There was little ill-will between the two groups, says the Gemara, and in fact, even though they disagreed about the 18 enactments of Beis Shammai that we've been talking about, after a day of fierce argument in the house of Hananya ben Hezekiah, once the enactments were passed all of Beis Hillel came to the same opinion as Beis Shammai. A model for Jewish disagreement, arguably.
The Gemara then brings various Mishnayot, largely from Masechet Eduyot, where Hillel and Shammai disagree. There's more than three, but they save this in a similar way by saying that in most of the disagreements, Hillel eventually went silent and allowed Shammai's position to stand, or else they argue that even though a Mishna brings the argument in the name of Hillel and Shammai, the argument actually predated them and was similarly argued by their teachers, so it's not a novel argument between Hillel and Shammai.
What do Hillel and Shammai disagree about?
First, about how much dough is required to take challah. When you bake bread, a certain portion of it is supposed to be given as a gift to the Kohen. Nowadays we instead burn it or throw it out, as remembrance of the past practice. You only need to do this if the dough has a certain amount of flour in it. Shammai is stricter and requires it be done on a smaller dough, Hillel is less strict and requires it only on a larger dough. Artscroll says the difference lies in a mathematical argument about how to calculate fractions, a distinction between what it calls a "inclusive tenth" and an "exclusive tenth".
I find this confusing but I think what it means is that if the Torah says to take a tenth of a certain quantity, you can either divide the quantity into ten pieces and the size of one of those pieces is a tenth, or you divide the quantity into nine larger pieces and then you take an amount equal to one of those pieces and that piece is the tenth. The latter is not something we would tend to call a tenth, as a matter of contemporary mathematical nomenclature, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. In any case, the Rabbis say that neither Hillel's nor Shammai's position is accepted, but a middle position.
Second, about how much drawn water is required to be poured into a partially full mikvah to invalidate it. Again, Shamma is stricter and requires a smaller quantity, Hillel is lenient and requires a larger quantity. But fascinatingly, this time the answer is that a couple of weavers, just random laborers, popped up from Jerusalem and testified that the actual answer was an in between amount, and they had it from Shemaya and Avtalyon, who were Hillel and Shammai's teachers, so this answer was accepted. This time, the argument seems to be about disagreement about the meaning of the ancient units used in the Bible, because by Mishnaic times those unit measures were no longer in standard use, and so the Rabbis needed to convert to modern units and they disagreed about the conversion factors.
Third, about whether a woman who discovers she is a niddah needs to retroactively consider anything she touched before discovering that she was a niddah to be tamei. Here, Shammai is lenient and Hillel is strict, requiring that she consider anything she touched back to the last time she was sure she was not a niddah to be tamei, even back several days. In any case, the Rabbis say that neither Hillel's nor Shammai's position is accepted, but a middle position, that anything she touched in the last 24 hours is tamei but not further back than that.
I think it's really interesting that in all three of these halachot of disagrement, the halacha is neither with Shammai nor Hillel but with a middle position. To resolve their disagreements, they compromised, yet the Gemara still preserves their disagreement as having value in the original extreme positions.
Rav Huna teaches that Hillel and Shammai only ever disagreed on three things. So the classic trope of Hillel and Shammai constantly disagreeing needs some revision. Hillel and Shammai rarely disagreed, but their students, Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai, disagreed on many things. That said, their disagreements were shem shamayim, for the sake of heaven. There was little ill-will between the two groups, says the Gemara, and in fact, even though they disagreed about the 18 enactments of Beis Shammai that we've been talking about, after a day of fierce argument in the house of Hananya ben Hezekiah, once the enactments were passed all of Beis Hillel came to the same opinion as Beis Shammai. A model for Jewish disagreement, arguably.
The Gemara then brings various Mishnayot, largely from Masechet Eduyot, where Hillel and Shammai disagree. There's more than three, but they save this in a similar way by saying that in most of the disagreements, Hillel eventually went silent and allowed Shammai's position to stand, or else they argue that even though a Mishna brings the argument in the name of Hillel and Shammai, the argument actually predated them and was similarly argued by their teachers, so it's not a novel argument between Hillel and Shammai.
What do Hillel and Shammai disagree about?
First, about how much dough is required to take challah. When you bake bread, a certain portion of it is supposed to be given as a gift to the Kohen. Nowadays we instead burn it or throw it out, as remembrance of the past practice. You only need to do this if the dough has a certain amount of flour in it. Shammai is stricter and requires it be done on a smaller dough, Hillel is less strict and requires it only on a larger dough. Artscroll says the difference lies in a mathematical argument about how to calculate fractions, a distinction between what it calls a "inclusive tenth" and an "exclusive tenth".
I find this confusing but I think what it means is that if the Torah says to take a tenth of a certain quantity, you can either divide the quantity into ten pieces and the size of one of those pieces is a tenth, or you divide the quantity into nine larger pieces and then you take an amount equal to one of those pieces and that piece is the tenth. The latter is not something we would tend to call a tenth, as a matter of contemporary mathematical nomenclature, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. In any case, the Rabbis say that neither Hillel's nor Shammai's position is accepted, but a middle position.
Second, about how much drawn water is required to be poured into a partially full mikvah to invalidate it. Again, Shamma is stricter and requires a smaller quantity, Hillel is lenient and requires a larger quantity. But fascinatingly, this time the answer is that a couple of weavers, just random laborers, popped up from Jerusalem and testified that the actual answer was an in between amount, and they had it from Shemaya and Avtalyon, who were Hillel and Shammai's teachers, so this answer was accepted. This time, the argument seems to be about disagreement about the meaning of the ancient units used in the Bible, because by Mishnaic times those unit measures were no longer in standard use, and so the Rabbis needed to convert to modern units and they disagreed about the conversion factors.
Third, about whether a woman who discovers she is a niddah needs to retroactively consider anything she touched before discovering that she was a niddah to be tamei. Here, Shammai is lenient and Hillel is strict, requiring that she consider anything she touched back to the last time she was sure she was not a niddah to be tamei, even back several days. In any case, the Rabbis say that neither Hillel's nor Shammai's position is accepted, but a middle position, that anything she touched in the last 24 hours is tamei but not further back than that.
I think it's really interesting that in all three of these halachot of disagrement, the halacha is neither with Shammai nor Hillel but with a middle position. To resolve their disagreements, they compromised, yet the Gemara still preserves their disagreement as having value in the original extreme positions.