he earned daily served for his meals, and the other half he
paid to the porter at the college for his admission in the evening. On
this short Friday in mid-winter he had been able to earn nothing, and
in his keen anxiety not to miss the lecture and discussion, he
clambered to the roof of the college hall, braving snow and cold for
the words of the living God as expounded by his teachers.

Within a few short years Hillel himself had succeeded his teachers as
the head of this famous school, and also as President of the
Synhedrion. Hillel's career is a shining example of the democratic
principle which has always prevailed in Jewish life, of the
opportunity open to all men of talents, however humble their origin,
to achieve position in the republic of Jewish learning. And learning
combined with noble character, as in the case of the great Hillel,
carried authority in Jewish life. It is true that Hillel was not
without letters patent of nobility; though he came from poverty and
obscurity and from an alien land, he was, according to tradition, of
the blood of David. It is not, however, to this accident of birth,
known only later, that Hillel owed his quick rise and supreme eminence
in Jewish life, but to his distinguished attainments, to his profound
learning not only in the Jewish Law but in many secular fields of
knowledge, to his bold and original mind combined with a pious
devotion to tradition, to his indomitable energy and industry, his
nobility of character, his sympathy with the people and his
understanding of their needs.

"_What To Thee Is Hateful Do Not Unto Another_"

It was Hillel who first enunciated the Golden Rule, although in
negative form. The story that is told in the Talmud is one of the most
familiar; yet no repetition can lessen its point and charm. A heathen,
it is related, came to Shammai, the leader of a rival school,
requesting to be received into Judaism and instructed in the whole of
the religion while he stood upon one leg. Shammai, an architect by
profession, threatened the heathen with his builder's measuring rod
and drove him out. The man went to Hillel with the same request.
Hillel, gentle, patient, democratic, received the man hospitably and
answered: "The whole of Judaism can be summarized in one short
sentence: 'What to thee is hateful do not unto another.' That is the
essence of the whole Torah; the rest is commentary."

And in the interpretation of that "commentary" which, together