Knowing the Path and Walking It

For Hillel, study was the essential prerequisite for knowing and fulfilling one's obligations, because virtue is not achieved through good intentions alone. Good intentions need be coupled with ongoing and vigorous intellectual effort...But central as Torah study is to Hillel, what one does not find in his aphorisms are teachings about God and about prayer.

In contrast to Hillel, one looks in vain in the New Testament for statements from Jesus advocating rigorous Bible study. It is not intellectural sophistication that Jesus seems to value most, but simple faith...
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
Hillel: If Not Now, When?

Yes, I'm still reading Rabbi Telushkin's book and I will undoubtedly continue to blog on portions of this text long after I've finished reading it. Here, in the above quotes, we see Telushkin continuing to compare the lives and acts of Hillel and Jesus (Yeshua), this time pointing out a major difference.

In a nutshell, Telushkin characterizes Hillel as a man devoted to the deeply human and compassionate expressions of Judaism but who discovered and deepened those expressions, not through intense prayer, but through intense study.

This isn't to say that Hillel didn't value prayer, but from Telushkin's point of view, Hillel found faith and God primarily through Torah study while Yeshua advocated for a holy life devoted to prayer and good deeds.

Or did he?

What we know of both men is limited to the written record we have of both their lives. In terms of the life of Yeshua, we have a record that is inspired by God, so we have no reason to doubt anything about the Bible, but does it contain everything about Yeshua?

Probably not.

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. -John 21:25

While John is speaking specifically of the post-resurrection activities of the Master, I think it's fair to say that we could apply this to Yeshua's life in general. We only know a certain amount, just like the knowledge of the life of Hillel is limited.

I offer the following as evidence that Yeshua did expect his followers to have a deep understanding of the scriptures, which would, of course, require a great deal of study:

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. -Luke 24:25-27

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. -Luke 24:44-47

The evidence, even during the earthly lifetime of Yeshua, that the Messiah had to die, be buried, and be resurrected was always in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. While we don't find his teachings pointing directly to the requirement to vigorously study Torah, these quotes from Yeshua indicate that Torah study was a necessity. He chided his disciples for failing to study sufficiently to be able to understand the events that were happening all around them concerning the Messiah.

Now lets's turn back to Hillel. The most famous quote attributed to Hillel, from which Rabbi Teluskin takes the title of his book is:

Say not, 'When I have free time I shall study'; for you may perhaps never have any free time. -Avot 2:4

When comparing this to Jesus though, Telushkin says:

There are no such statements (from Hillel) such as "Do not say, 'When I have free time, I will pray,' lest you never have free time," or even "One who does not believe in God cannot be fully a righteous person."

This is just a guess on my part, but perhaps both teachers were operating under certain assumptions, or at least assessed the needs of their students in different ways. Hillel may have drawn students for whom prayer and devotion to God was a given and therefore, his students didn't require a strong urging in this area. From Yeshua's point of view however, given the fact that most of his disciples were very poor, the opportunity to study at a Yeshiva would have been rare to non-existent. Peter and his companions were fishermen by trade. They had to earn a living. Torah study is very time consuming and usually such students came from wealthy families who would support them. In the case of Yeshua's students, perhaps the nature of their lives combined with limited access to a Yeshiva resulted in his emphasizing prayer over study.

However, this should be a condition that Hillel would have understood because he himself was a poor person, a day laborer who had emigrated from Babylonia to Jerusalem. It was only the kindness of his own teachers that enabled him to begin dedicated Torah study and ultimately go from being a poor common laborer to the foremost scholar and teacher of his day.

I don't come with the answers to these questions and seeming contradictions, but I do want to introduce a "wobble" in this apparent differences between the approach of Hillel and that of Yeshua. While each teacher seemed to emphasize a different path to righteousness, I don't believe that they neglected the values of the other.

The life of Hillel is a testament to compassion, mercy, and graciousness, especially to the poor and the disaffected. How like the teachings of Yeshua his actions were. At the same time, Yeshua had an expectation that his disciples would know the Law and the Prophets sufficently to be able to understand that, when Yeshua died, it was because the Messiah was supposed to die. Even today, you have to study and look for the specific portions of the scriptures that point this out. They aren't always obvious (they seem that way, because in the church, they are highlighted quite a bit...to an Orthodox Jew who studies the same scriptures though, not so much).

Both Hillel and Yeshua came from poor and working class families. Prior to his early 30s, Yeshua no doubt worked quietly in carpentry while, as we've said, prior to entering into formal studies, Hillel was a day laborer. They knew what it was like to do without and they also both had a vision that extended far beyond their stations in life.

We know that Yeshua's purpose and goal was sent from Heaven and from the Throne of God but in more humble ways, that can be said of all of us. Certainly this is also true of Hillel. We know that both of these men were (and are...God is not a God of the dead but of the living, and Yeshua is our High Priest in the Heavenly Court) different in many ways but perhaps, where it truly counted, they were also very much alike.

They both knew what their students needed and they knew how to guide them down the path of righteousness.

Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize just as I did that there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
Morpheus
The Matrix (1999)

Study after all, is no good unless you put it into action. Prayer, as the brother of the Master points out, is more effective when you act in order to be the answer to prayer (James 2:14-26).