On the other hand, there was the school of Hillel the Elder, Shammai’s contemporary. He came from the diaspora and was later referred to as ‘Hillel the Babylonian’.87 He brought with him more humane and universalistic notions of Torah interpretation. To Shammai, the essence of the Torah lay in its detail; unless you got the detail exactly right, the system became meaningless and could not stand. To Hillel, the essence of the Torah was its spirit: if you got the spirit right, the detail could take care of itself. Tradition contrasted Shammai’s anger and pedantry with Hillel’s humility and
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