Avos 1:14,2 Was Shammai a severe and somber man?

Shammai Said: "Set A Fixed Time For Your Study Of Torah; Say Little And Do Much; And Receive Every Person With A Cheerful Countenance."

"Every person" can be interpreted to include even gentiles. This raises a question: There is a well-known narrative which relates that a gentile came to Shammai and demanded: "Teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot." Shammai drove him away. Hillel, by contrast, received him with gentle forbearance and told him: "What is distasteful to you, do not do to a colleague. This is the entire Torah; the rest is merely explanation.(Shabbos 31a)"

Shammai's conduct seems to conflict with his own directive to "receive every person with a cheerful countenance."

It can be explained that the above narrative reflects Shammai's natural tendencies. Nevertheless, after Shammai heard Hillel's teaching - "Be of the students of Aharon" - he changed his nature and taught his students to "receive every person with a cheerful countenance. " (This explains why in this instance, Hillel's teachings are mentioned before those of Shammai although generally Shammai's teachings are given precedence. See Tosafos, Chagigah 16a).

This explanation is offered by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Rebbe's approach is conditioned on his perception of the disagreements between Hillel being due to Shammia representing Gevura and Hillel representing Chessed. (Parenthetically, the question of wheher one can explain multiple views of Tannaim based on their personal proclivities first came up with Zecharia Frankel of the Breslau seminary, who took such a position in his "Darke ha-Mishnah" (Leipsic, 1859). This was subsequently extended by Finkelstein in his analysis of Pharisees and Sadduccees. R. Samson Raphael Hirsch strongly opposed this approach (in Selected Writings, vol. 5) and considered it to be apikorses.  On the other hand, the Rebbe's view is solidly based on Zohar and has influenced several contemporary writers, such as R. Jonathan Sacks and R. Nachman Cohen, who published several books extending this concept to other pairs of Tannaim who disagree. When I discussed this once with R Cohen, he rolled off a number of other authorities throughout the ages who employed this approach.)

One might ask, however, that the statement presented in this Mishna is not that of Beis Hillel, and therefore it could not have been that Shammai changed his view to follow that of Hillel. Beis Hillel instead holds:

R. Ishmael says:...   receive every man with joy (Avos 3:12). Rambam writes: "More than what Shammai said, "receive every man with a pleasant countenance". Further support that the view of Beis Hillel is distinct fror the view of Beis Shammai is the statement in Kesubos 111b that one should greet others with teeth showing, that is with a full and open smile, which is more than what Shammai says.

Although from several sources one may get an impression that Shammai and his followers were severe and unwelcoming (see Tos. Gittin 36b), this is belied by other, less well-known reports about Shammai. For example he went carrying his staff to his student Yonasan ben Uziel as a sign of subjection(Bava Basra 133b - this is not how Rashi understand it but see Rosh HaShanah 24b-25b. Seder Hadoros understand that R. Yonasan was a student of Hillel (as per Sukkah 28) and therefore junior to Shammai as well; however, Seder Hadoros himself holds that Shammai started out as a student of Hillel and became his equal. It is therefore possible that Shammia was a fellow-student of Yonasan ben Uziel)).  The Rebbe, though was based in Kabbala, which considers Shammai to have been unduly severe in rejecting converts, for which he had to return as a gilgul in R. Shimon ben Azzai, who never married, but through his Torah study many souls of geirim were born (see Seder Hadoros, Tannaim and Amoraim, Shammai).

The Jewish Encylopedia has this interesting answer to the contradiction between the persona and teachings of Shammai: "He himself appears to have realized the disadvantages of his violent temper; hence he recommended a friendly attitude toward all. His motto was: "Make the study of the Law thy chief occupation; speak little, but accomplish much; and receive every man with a friendly countenance" (Ab. i. 15). He was modest even toward his pupils (B. B. 134b; comp. Weiss, "Dor," i. 163, note 1)." The answer is not respectful to the great Sage Shammai but does point out the problem.

I would suggest that Shammai advocated that when one meets a new person, he should " do much  and say little". Unfortunately, it is common for one's words, even if meant well, to be misinterpreted by someone who does not recognize and know you, but is meeting you for the first time. Humor can be taken as mockery and joy as flattery or a sign of imbalance. This is why Shammai did not agree with the view of Beis Hillel that one should show much happiness when receiving every man. It is common, for example, for Europeans to perceive Americans as flighty and unreliable when first encountering them, because Americans smile and joke while Europeans rarely smile to strangers and are more reserved. Shammai thought that when receiving "all" people, one should show a pleasant countenance but not excessive happiness. Hillel, on the other hand, felt that true simcha can overcome all boundaries and cultural barriers, because it speaks directly to the heart.

Comments

[avakesh]

From the comments in Lessons in Tanya, Compiler's Introduction

Those souls which are rooted in the attribute of kindness tend to be lenient in their halachic decisions, being inclined toward kindness, which dictates that the object be declared permissible and thus capable of being sanctified if used for a sacred purpose, and so on, with the attribute of severity dictating stringency in halachic decisions, and the attribute of beauty mediating, as is known.

In his Iggeret HaKodesh, the Alter Rebbe applies this principle to the legal arguments between the Schools of Shammai and Hillel. The School of Shammai was usually stringent, because their spiritual source was the attribute of severity; the school of Hillel usually lenient because of their source in the attribute of kindness. In certain decisions, however, their positions were reversed. For the realm of holiness is governed by the principle of mutual incorporation (התכללות), with kindness containing elements of severity and vice versa.

Now if one’s individual spiritual tendencies affect the way he views the Torah even in the area of the Halachah, which is intrinsically objective,

וכל שכן וקל וחומר בהנסתרות לה׳ אלקינו

surely, how much more so, will subjective differences play a role in “matters hidden to G‑d Almighty,”

[micha]

Doesn't the gemara about the three conversion candidates who approach Shammai, then Hillel, with absurd demands use those stories to support the statement, "One should always be humble like Hillel, and not short-tempered like Shammai"? And the converts conclude, "Shammai's impatience sought to drive us from the world, but Hillel's gentleness brought us under the wings of the Shechinah."

As for natural inclinations, I prefer the explanation implied by the Maharal (I am elaborating on his theme) in his commentary on Avos.

The zeugos (pairs) each are cited with pairs of aphorisms. The Maharal shows how the head of the court is saying something about strict justice, while the nasi, the leader of the masses, says something about lovingkindness. This is because it is the job of each -- one is charged with interpreting and employing the law, the other spent much of his day on charity and other societal work.

We learn that disputes over halakhah multiplied when the students of Hillel and of Shammai failed to properly serve their mentors. So, rather than learning what they really were and how they really behaved, the students of Hillel saw the man in his office as community leader, and the students of Shammai saw their mentor as the head of the court. They confused the role with the person.

And so Hillel and Shammai saw eye to eye on all but 3 laws (after having numerous discussions that resolved previous disagreements), but their students, who actually did adopt law vs kindness as the more central value, ended up disagreeing often.

Shammai wasn't as severe as he was made out to be; he was a man in a job that called for severity. Without his students having studied, preserved, or emulated his private life, we don't know what Shammai himself was really like.

I think this is less true of Hillel, as is evidenced in the personal story about the man interrupting his pre-Shabbos preparations. We have some record of what he was like as a person, even if his students didn't take the effort to serve him and inculcate that personality by example.

-micha