Hillel

What a wonderfully inspiring lecture! I first started studying portions of the Talmud that dealt with Hillel, and especially tractate Shabbat.
I was just surprised about the reason given for Shammai's harsh treatment of the 3 proselytes, namely the rise of the Hebrew-Christian movement... This is totally anachronistic, since when Hillel died JC was just a child (allegedly, assuming he ever existed), so Shammai did not reject the proselytes thinking they were JC's followers... Shammai was an impatient man and is depicted and qualified as such in the Talmud. If you want to know more, read how he sent two of the proselytes away...
Amazing that human beings leave such big traces in history. How blessed our nation to have giants like Hillel and his successors, Rambam, Ramban, and an incredibly long etc... Reply

Hillel Incriminates the Poor Can you kindly explain why and how Hillel did this?

I am reminded of the satirical and caustic comment by Shalom Alechem about the Almighty surely hateing the poor, because there is no other reason why He makes their lives so wretched and squalid.! Reply

Great timeline I knew that Rabbi Gurkow has a family {meaning all those great Jewish minds out there} that is very well versed in this study.It is nice to hear the smooth timing in which when able can make the lesson so much easer to absorb.For me I have a hard time picking just one thing from the Torah and working on those details because their is so much .I never in my life read everyday(never) I have since subscribing to Chabad.org and I purchased the Chumash Bemidar.I believe that once my finger prints touch one page of that book I had opened up my whole life to the Jewish life style.Love to learn best wishes and happy Shabbat. Reply

Thank you Thank you for this great lecture. Reply

Commendation This series is done so well. Nicely paced, easy to listen to, material taken from all over, on an very important historical era. Thanks for a job well done, and on what is (hopefully) still to come. Reply