Shammai, Hillel and the Three Converts

This may sound like the title of a joke, but it is a serious story. The Talmud tells several stories of Shammai, Hillel and the three converts (Shabbat 31a). This one is the most revealing of all:

 
 

“A certain heathen once came before Shammai and asked him, 'How many Toroth  have you?' 'Two,' he replied: 'the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.'  'I believe you with respect to the Written, but not with respect to the Oral Torah; make me a proselyte on condition that you teach me the Written Torah [only].  [But] he scolded and repulsed him in anger. When he went before Hillel, he accepted him as a proselyte. On the first day, he taught him, Alef, beth, gimmel, daleth;  the following day he reversed [them] to him. 'But yesterday you did not teach them to me thus,' he protested. 'Must you then not rely upon me?  Then rely upon me with respect to the Oral [Torah] too.'”

To analyze this, we see that a prospective convert  only had belief in the Written Torah. Shammai told him to go away, since this was not sufficient for a Rabbinic version of Judaism, hence conversion would not be possible. 

Hillel, on the other hand, plays tricks on the potential convert, which are dishonest and fallacious tactics. The tactics are, firstly to teach the Hebrew alphabet in the correct order. Then to confuse the candidate, who does not know Hebrew, by teaching it backwards!  Imagine being taught a foreign alphabet, only to be confused the next day by having the teacher teach it backwards!

But Hillel’s statements are also logically fallacious.  This can be called the nominalist fallacy. This means that Hillel is simply presenting an arbitrary standard of proof, and then using that as a proof for his argument. It can also be formally described as a circular argument.  It is also a non-sequitor.   Since the candidate did not know Hebrew, and could not independently study the Torah to critically examine whether the Torah mentions any oral law, Hillel’s claim is false. It is making use of the candidate’s ignorance of both the Hebrew language, and the Torah’s content.

Had the potential convert first become acquainted with Hebrew language, and then studied the Torah independently, he would not have fallen for the fallacies of the Rabbi.  This applies to many today, who seek religion, and are misled by the rabbis.

There is another element to this story, which is equally repugnant.  By reversing the alphabet, Hillel is suggesting that nothing in the Torah is fixed, in meaning or logic.  According to this proposal of Hillel, there are no rules in logic, grammar or meaning. What is black today can be white tomorrow, what is sweet today can be bitter tomorrow. And this is the crux of the rabbinical fallacy. It has no adherence to the meaning of the Torah. Truth is something that has no value and infinite elasticity, depending on the agenda of the rabbis, and their political interests.

Isaiah 5:20 condemned this approach many years before Hillel was born:

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that change darkness into light, and light into darkness; that change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter!”

He also, in v. 24, attacks Hillel’s approach as rejecting the Torah:

24 Therefore as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and as the chaff is consumed in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and contemned the word of the Holy One of Israel

An honest appraisal of the written Torah, and its internal logic, will arrive at the conclusion that there was no Oral Law given with the Torah.