Thursday, June 9, 2016

Nothing To Get Hung About

...The trait of Hillel the Elder, however, transcends all these [levels]. He was not particular about anything and even a stirring of anger did not occur within him. This is a person who is, without a doubt, absolutely free of anger.
Luzzatto is referring to the famous story about Hillel's boundless patience. In short, a man took a bet that he could make Hillel angry. As Hillel was preparing for Shabbos, this fellow repeatedly disturbed him, knocking on his door and asking trivial and irrelevant questions. But Hillel never did get angry and the man lost the bet (cf. Shabbos 30b). What was Hillel's secret? The Ramchal tells us.  לא היה מקפיד על שום דבר, "He was not particular about anything."  

What does this mean? Hillel did not get angry when someone wasted his time because he just didn't care? Time is precious; time is life! How could Hillel not care?! 

For the answer, we need to review the facts of life. Free men own their time, but if you are a slave, then your time belongs to your master. And it's not just slaves. Earlier in this chapter, Luzzatto wrote about employee obligations and responsibilities. "Someone who is hired by another person for any kind of work, all of his hours are sold to him for the day... and any of that [time] that he takes for his own personal use in any way, is nothing other than absolute theft."  

Hillel was not a freeman. Hillel was a servant of God. 

It was not possible to waste Hillel's time, for Hillel's time was not his. How Hillel should spend his day is entirely up to God and if He decides that Hillel should repeatedly answer the door and talk to a fool, so be it. Hillel had internalized this truth and made no claims on his time; Hillel's only interest was to fulfill Hashem's will. When that's your goal in life, there really never is anything to get hung about. 

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