The Pharisees are negative figures in the New Testament. In the Gospels, they serve largely to place Jesus by contrast in a positive light. Tradition in the past two thousand years, both within and without the church, has been even less kind. To counteract this tendency, and the unconscious influence it can exercise, it is useful to study the self-perception of adherents of this movement.
This slim monograph is a useful introduction to the towering figure of Hillel the Elder, the influential Pharisee teacher. He stands at the dawn of the formation of classical Judaism, a movement largely defined by successors of the Pharisees. It focused on the study of the Torah, personal holiness, and acts of mercy, and provided a viable substitute for temple-based worship after Jerusalem's destruction. It became the Judaism that survived the catastrophic events of the first and second centuries of the common era.
Glatzer acknowledges that any scholar approaching Hillel must deal with a mixture of historical reminiscence and legend, yet in the course of his narrative, it is clear that he belongs to those confident that a reliable portrait can nevertheless be delineated. Other scholars are not as sanguine.
Still, I was fascinated by Glatzer's reconstruction of Hillel's life. He posits that Hillel first arrived in Jerusalem from Babylon to study with the acknowledged masters, then withdrew and spent decades among the sectarians in the wilderness. In describing this, Glatzer is careful to differentiate between the Essenes, known from Josephus and Philo, and the Community of the Covenant, to whom he attributes the Dead Sea Scrolls that had recently been discovered and only partially published when this book appeared. As Glatzer tells it, “early Hasidism” (a term he uses for the common antecedents of Pharisaism and Essenism) bifurcated: the Pharisees, who remained centered on Jerusalem, became more rigid and—though Glatzer does not use the word—casuistic; meanwhile the sectarians retained a lively spirit of intense scrutiny of the Torah but in a withdrawn setting. In this telling, Hillel absorbed the best of what the sectarians had to offer but rejected their separatism and dualism. He returned to Jerusalem and acceptance by the Pharisees as their leading teacher, in effect reuniting the two traditions.
In keeping with Hillel's rejection of sectarian isolation, Glatzer differentiates between “community,” which Hillel strove to promote, and “state,” with which Hillel sought to have as little to do as possible.
Another tantalizing feature of this book is the author’s speculation that Judaism would have continued to interact with Greek philosophy and adapt more of its tenets in fruitful appropriation if Greece had not been replaced by Rome as the dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean. For Jews, Rome represented subjugation, not dialogue.
Glatzer admires Hillel and all that he stood for. While his book helps counteract the negative portrait of the Pharisees, I wonder if some of the terms he uses to describe the movement (progressive, liberal, democratic) are not anachronistic. It is evident, though, that in using them, Glatzer shows that he shares the humane, forbearing, humble qualities he finds exemplified in Hillel. ( )