Hillel II
Encyclopedia
Hillel II, also known simply as Hillel held the office of Nasi
of the ancient Jewish Sanhedrin
between 320 and 385 CE. He was the son and successor of Judah III
. He was a Jewish communal and religious authority, circa 330
- 365
CE. He is sometimes confused with Hillel the Elder
, as the Talmud
sometimes simply uses the name "Hillel".
In two instances his name is quoted in connection with important decisions in Jewish law
: in one, Jose ben Abin
expounds to him a law; in the other, Hillel cites a mishnah
to establish a law (Yer. Ber.
ii. 5a; Yer. Ter. i. 41a).
He is traditionally regarded as the creator of the modern fixed Hebrew calendar
. However this attribution is tenuous. It first appears in a responsum of R. Hai Gaon
(early eleventh century) cited by R. Avraham b. Hiyya in his Sefer Ha'ibbur, written in 1123. The topic of that responsum is the 19-year cycle for leap-year intercalations, so the most that can be inferred from that attribution is that Hillel was responsible for the adoption of that cycle for the regulation of the distribution of leap-years. Scholars who have studied the history of the Hebrew calendar are in general agreement (and there is much evidence for this in the Talmud
itself and in other rabbinic sources) that in practice, the evolution of the calendar into its present form was a gradual process spanning several centuries from the first to about the eighth or ninth century CE. The champion of the view that the calendar was developed in the eighth or ninth century CE is Sacha Stern. This quote is from page 184-5 of his book Calendar and Community
“Of far greater importance, however, is a much later document from the Cairo Geniza: a letter of a Babylonian exilarch - one of the main leaders of the Rabbanite community - with detailed calendrical instructions for the year 835/6 CE. The letter reveals that Passover (15 Nisan) in that year was due to occur on a Tuesday; whilst according to the present-day rabbinic calendar, it should have occurred on Thursday. According to the exilarch, the setting of Passover on Tuesday was dictated by a concern to avoid visibility of the new moon before the first day of the month. This concern does not exist in the present-day rabbinic calendar. Once discovered and published in 1922, the exilarch's letter proved beyond doubt that almost five hundred years after R.Yose and 'Hillel the Patriarch', then fixed calendar in its present-day form had still not been instituted."
This proof by Sacha Stern is flawed. The exilarch was using the very same calculation that has been attributed to Hillel II.
Presume neither the Dehiyya Molad Zaqen nor the Dehiyya Lo Adu Rosh (at least for yom Shlishi) were being implemented by the Calendrical Court in Israel as certainly was the case at the time of Hillel II. The Molad of Tishrei for 835 CE was Friday, August 27, at 22 hours and 660 parts (4:36 PM). The year 835 CE was the seventeenth year of the cycle and thus a leap year. Rosh HaShanah 836 Ce would be Thursday, September 14, 836. Basic apportionment of days to months would be Tishrei 30, Cheshvan 29, Kislev 30, Tevet 29, Shvat 30, Adar I 30, Adar II 29, for a total of 207 days. Thus Rosh Chodesh Nisan would fall on Tuesday, March 21, 836, and Passover would also fall on Tuesday. Nisan 30, Iyar 29, Sivan 30, Tamuz 29, Av 30, Elul 29 would complete this year to a total of 384 days.
In Sacha Stern’s translation of the exilarch’s letter the exilarch is concerned about seeing a Moon before Tuesday, i.e. Monday Night after sunset. Yet from Nasa’s Tables the actual lunar conjunction will be Tuesday, March 21, 836 at 2:19 AM so the New Moon would actually appear after sunset on Wednesday, nothing to fear it all. It was of the Old Moon that the exilarch had reason to be concerned.
The exilarch’s fears were based on what had happened Rosh HaShanah 835/6. On Thursday morning, August 26, 0835 the [Old} Moon would have risen in Bavel at 3:48 AM with the Sun rising at 5:33 AM. This moon would have been 44 hours from the conjunction so of considerable brightness. This is the problematic old moon that R’Hiyya walked four miles and would cause difficulties for the exilarch in his conflict with the Karaitim
as it proved that the new moon was not really witnessed.
Rabbinic tradition ascribes to him an enactment which proved of incalculable benefit to his coreligionists of his own and of subsequent generations. The Jewish calendar is lunisolar. That is, its months are synchronized with the phases of the moon, but its average year length approximates the mean length of a solar year. The purpose of the latter is to ensure that the festivals, all of which occur on fixed dates of the lunar month
s, are also observed each year in the seasons designated for them in the Bible
. To ensure the former, occasional intercalations of a day in a month were required; to ensure the latter, occasional intercalations of an extra month in a year were required.
These intercalations were determined at meetings of a special committee of the Sanhedrin
. But Constantius II
, following the precedents of Hadrian
, prohibited the holding of such meetings as well as the vending of articles for distinctly Jewish purposes.
The entire Jewish community outside the land of Israel depended on the calendar sanctioned by the Judea
n Sanhedrin
; this was necessary for the unified observance of the Jewish holidays. However, danger threatened the participants in that sanction and the messengers who communicated their decisions to distant congregations. Temporarily, to relieve the foreign congregations, Huna ben Abin once advised Rava
not to wait for the official intercalation: When you are convinced that the winter quarter will extend beyond the sixteenth day of Nisan
declare the year a leap year
, and do not hesitate (R. H. 21a). But as the religious persecutions continued, Hillel decided to provide an authorized calendar for all time to come, though by doing so he severed the ties which united the Jews of the diaspora
to their mother country
and to the patriarchate
.
The emperor Julian the Apostate
was gracious to Hillel, whom he honored on a number of occasions. In an autograph letter to him, Julian assured him of his friendship and promised to ameliorate further the condition of the Jews. Before setting out for the war with Persia, Julian addressed to the Jewish congregations a circular letter in which he informed them that he had "committed the Jewish tax-rolls to the flames," and that, "desiring to show them still greater favors, he has advised his brother, the venerable patriarch Julos
, to abolish what was called the 'send-tax'".
in Panarion
(ch. 30), Hillel II was secretly baptized on his deathbed. The Christian convert Joseph of Tiberias
was one of his disciples.
Nasi
Nāśī’ is a Hebrew title meaning prince in Biblical Hebrew, Prince in Mishnaic Hebrew, or president in Modern Hebrew.-Genesis and Ancient Israel:...
of the ancient Jewish Sanhedrin
Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel.The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient Israel made of 71 members...
between 320 and 385 CE. He was the son and successor of Judah III
Judah III
It is often difficult to know when the Mishna and Talmud are referring to Judah II or Judah III; they do not clearly distinguish between them. Since the title "Nesi'ah" was borne by both, which of the two in any citation is meant by "Judah Nesi'ah" can be gathered only from internal evidence,...
. He was a Jewish communal and religious authority, circa 330
330
Year 330 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Gallicanus and Tullianus...
- 365
365
Year 365 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Augustus and Valens...
CE. He is sometimes confused with Hillel the Elder
Hillel the Elder
Hillel was a famous Jewish religious leader, one of the most important figures in Jewish history. He is associated with the development of the Mishnah and the Talmud...
, as the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
sometimes simply uses the name "Hillel".
In two instances his name is quoted in connection with important decisions in Jewish law
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...
: in one, Jose ben Abin
Jose ben Abin
Jose b. Abin ; or alternative name recorded in the B. Talmud: Jose, the son of R. Boon [Bun], in Hebrew: יוסי ברבי בון, read as Yossi BeRabbi[Son of Rabbi] Bon) was a Jewish Talmudist, known as an amora of the fifth generation who lived in the Galilee in the Land of Israel. He was the son of...
expounds to him a law; in the other, Hillel cites a mishnah
Mishnah
The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions called the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. It was redacted c...
to establish a law (Yer. Ber.
Ber.
The abbreviation Ber. may refer to:*Chemische Berichte, a German-language journal of chemistry*Berakhot , a tractate of the Mishnah...
ii. 5a; Yer. Ter. i. 41a).
He is traditionally regarded as the creator of the modern fixed Hebrew calendar
Hebrew calendar
The Hebrew calendar , or Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits , and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses...
. However this attribution is tenuous. It first appears in a responsum of R. Hai Gaon
Hai Gaon
Hai ben Sherira , was a medieval Jewish theologian, rabbi and scholar who served as Gaon of the Talmudic academy of Pumbedita during the early 11th century. He was born in 939 and died on March 28, 1038...
(early eleventh century) cited by R. Avraham b. Hiyya in his Sefer Ha'ibbur, written in 1123. The topic of that responsum is the 19-year cycle for leap-year intercalations, so the most that can be inferred from that attribution is that Hillel was responsible for the adoption of that cycle for the regulation of the distribution of leap-years. Scholars who have studied the history of the Hebrew calendar are in general agreement (and there is much evidence for this in the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
itself and in other rabbinic sources) that in practice, the evolution of the calendar into its present form was a gradual process spanning several centuries from the first to about the eighth or ninth century CE. The champion of the view that the calendar was developed in the eighth or ninth century CE is Sacha Stern. This quote is from page 184-5 of his book Calendar and Community
“Of far greater importance, however, is a much later document from the Cairo Geniza: a letter of a Babylonian exilarch - one of the main leaders of the Rabbanite community - with detailed calendrical instructions for the year 835/6 CE. The letter reveals that Passover (15 Nisan) in that year was due to occur on a Tuesday; whilst according to the present-day rabbinic calendar, it should have occurred on Thursday. According to the exilarch, the setting of Passover on Tuesday was dictated by a concern to avoid visibility of the new moon before the first day of the month. This concern does not exist in the present-day rabbinic calendar. Once discovered and published in 1922, the exilarch's letter proved beyond doubt that almost five hundred years after R.Yose and 'Hillel the Patriarch', then fixed calendar in its present-day form had still not been instituted."
This proof by Sacha Stern is flawed. The exilarch was using the very same calculation that has been attributed to Hillel II.
Presume neither the Dehiyya Molad Zaqen nor the Dehiyya Lo Adu Rosh (at least for yom Shlishi) were being implemented by the Calendrical Court in Israel as certainly was the case at the time of Hillel II. The Molad of Tishrei for 835 CE was Friday, August 27, at 22 hours and 660 parts (4:36 PM). The year 835 CE was the seventeenth year of the cycle and thus a leap year. Rosh HaShanah 836 Ce would be Thursday, September 14, 836. Basic apportionment of days to months would be Tishrei 30, Cheshvan 29, Kislev 30, Tevet 29, Shvat 30, Adar I 30, Adar II 29, for a total of 207 days. Thus Rosh Chodesh Nisan would fall on Tuesday, March 21, 836, and Passover would also fall on Tuesday. Nisan 30, Iyar 29, Sivan 30, Tamuz 29, Av 30, Elul 29 would complete this year to a total of 384 days.
In Sacha Stern’s translation of the exilarch’s letter the exilarch is concerned about seeing a Moon before Tuesday, i.e. Monday Night after sunset. Yet from Nasa’s Tables the actual lunar conjunction will be Tuesday, March 21, 836 at 2:19 AM so the New Moon would actually appear after sunset on Wednesday, nothing to fear it all. It was of the Old Moon that the exilarch had reason to be concerned.
The exilarch’s fears were based on what had happened Rosh HaShanah 835/6. On Thursday morning, August 26, 0835 the [Old} Moon would have risen in Bavel at 3:48 AM with the Sun rising at 5:33 AM. This moon would have been 44 hours from the conjunction so of considerable brightness. This is the problematic old moon that R’Hiyya walked four miles and would cause difficulties for the exilarch in his conflict with the Karaitim
Karaite Judaism
Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Jewish movement characterized by the recognition of the Tanakh alone as its supreme legal authority in Halakhah, as well as in theology...
as it proved that the new moon was not really witnessed.
Rabbinic tradition ascribes to him an enactment which proved of incalculable benefit to his coreligionists of his own and of subsequent generations. The Jewish calendar is lunisolar. That is, its months are synchronized with the phases of the moon, but its average year length approximates the mean length of a solar year. The purpose of the latter is to ensure that the festivals, all of which occur on fixed dates of the lunar month
Lunar month
In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two identical syzygies . There are many variations. In Middle-Eastern and European traditions, the month starts when the young crescent moon becomes first visible at evening after conjunction with the Sun one or two days before that evening...
s, are also observed each year in the seasons designated for them in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. To ensure the former, occasional intercalations of a day in a month were required; to ensure the latter, occasional intercalations of an extra month in a year were required.
These intercalations were determined at meetings of a special committee of the Sanhedrin
Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel.The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient Israel made of 71 members...
. But Constantius II
Constantius II
Constantius II , was Roman Emperor from 337 to 361. The second son of Constantine I and Fausta, he ascended to the throne with his brothers Constantine II and Constans upon their father's death....
, following the precedents of Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
, prohibited the holding of such meetings as well as the vending of articles for distinctly Jewish purposes.
The entire Jewish community outside the land of Israel depended on the calendar sanctioned by the Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
n Sanhedrin
Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel.The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient Israel made of 71 members...
; this was necessary for the unified observance of the Jewish holidays. However, danger threatened the participants in that sanction and the messengers who communicated their decisions to distant congregations. Temporarily, to relieve the foreign congregations, Huna ben Abin once advised Rava
Rava (amora)
For the third generation Amora sage of Babylon, with a similar name, see: Joseph b. Hama .Abba ben Joseph bar Ḥama, who is exclusively referred to in the Talmud by the name Rava , was a Jewish Talmudist who lived in Babylonia, known as an amora, born in 270. He is one of the most often-cited Rabbis...
not to wait for the official intercalation: When you are convinced that the winter quarter will extend beyond the sixteenth day of Nisan
Nisan
Nisan is the first month of the ecclesiastical year and the seventh month of the civil year, on the Hebrew calendar. The name of the month is Babylonian; in the Torah it is called the month of the Aviv, referring to the month in which barley was ripe. It is a spring month of 30 days...
declare the year a leap year
Leap year
A leap year is a year containing one extra day in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year...
, and do not hesitate (R. H. 21a). But as the religious persecutions continued, Hillel decided to provide an authorized calendar for all time to come, though by doing so he severed the ties which united the Jews of the diaspora
Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....
to their mother country
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
and to the patriarchate
Patriarchate
A patriarchate is the office or jurisdiction of a patriarch. A patriarch, as the term is used here, is either* one of the highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, earlier, the five that were included in the Pentarchy: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, but now nine,...
.
The emperor Julian the Apostate
Julian the Apostate
Julian "the Apostate" , commonly known as Julian, or also Julian the Philosopher, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363 and a noted philosopher and Greek writer....
was gracious to Hillel, whom he honored on a number of occasions. In an autograph letter to him, Julian assured him of his friendship and promised to ameliorate further the condition of the Jews. Before setting out for the war with Persia, Julian addressed to the Jewish congregations a circular letter in which he informed them that he had "committed the Jewish tax-rolls to the flames," and that, "desiring to show them still greater favors, he has advised his brother, the venerable patriarch Julos
Julos
Julos is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France.-References:*...
, to abolish what was called the 'send-tax'".
In Christian tradition
According to Epiphanius of SalamisEpiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis was bishop of Salamis at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy...
in Panarion
Panarion
In early Christian heresiology, the Panarion , to which 16th-century Latin translations gave the name Adversus Haereses , is the most important of the works of Epiphanius of Salamis...
(ch. 30), Hillel II was secretly baptized on his deathbed. The Christian convert Joseph of Tiberias
Joseph of Tiberias
Joseph of Tiberias was a Christian of Jewish origin.According to Epiphanius, he was born during the reign of Emperor Constantine. He was a Rabbinical scholar and member of the Sanhedrin and a disciple of Hillel II...
was one of his disciples.