with
the Torah itself, enshrined the spirit of Judaism and made it a
throbbing reality in the life of the nation, Hillel brought out the
humanity of every regulation, the true intent behind it, whenever
literal enforcement would have worked hardship or might have defeated
its true intent because of the changed circumstances since its
enactment. While keeping faithfully within the spirit of Jewish
tradition, Hillel struck out into innovations, new precedents and
legal institutions, which testified at once to the remarkable insight
and boldness of his mind as a jurist and to his tact and sympathy as a
leader of the people. Some of his innovations anticipate in a striking
way the developments under similar circumstances of the common law of
England and the United States many centuries later.

_Hillel As A Jurist: His Sense of Social Justice_

For example, it happened that the first year after Herod's accession
was a Sabbatical year, which, according to the Deuteronomic provision
(Deut. 15, 2), set up a Statute of Limitations and effectively barred
the recovery of all debts. The people, impoverished by the exactions
of the Government and by the failure of the harvest, were compelled to
have recourse to money lenders. But those who were able to accommodate
the needy were reluctant to do so on account of the imminence of the
Sabbatical year and its legal bar to the recovery of past debts.
Hillel's keen mind and sympathetic heart found a way out of this
difficulty. He set up the institution of the Prosbul, by which a
creditor received the right, when making a loan, to register the debt
in court. In this way the great jurist anticipated in a remarkable
manner a principle accepted so many centuries later in the common law
of England and America, namely, that the Statute of Limitations does
not apply to recorded judgments. Such judgments can always be sued on
and recovered. And so the new ordinance established by Hillel removed
the hardship of the Biblical enactment, the purpose of which was
humanitarian. By Hillel's innovation, the true spirit of that law was
maintained, and applied in accordance with its real intent in an age
when the economic conditions were vastly different from the time when
the law itself was established. Our modern lawyers and reformers in
this country may well take a leaf out of this progressive conservatism
of our great democratic teacher Hillel.

Other decisions of Hillel equally significant could