The Stranger at the Door
Short story about the whole thing, while standing on one leg.
He had already been thrown out of one house that evening, which he considered a good start.
The joke was his own: demand the whole of the Torah while standing on one leg. Whoever couldn't manage it was a fraud; whoever tried was a fool.
At the second house an old man opened the door himself, looking genuinely pleased at the interruption.
"On one leg," said the stranger.
"Which one?"
It threw him. He lifted his right foot and stood in the doorway like a heron.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to another," said Hillel. "That is the whole of it. The rest is commentary. Now go and learn it."
Four seconds. He had prepared for an evening.
"That's it?"
"You'll spend your life on the last part."
"Which part?"
"Go and learn it."
He had come armed against pomposity, and had no defence at all against being taken seriously.
The principle takes four seconds. The commentary takes the rest of your life.
Ohananda.com
Talmud, Shabbat 31a (Hillel and the convert)
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary — go and learn it.”
The exchange is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a, in a widely used English rendering. The stranger's evening and the dialogue around it are Ohananda's retelling.
Hillel's answer is famous for its brevity, and usually quoted as if brevity were the point. The sting is in the last clause: go and learn it.
The principle takes four seconds. The commentary — how to speak to your mother, how to pay a worker, what to do with the person you cannot forgive — is the work of a life.
Who is the person you would least like to apply this to?
