Hillel the Elder (Hillel HaZaken) was one of the most important sages in Jewish history. Born in Babylonia, he came to the Land of Israel to study Torah and became Nasi, the head of the Sanhedrin, in the last decades of the Second Temple period.
The Talmud (Yoma 35b) tells that as a poor young man he could not pay the entry fee to the house of study, so he climbed onto the roof to listen through the skylight, and was found there half-frozen under the snow. Famous for his patience, he answered a convert who asked to learn the whole Torah “on one foot”: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and learn” (Shabbat 31a).
According to tradition he is buried in Meron, near Tzfat, together with many of his students.
