me you are not betrothed. The result was that those women who did not reach the huppah with their fiances were proclaimed retroactively"unbetrothed.” Therefore they were neither adulterous nor were their offspring blemished.?
By what means did Hillel succeed in making this radical transformation? The Talmud tells us that the great sage haya doresh leshon hedyot- he used to interpret common language, like that of the marriage contract written by a layperson, as if it were a rabbinic condition. Prof. Yitzhak Gilat of Bar Ilan University explains that Hillel gave halakhic approval to a lay custom; i.e., the text of the ketubah, and then used this custom as if it were a formula set by rabbinic sages.’
How could Hillel deal this way with a mitzvah deoraita- a Scriptural commandment regarding the forbidden status of a betrothed woman who, according to the halakhah, must be divorced before remarrying? The sages of Alexandria, who were determined to blemish the children, did indeed have the letter of the Law on their side.
It appears that Hillel , when confronted with the plight of these young people, felt compelled to use a legal fiction to save them from mamzerut(illegitimacy). The normative law stated that the children of a betrothed woman by another man are mamzerim, so his best course was to prove that she wasn't previously betrothed. We might well ask how Hillel the Elder , one of the framers of the halakhah, could have treated the law in such a fashion? Before trying to answer this question let us determine whether this was an isolated incident.
[I. RABBAN GAMLIEL- TESTIMONY REFORM
Hillel's grandson, Rabban Gamliel the Elder, was confronted with the consequences of the massacre of Jews at Tel Arza. The
60