Hillel’s Appointment as Patriarch

One time the fourteenth day [of the month of Nisan, when the Passover offering was cooked,] coincided with the Sabbath. [The people] asked Hillel the elder, “Does the Passover offering override the Sabbath?” He said to them, “Do we only have one Passover offering in the year which would override the Sabbath? Do we not have three hundred Passover offerings in the year, and they override the Sabbath?” The entire assembly gathered around him, and he said to them, “The tamid [daily] offering is a communal sacrifice, and the Passover offering is a communal sacrifice. Just as the tamid offering is a communal sacrifice and overrides the Sabbath, so too the Passover offering is a communal sacrifice and overrides the Sabbath. [ . . . ]

“Furthermore, there is an a fortiori argument: In the case of the tamid, one is not liable for excision [for not eating it], and it overrides the Sabbath. In the case of the Passover offering, [which is so serious that] one is liable for excision [for not eating it], should it not also override the Sabbath?

“Furthermore, I have received [a tradition] from my teachers that the Passover offering overrides the Sabbath.” [ . . . ]

They said to him, “What about the people who did not bring their knives and Passover offerings to the Temple [before the Sabbath]?” He said, “Leave them alone, for the divine spirit is upon them. If they themselves are not prophets, they are the children of prophets.” What did the Jews do at that time [when they did not bring these things to the Temple before the Sabbath]? One whose Passover offering was a lamb stuck [the knife] in its wool. [One whose offering was] a kid tied it between its horns. And they brought their knives and Passover offerings to the Temple and slaughtered their Passover offerings on that very day. The [people] appointed Hillel as patriarch, and he taught them the laws of Passover.

Translated by Matthew Goldstone.