Gamaliel II - Opinions

Opinions

Rabbi Gamaliel II directed Simeon ha-Pakoli to edit the Amidah and make it a duty, incumbent on every one, to recite the prayer three times daily. Also, he directed Samuel ha-Katan to write another paragraph against informers and heretics.

He was on friendly terms with many who were not Jews, and was so warmly devoted to his slave Tavi that when the latter died he mourned for him as for a beloved member of his own family.

He loved discussing the sense of single portions of the Bible with other scholars, and made many fine expositions of the text. With the words of Deuteronomy 13:18 he associated the lesson: "So long as thou thyself art merciful, God will also be merciful to thee." Gamaliel died before the insurrections under Trajan had brought fresh unrest into Israel. At his funeral obsequies the celebrated proselyte Aquila (Akylas Onkelos), reviving an ancient custom, burned costly materials to the value of seventy minae. Gamaliel himself had given directions that his body was to be wrapped in the simplest possible shroud. By this he wished to check the extravagance which had become associated with arrangements for the disposal of the dead, and his end was attained; his example became the rule, and it also became the custom to commemorate him in the words of consolation addressed to the mourners. Gamaliel's son, Simon, long after his father's death, and after the persecutions under Hadrian, inherited his office, which thenceforward his descendants handed on from father to son.

Rabbi Gamaliel’s overriding philosophy was: "Whoever has mercy on other people, Heaven will have mercy upon him; whoever does not have mercy on other people, Heaven will not have mercy upon him."