Hillel the Elder was born in Babylonia into a distinguished family which, according to tradition, descended from the House of David. He had a brother, Shebna, who engaged in trade while Hillel devoted himself to study. According to the Sifre, he came up from Babylonia at the age of forty, served the sages for forty years and led Israel for forty years.

When he arrived in the Land of Israel he was very poor: he worked as a woodcutter and gave half of his meagre wage to be admitted to the study hall of Shemaya and Avtalyon. One winter day, when he had no money, he climbed onto the roof to listen through the skylight, and he was found there the next morning covered in snow (Yoma 35b).

One year, when the eve of Pesach fell on Shabbat, no one knew whether the Passover offering overrides Shabbat. Hillel, a disciple of Shemaya and Avtalyon, was asked and proved that it does, and that same day he was appointed Nasi of the Sanhedrin (Pesachim 66a). The last of the zugot (pairs), his colleague was Shammai the Elder. Among his enactments was the prozbul, which allows a loan to be collected despite the Sabbatical year. His descendants held the presidency of the Sanhedrin until the 5th century.

His patience and gentleness became proverbial. To a prospective convert who asked to be taught the whole Torah while standing on one foot, he replied: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn” (Shabbat 31a). In Avot (1:14) he said: “If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” The Talmud ascribes to him eighty disciples, the greatest Yonatan ben Uziel and the least Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai.

His students formed the school of Beit Hillel, and halacha was established almost everywhere according to Beit Hillel. He died around 10 CE, in Jerusalem. A burial cave attributed to him and his disciples lies in Meron, near the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and is mentioned from the 11th century onward.