What, then, was Hillel's famous pruzbul?

This legal device, recorded in the name of Hillel, has been the cause of a great deal of misunderstanding, primarily among non-Orthodox groups. But first let us find out what the pruzbul is. Simply put, a pruzbul is a legal device whereby a person who is owed money by others turns over his loans to the local bet din - Jewish court of law - before the end of the sabbatical year. Now, the law is that the sabbatical year cancels all private debts between individuals; it does not, however, cancel debts held by the bet din. Thus, by using a pruzbul, a person can, as it were, circumvent the laws of the cancellation of debts in the sabbatical year. The Mishnah tells us that when Hillel saw that the rich - contrary to what the Torah demanded of them - were reluctant to lend money to the poor before the advent of the sabbatical year, he ordered that pruzbuls be issued. This, we should stress, was not made as a device to help the rich collect their debts, but as a way to ensure that the poor would not find themselves without any sources for loans. What many do not understand is that Hillel did not, by his action, change a Torah law. What he did, instead, is institutionalize a method which had always been valid by Torah law.

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