DEUT769 In this instance the biblical law which was circumvented [by Hillel's institution of the Prozbul] was in itself obviously motivated by the high ethical principle of giving one's fellow man a chance to start anew and not to be crushed forever by a debt which necessity had forced him to assume. But the facts of life indicated that this highly ethically motivated law harmed the very ones it was intended to help. Hence Hillel decided that it was preferable to circumvent by a takkanah the law of the remission of debts rather than encourage the violation of the ethical injunction requiring one to come to the assistance of his fellow man. In this he was true to his fundamental understanding of the Torah. It was he who had said that the essence of the Torah is contained in the commandment, "Do not do unto others what you would not have others do to you." Shabbat 31a Hence, when he saw that in the changed times and conditions of his day, the observance of the ethically motivated biblical law would result in a violation of the biblical ethic, he did not hesitate to set the ethical above the legal.