The Convert Who Wished to Be High Priest and Hillel's Patience

"And these are the garments that they shall make" (Exodus 28:4). Our Rabbis taught: A person should always be humble like Hillel and not impatient like Shammai, and so forth. There was another incident concerning a certain gentile who was passing behind a synagogue and heard a scribe reading aloud, "And these are the garments that they shall make." He came to the scribe and said to him, "Explain these to me." He explained them to him. He said to him, "For whom are these?" He said to him, "For the High Priest." That gentile said to himself, "I will go and convert so that they will appoint me High Priest." He came before Shammai and said, "Convert me on the condition that you appoint me High Priest." Shammai pushed him away with the builder's measuring rod that was in his hand. He came before Hillel, who converted him. Hillel said to him, "Does one appoint before the king anyone but one who knows the protocols of royalty? Go and learn the protocols of the kingship." He went and read, and when he reached "and the stranger who draws near shall be put to death" (Numbers 1:51), he asked, "About whom is this verse said?" They told him, "Even about David king of Israel." That convert reasoned a fortiori about himself. He said, "If Israel, who are called children of the Omnipresent, and because He loved them He called them, 'Israel is My firstborn son' (Exodus 4:22), yet of them it is written, 'and the stranger who draws near shall be put to death,' then how much more so a mere convert who comes with his staff and his bag," and so forth.