The Bride

Our Rabbis taught: How does one dance before the bride? Beth Shammai say: The bride as she is. And Beth Hillel say: ‘Beautiful and graceful bride’!

Beth Shammai said to Beth Hillel: If she was lame or blind, does one say of her: ‘Beautiful and graceful bride’? Whereas the Torah said, ‘Distance yourself from a false matter.’

Said Beth Hillel to Beth Shammai: According to your words, if one has made a bad purchase in the market, should one praise it in his eyes or denigrate it in his eyes? Surely, one should praise it in his eyes.

From here the Sages said a persons mind should always be mingled with people.

(Talmud Ketubot 17a)

Hillel's argument would be that since the groom decided to marry her, she must have some detail in her personality that is beautiful. Now, all you have to do is look at her from the groom's perspective and you will find the beautiful aspect of her personality. Hillel's perspective is that as long as one detail is beautiful it is truthful to say that she is beautiful. To illustrate, Say you went to a class that was mostly boring but one detail that you learned had a great impact on you, according to Hillel it would be truthful to say that "it was a good class".

Shammai however looks for the general, he looks for the essence, not at the details. Shammai therefore says that just because one detail is beautiful (Shammai would concede that point) you cannot call her a beautiful bride, because in General she is not beautiful, and Shammai focuses on the general. (Returning to the analogy of the class, Shammai would say it was boring class, he will not be distracted by the interesting detail).