Shammai the Elder שמאי הזקן
head of the court, founder of the school of Beit Shammai
Shammai was head of the court alongside Hillel; together they formed the last of the five "pairs", around 3728. With them begins the named history of legal disagreement: their schools differed on more than three hundred questions.
The Talmud portrays him as strict and demanding, above all of himself. All week he sought the best food in honour of Shabbat: finding a fine animal he would say "this is for Shabbat", and on finding a better one would set that aside and eat the first. His saying in Avot is unexpectedly gentle: "Make your Torah study a fixed practice; say little and do much, and receive every person with a cheerful face."
His school is stricter in most disputes, which the sages attribute to temperament. The famous formula runs that both are "the words of the living God", but the law follows Beit Hillel; kabbalistic tradition adds that in the future it will follow Beit Shammai.
Beit Shammai was strong in the generation before the destruction, but after Yavneh the rulings were settled with Beit Hillel.
Shammai's dates—c. 3711–3791 AM (c. 50 BCE—c. 30 CE)—are an estimate, not a record; the anchor is the trial of young Herod c. 47 BCE, where Shammai alone demanded execution (Sanhedrin 19a). Sefer haDorot allots him, like Hillel, about a hundred and twenty years.
Chain of transmission
Avtalyon, Shemaiah → Shammai the Elder (together with Hillel the Elder) → Rabban Shimon ben Hillel
A link in Maimonides is a court, not a man, and more than one name may stand in a single link.
On the timeline
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Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Mishnah Avot 1:12–15 — “say little and do much; receive every person with a cheerful face”
- Shabbat 30b–31a — the convert who came to Shammai and then to Hillel
- Eruvin 13b — “both are the words of the living God”, but the law follows Hillel
- Beitzah 16a — Shammai set aside the best for Shabbat all week long
Basis: tradition.