The great sage whose stricter school, the House of Shammai, formed the enduring counterpart to the House of Hillel in the foundations of rabbinic law.
Life
Shammai (c. 50 BCE–30 CE), a leading Pharisee of the late Second Temple period, founded the school (Beit Shammai) that debated the House of Hillel across hundreds of questions of law and practice recorded in the Mishnah and Talmud. Generally remembered as the more rigorous and exacting of the two, he is contrasted in tradition with the gentler Hillel; though the law usually follows Hillel, the disputes between their schools — "for the sake of Heaven" — are foundational to rabbinic Judaism.