Shammai

Hillel's contemporary; the debates between the two schools loom large in rabbinic memory. The law followed Hillel, but both positions were deemed 'the words of the living God'.

Pirkei Avot traces the rabbinic line back to Second Temple sages, among them Hillel and Shammai, both probably active in the first century BCE. Hillel holds a special place in rabbinic memory: he was supposedly born in Babylonia, was Herod's contemporary, and is linked to the first list of rules for interpreting the Torah and to famous sayings such as the one asking who will be for me if I am not for myself. The two figure as founders of schools, circles of disciples rather than institutions, and their debates take up much room in rabbinic recollection of the Second Temple. Hillel is also named as forebear of the family of sages that would hold the patriarchate.1 Even when it decides, rabbinic literature does not discredit the losing view. After three years of dispute between the schools of Shammai and Hillel, a divine voice declared that both were 'the words of the living God', but that the law followed Hillel (Erubin 13b), because his disciples were gracious and modest and taught the rival school's words as well.2