Shammai the Elder

Shammai was a sage of Jerusalem in the generation of Herod, the last of the "pairs" (zugot) who led the Sanhedrin; he became head of the court beside Hillel the Nasi after Menahem left the post (Mishnah Hagigah 2:2). His motto in Pirkei Avot 1:15 is "Make your Torah study a fixed habit, say little and do much, and receive every person with a cheerful face." Yet the best-known stories cast him as stern: in Shabbat 31a he drives away with a builder's measuring rod a would-be convert who asked to learn the whole Torah while standing on one foot, the man Hillel then accepted.

His school, Beit Shammai, disputed with Beit Hillel on hundreds of questions, usually taking the stricter view; on Hanukkah, Beit Shammai lit eight lights on the first night and one fewer each night after (Shabbat 21b). The Talmud (Eruvin 13b) says that after three years of argument a heavenly voice declared, "These and these are the words of the living God, but the law follows Beit Hillel." Shammai's own rigor shows in Mishnah Sukkah 2:8, where he breaks open a roof to put a sukkah over his newborn grandson.