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Rabbinic Judaism

Shammai

~50 BCE–30 CE, Jerusalem

Shammai the Elder, Hillel's great disputant and contemporary. The school of Shammai and the school of Hillel argued for generations on questions of Torah and law. The Talmud records Shammai's rulings even where it rules with Hillel, because "both are the words of the living God." He was stricter, more exacting. A man who believed the Torah's demands were real and not to be softened.

On their voice

Late Second Temple period. Shammai's school believed the law meant what it said and should be applied with precision. He famously rebuffed a potential convert who asked to be taught the whole Torah while standing on one foot. His strictness was not cruelty — it was conviction.

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