Shammai - Religious Views

Religious Views

Shammai recommended a friendly attitude toward all. His motto was: "Make the study of the Torah your chief occupation; speak little, but accomplish much; and receive every man with a friendly countenance" (Avoth, i. 15). He was modest even toward his pupils.

In his religious views Shammai was known to be strict. He wished to make his son, while still a child, conform to the law regarding fasting on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement); he was dissuaded from his purpose only through the insistence of his friends (Yoma, 77b). Once, when his daughter-in-law gave birth to a boy on Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) he broke through the roof of the chamber in which she lay in order to make a sukkah of it, so that his new-born grandchild might fulfill the religious obligation of the festival (Sukkah, 28a).

In the Midrash Sifre, Deuteronomy, § 203 it is said that Shammai commented exegetically upon three passages of Scripture. These three examples of his exegesis are: (1) the interpretation of Deuteronomy, xx. 20 (Tosefefta, Eruvin, iii. 7); (2) that of II Sam. xii. 9 (Kiddushin, 43a); and (3) either the interpretation of Leviticus, xi. 34, which is given anonymously in Sifra on the passage, but which is the basis for Shammai's halakha transmitted in 'Orlah ii. 5, or else the interpretation of Exodus, xx. 8 ("Remember the Sabbath"), which is given in the Mekilta, Yitro, 7 (ed. Weiss, p. 76b) in the name of Eleazar ben Hananiah, but which must have originated with Shammai, with whose custom of preparing for the Sabbath it accords.

Preceded by
Menachem the Essene		 Av Beth Din
20 BCE - 20 CE		 Succeeded by
Shammai became Nasi
Preceded by
Shimon ben Hillel		 Nasi
c. 20CE–30CE		 Succeeded by
Beit Shammai Nasi Caiaphas
Rabbis of the Mishnah : Chronology & Hierarchy
Teacher→Student Father→Son
Hillel Shammai
Rabban Gamliel Yochanan ben Zakai
Shimon ben Gamliel Yose the Galilean Eliezer ben Hurcanus Yehoshua ben Hananiah Elazar ben Arach Elazar ben Azariah
Gamaliel of Yavne Elisha ben Abuyah Akiva Ishmael ben Elisha Tarfon
Shimon ben Gamliel II Meir Yehudah Yose ben Halafta Shimon bar Yochai Elazar ben Shammua Natan
Yehudah ha Nasi Hiyya

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