Bet Shammai

Bet Shammai was a school of thought within Judaism founded by the sage Shammai the Elder around the 1st century BCE. Adherents of Bet Shammai, known as Shammaites, advocated for a strict, literal interpretation of Jewish law. This contrasted with the more flexible approach of their contemporary rivals, Bet Hillel, founded by Hillel the Elder.

The schools of Hillel and Shammai were the last of the zugot, or scholarly pairs, who led the Great Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court. Over 300 disputes between these two schools are recorded in Talmudic sources. While Bet Shammai's strict interpretations were once favored, the assembly at Jabneh in the 2nd century CE ultimately ruled that the views of Bet Hillel were authoritative, establishing the Hillelite tradition as the main trend in rabbinic Judaism.12