Shimon ben Shetach שמעון בן שטח

Shimon ben Shetach is the most visible figure of the third pair and perhaps the first sage whose power was not only scholarly. His sister was Salome Alexandra, wife of Alexander Jannaeus and queen after him; through her the Pharisees returned to influence, and he himself came to head the Sanhedrin.

His relations with Jannaeus were hard: under a king at war with the Pharisees, Shimon went into hiding, and returned when his sister interceded. Berakhot 48a preserves a scene at the royal table — a conversation in which the sage yielded nothing.

Two of his acts outlived the age. The first is the ketubah: he ruled that a husband may put his wife's money to work in business, but that his whole estate stands surety for it. The purpose was plain and practical — divorce stopped being a light step because it became a ruinous one (Ketubot 82b). The second is schooling: he ordered houses of study for children set up in every town, so that a child's learning would not depend on having a father able to teach him (Jerusalem Talmud, Ketubot 8:11).

The hardest episode of the age also bears his name: the trial of eighty women at Ashkelon accused of sorcery (Sanhedrin 45b). The kin of the executed took revenge with false witnesses against his own son — and the son was put to death, though the witnesses later recanted.

His exact dates are unknown; he was active roughly between 120 and 60 BCE.