Shemaiah שמעיה
nasi of the fourth pair, teacher of Hillel
Shemaiah and Avtalyon are the last pair before Hillel and Shammai, and the first teachers of whom it is said outright that Hillel studied with them.
His saying in Avot 1:10 is three rules that add up to a stance for a man living under someone else's power: «Love work, hate lordship, and seek no intimacy with the ruling authority.» It was said in the years of Hyrcanus II and the rising Herod, when closeness to power cost lives.
Sanhedrin 19a–b preserves the case for which those words are remembered. Herod, still a governor, was summoned before the Sanhedrin on a charge of murder, and the judges were silent out of fear. Shemaiah alone spoke — and said that the king they feared would one day hand them all over to execution. So, the account says, it came to pass.
A tradition in Gittin 57b calls Shemaiah and Avtalyon descendants of converts — by tradition from the line of Sennacherib; in that sense the chain of transmission runs, at its very heart, through a family that came from outside. The Talmud records this without qualification, as an honour.
Yoma 35b tells how the young Hillel, unable to pay the doorkeeper of the study house, climbed onto the roof and listened through the skylight until the snow covered him. His exact dates are unknown.
On the timeline
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Mishnah Avot 1:4–1:12 — the list of the five pairs and each man's saying
- Mishnah Chagigah 2:2 — who in each pair was nasi and who av beit din, and the dispute over laying hands on a festival
- Sanhedrin 19a–b — Herod before the Sanhedrin and the one man who spoke
- Gittin 57b — the tradition of descent from converts
- Yoma 35b — Hillel on the roof of the study house of Shemaiah and Avtalyon
Basis: Talmud and midrash.