brethren and sistern,
Let me commend to you the works of Rudolf Stier on Community Pricing. This is a gold mine for preachers. He was a German pietist who was well versed in Jewish lore. You can see a sample of his writing here regarding the schools of Hillel and Shammai:
http://books.google.com/books?id=1ct0c55i77IC&dq=Rudolf%20Stier&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false
This one's been in CP for a long time! I'm in on it! I'm pretty sure Spurgeon also recommends this set in his "Commenting and Commentaries".
