“RABBI AKIVA (?–C. 135 C.E.)

RABBI AKIVA IS A LARGER-THAN-LIFE FIGURE, ARGUABLY THE TALMUD’S greatest scholar, and certainly its greatest martyr. Unlike many of Judaism’s leading sages, he was not descended from a prominent rabbinical family, but was the son or the grandson of a convert to Judaism.

As a young man, he worked as a shepherd and received no education at all. Nonetheless, Rachel, the daughter of his very wealthy employer, Kalba Savua, recognized something special in his spirit and agreed to marry him on condition that he start learning Torah. Such a prospect seemed discouraging to the forty-year-old Akiva, until one day he came across a stone that had been hollowed out by falling drops of water. He reasoned: “If water, which is soft, can hollow out a stone, which is hard, how much more will the words of the Torah, which are hard, cut through and make an impression on my heart, which is soft.”

He and Rachel married over the objections of Kalba Savua, who immediately disowned his daughter. But despite the horrendous poverty into which the couple were thrust, she continued to encourage Akiva in his studies. Within a few years, it was not just Rachel who recognized the special qualities of Akiva’s mind. The formerly illiterate shepherd was rapidly elevated by the rabbis to higher and higher positions until finally he was recognized as the leading scholar of his age.

Akiva was courageous as well as bright. When the Roman government made the study of Torah a capital offense, he continued teaching. A colleague, Pappos ben Judah, was shocked at his seemingly foolhardy courage. “Akiva,” he challenged him, “are you not afraid of the wicked government?” Akiva responded with a parable. “To what is the matter like? To a fox who was walking along the banks of a stream, and saw some fishes gathering together to move from one place to another. He said to them, ‘From what are you fleeing?’ They answered: ‘From nets which men are bringing against us.’ He said to them: ‘Let it be your pleasure to come up on the dry land, and let us, I and you, dwell together, even as my fathers dwelt with your fathers.’ They replied: ‘Are you the animal who they say is the shrewdest of animals? You are not clever, but a fool! For if we are afraid in this place which is our life-element, how much more so in a place which is our death-element!’ So also is it with us: If now, while we sit and study Torah, in which it is written, ‘For this is your life and the length of your days’ [Deuteronomy 30:20] we are in such a plight, how much more so if we neglect it?’” (Brakhot 61b).

Akiva’s anti-Roman actions, however, went far beyond teaching Torah. When Simon Bar-Kokhba organized a rebellion against Rome in 132 C.E., Akiva became one of his most ardent followers. In an error of tragic proportions, he became convinced that Bar-Kokhba was the Messiah, and urged thousands of his disciples to follow him in what proved to be an ill-fated rebellion.

One of Akiva’s contemporaries, Rabbi Yochanan ben Torta, ridiculed him for conferring the messianic title on Bar-Kokhba. “Akiva,” he said, “grass will grow out of your cheekbones and the Messiah will still not have arrived.”

After the Romans put down the revolt, they sentenced Rabbi Akiva to death. He was led off to his execution early one morning, at the hour at which the prayer Sh’ma Yisrael—“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” —is recited. Even as he was being burned, Akiva continued reciting the words of the Sh’ma, with a smile on his lips. The Roman general in charge of the execution was shocked at his insensitivity to pain and asked him if he was a sorcerer. “No,” Akiva replied, “but all my life, when I said the words, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with
all your soul, and with all your might,’ I was saddened, for I thought, when shall I be able to fulfill this command? I have loved God with all my heart, and with all my might [which means, with all one’s means], but to love him with all my soul [i.e., my life itself] I did not know if I could carry it out. Now that I am giving my life, and the hour for reciting the Sh’ma has come, and my resolution remains firm, should I not smile?’ As he spoke, his soul departed” (Palestinian Talmud Brakhot 9:5; see also Brakhot 61b). The quintessential martyr, Akiva died al kiddush ha-Shem—to sanctify God’s name. During the more than eighteen hundred years since, Jews have studied his life as a model both of how to live and how to die.
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