However, Moses' spirit was revived when a student asked Akiva the source of a law, and Akiva replied "A law to Moses at Sinai". Mi Yodeya is a question and answer site for those who base their lives on Jewish law and tradition and anyone interested in learning more. Please enable Cookies and reload the page. "[3][74] Akiva made the accumulated treasure of the oral law—which until his time was only a subject of knowledge, and not a science—an inexhaustible mine from which, by the means he provided, new treasures might be continually extracted. Let me go at once, lest the demon torture me for my delay." Anybody can ask a question Anybody can answer The best answers are voted up and rise to the top Home Questions Tags Users Unanswered When did R' 'Akiva see his … He was born in Eisenstadt, Hungary, in the year 5521 (1761), nearly two hundred years ago. He was known in the Talmud simply as Rabbi Eliezer although there are references to him as Rabbi Eliezer the great. So did Rabbi Akiva; he arranged the Torah rings by rings. The lack of any systematized collection of the accumulated halachot rendered impossible any presentation of them in form suitable for practical purposes. [56][57], As to the question concerning the frequent sufferings of the pious and the prosperity of the wicked—truly a burning one in Akiva's time—this is answered by the explanation that the pious are punished in this life for their few sins, in order that in the next they may receive only reward; while the wicked obtain in this world all the recompense for the little good they have done, and in the next world will receive only punishment for their misdeeds. Use the form on the right to contact us. [29] During his travels, it is probable that he visited other places having important Jewish communities. Rufus had hoped to drive Akiva into a corner by his strange question; for he expected quite a different answer and intended to compel Akiva to admit the wickedness of circumcision. [3][38], The version in the Babylonian Talmud tells it as a response of Akiva to his students, who asked him how he could yet offer prayers to God. [21], Once he was called upon to decide between a dark-skinned king and the king's wife; the wife having been accused of infidelity after bearing a white child. The Talmud could have easily only attributed the tragedy of Rabbi Akiva's students to a plague, whether natural or at the hands of the Romans. We know they are speaking to us, that God has a message for us. If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. SCHEDULE. In life I was a tax-gatherer and oppressed the poor. Your IP: 45.33.59.174 The gemara in Yevamos 62b says:. He protested strongly against the canonicity of certain of the Apocrypha,[3] the Wisdom of Sirach, for instance,[61] in which passages קורא is to be explained according to Kiddushin 49a, and חיצונים according to its Aramaic equivalent ברייתא; so that Akiva's utterance reads, "He who reads aloud in the synagogue from books not belonging to the canon as if they were canonical," etc. [97] Another version of this story exists in which Johanan ben Zakkai's name is given in place of Akiva. So Rabbi Akiva did to R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua. Rabbi Akiva died a martyr's death at the hands of the Romans in the early years of the second century of the Common Era. [3][24] However, Akiva was just as firmly convinced that the power of the patriarch must be limited both by the written and the oral law, the interpretation of which lay in the hands of the learned; and he was accordingly brave enough to act in ritual matters in Rabban Gamaliel's own house contrary to the decisions of Rabban Gamaliel himself. Yerushalmi Ta'anit, 4 68d; also Sanhedrin 93b in Yad HaRav Herzog manuscript, Mekhilta Mishpaṭim 18, where Akiva regards the martyrdom of two of his friends as ominous of his own fate. "Seasons: The Bostoner Rebbetzin remembers and reflects on the occasion of the first yahrtzeit of Grand Rabbi Levi Yitzchak HaLevi Horowitz, ztz"l, 18 Kislev 5771". The Talmud relates that once Elijah the prophet assumed the guise of a poor man and came to their door to beg some straw for a bed for his wife[3] after she had given birth. "Because he is just the kind to work for," was the prompt answer. [3], But this was not sufficient to obviate all threatening danger. After fasting 40 days and praying to God to bless his efforts, he heard a heavenly voice (bat kol) asking, "Why do you go to so much trouble on behalf of this person?" [3][25] Akiva filled the office of an overseer of the poor. [3][93], This was not the only occasion on which Akiva was made to feel the truth of his favorite maxim ("Whatever God does, He does for the best"). One day, Rachel, the daughter of Ben Kalba Savua, looked at Akiva and was extremely impressed by his modesty and his gentleness with her father’s flocks. [3][76], He thus gave the Jewish mind not only a new field for its own employment, but, convinced both of the immutability of Holy Scripture and of the necessity for development in Judaism, he succeeded in reconciling these two apparently hopeless opposites by means of his remarkable method. In the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E., … [3] Akiva's death occurred after several years of imprisonment,[35] which places it at about 132,[3] before the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolution; otherwise the delay of the Romans in executing him would be quite inexplicable.