Akiva ben Joseph (Mishnaic Hebrew: ; – 28 September 135 CE), also known as Rabbi Akiva (), was a leading Jewish scholar and sage and a tanna of the latter part of the first century and the beginning of the second. Rabbi Akiva was a leading contributor to the Mishnah and to Midrash Halakha. He is referred to in Tosafot as Rosh la-Hakhamim ("Chief of the Sages"). He was executed by the Romans in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. He has also been described as a philosopher.

Biography

Early years

Akiva ben Joseph (written in the Babylonian Talmud and in the Jerusalem Talmud), born , was of humble parentage. According to some sources, he was descended from converts to Judaism.

When Akiva married the daughter of Ben Kalba Sabuaʿ (), a wealthy citizen of Jerusalem, Akiva was an uneducated shepherd employed by him. The first name of Akiva's wife is not provided in earlier sources, but a later version of the tradition gives it as Rachel. She stood loyally by her husband during the period of his late initiation into rabbinic studies after he was 40 years of age, According to the Jerusalem Talmud, R. Joshua ordained Akiva as his fellow-student, presumably with semikhah. Akiva was on equal footing with Gamaliel II, whom he later met. Rabbi Tarfon was considered as one of Akiva's masters, but the pupil outranked his teacher and he became one of Akiva's greatest admirers. Akiva remained in Lod as long as Eliezer dwelt there, and then moved his own school to Beneberak. Akiva also lived for some time at Ziphron, modern Zafran near Hamath.

Marriage

According to the Talmud, Akiva was a shepherd for Ben Kalba Sabuaʿ when the latter's daughter noticed his modesty and fine character traits. She offered to marry him if he would agree to begin studying Torah, as at the time he was 40 years old and illiterate. When her father found out she was secretly betrothed to an unlearned man, he was furious. He drove his daughter out of his house, swearing that he would never help her while Akiva remained her husband. Akiva and his wife lived in such poverty that they used straw for their bed. The Talmud relates that once Elijah the prophet assumed the guise of a poor man and came to their door to beg for some straw for a bed for his wife

By agreement with his wife, Akiva spent twelve years away from home, pursuing his studies. He would make a living by cutting wood from the forest, selling half for his wife's and children's wellbeing, and using the other half for keeping a fire burning at night to keep himself warm and to provide light thereby for his own studies. Returning at the end of twelve years accompanied by 12,000 disciples, at the point of entering his home he overheard his wife say to a neighbour who was critical of his long absence: "If I had my wish, he should stay another twelve years at the academy." Without crossing the threshold, Akiva went back to the academy. He returned twelve years later escorted by 24,000 disciples. When his wife went out to greet him, some of his students, not knowing who she was, sought to restrain her.

According to another source, Akiva saw that at some future time he would take in marriage the wife of Turnus Rufus (his executioner, also known as Quintus Tineius Rufus) after she converted to Judaism, for which reason he spat on the ground (for having come from a fetid drop), smiled (at her conversion) and wept (at such beauty eventually rotting in the dust after death). The motive behind this marriage is not given.

thumb|250px|Modern-day site of Rabbi Akiva's tomb, [[Tiberias]]

Later years

The greatest tannaim of the middle of the second century came from Akiva's school, notably Rabbi Meir, Judah bar Ilai, Simeon bar Yochai, Jose ben Halafta, Eleazar ben Shammua, and Rabbi Nehemiah. Besides these, Akiva had many disciples whose names have not been handed down, but the Aggadah variously gives their number as 12,000, 24,000 and 48,000. Convinced of the necessity of a central authority for Judaism, Akiva became a devoted adherent and friend of Rabban Gamaliel, who aimed at constituting the patriarch the true spiritual chief of the Jews. 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. Akiva filled the office of an overseer of the poor. Various rabbinic texts testify to his personal qualities, such as benevolence and kindness toward the sick and needy.

In 95–96 CE, Akiva was in Rome, and some time before 110 he was in Nehardea. During his travels, it is probable that he visited other places having important Jewish communities.

Akiva allegedly took part in the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136, but his role here is not historically determined. this is the only evidence of active participation by Akiva in the revolution. A baraita states that Akiva suffered martyrdom on account of his transgression of Hadrian's edicts against the practice and the teaching of the Jewish religion, being sentenced to die by Turnus Rufus in Caesarea. As this story credits the execution to religious rather than political reasons, it may be evidence against Akiva's having a role in the revolt. which places it at about 132, That the religious interdicts of Hadrian preceded the overthrow of Bar Kochba is shown by the Mekhilta.

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. He says to them, "All my life I was worried about the verse, 'with all your soul' (and the sages expounded this to signify), even if He takes away your soul. And I said to myself, when will I ever be able to fulfil this command? And now that I am finally able to fulfil it, I should not?" Then he said the Shema and he extended the final word Echad ("One") until his life expired with that word. A heavenly voice went out and announced: "Blessed are you, Rabbi Akiva, that your life expired with Echad".

Another legend is that Elijah bore the body by night to Caesarea. The night, however, was as bright as the finest summer's day. When they arrived, Elijah and Joshua entered a cavern that contained a bed, table, chair, and lamp, and deposited Akiva's body there. No sooner had they left it than the cavern closed of its own accord, so that no one has found it since. Rebbe Akiva's modern day tomb is located in Tiberias. Annually, on the night of Lag BaOmer, pilgrims light bonfires at the tomb of Rebbe Akiva. The pilgrims include some from Boston, Massachusetts, a tradition reinstated by the Bostoner Rebbe in 1983.

Religious and scholarly perspectives

Religious philosophy

A Tannaitic tradition mentions that of the four who delved into the Pardes (legend), Akiva was the only one who was able to properly absorb this wisdom, with the other three suffering various consequences as a result of the attempt. This serves at least to show how strong in later ages was the recollection of Akiva's philosophical speculation. "for in an image, God made man."

Akiva's ontology is based upon the principle that man was created בצלם, that is, not in the image of God—which would be בצלם אלהים—but after an image, after a primordial type; or, philosophically speaking, after an Idea—what Philo calls in agreement with Judean theology, "the first heavenly man" (see Adam ḳadmon). Strict monotheist that Akiva was, he protested against any comparison of God with the angels, and declared the plain interpretation of כאחד ממנו as meaning "like one of us" to be arrant blasphemy. It is quite instructive to read how a Christian of Akiva's generation, Justin Martyr, calls the literal interpretation—thus objected to by Akiva—a "Jewish heretical one". In his earnest endeavours to insist as strongly as possible upon the incomparable nature of God, Akiva indeed lowers the angels somewhat to the realms of mortals, and (alluding to Psalms 78:25) maintains that manna is the actual food of the angels. This view of Akiva's, in spite of the energetic protests of his colleague Rabbi Ishmael, became the one generally accepted by his contemporaries. Similarly, he recognizes as the chief and greatest principle of Judaism the command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." He does not, indeed, maintain thereby that the execution of this command is equivalent to the performance of the whole Law; and in one of his polemic interpretations of Scripture he protests strongly against a contrary opinion allegedly held by Christians, and other non-Jews since the diaspora, according to which Judaism is at best "simply morality." For, in spite of his philosophy, Akiva was an extremely strict and national Jew. he teaches that God combines goodness and mercy with strict justice. Hence his maxim, referred to above, "God rules the world in mercy, but according to the preponderance of good or bad in human acts." Consistent as Akiva always was, his ethics and his views of justice were only the strict consequences of his philosophical system. Justice as an attribute of God must also be exemplary for man. "No mercy in [civil] justice!" is his basic principle in the doctrine concerning law, and he does not conceal his opinion that the action of the Jews in taking the spoil of the Egyptians is to be condemned.

Biblical canon

Akiva was instrumental in drawing up the canon of the Tanakh. He protested strongly against the canonicity of certain of the Apocrypha, 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. But he was not opposed to a private reading of the Apocrypha, Akiva stoutly defended, however, the canonicity of the Song of Songs, and Esther. Grätz's statements respecting Akiva's attitude toward the canonicity of the Song of Songs were viewed as misconceptions by I.H. Weiss.

Aquila, meanwhile, was a disciple of Akiva and, under Akiva's guidance, gave the Greek-speaking Jews a rabbinical Bible. Akiva probably also provided for a revised text of the Targums; certainly, for the essential base of the Targum Onkelos, which in matters of Halakha reflects Akiva's opinions completely.

Akiva as systematizer

Akiva worked in the domain of the Halakha, both in the systematization of its traditional material and in its further development. The condition of the Halakha, that is, of religious praxis, and indeed of Judaism in general, was a very precarious one at the turn of the 1st century of the common era. The lack of any systematized collection of the accumulated halachot rendered impossible any presentation of them in a form suitable for practical purposes. Means for the theoretical study of the Halakha were also scant; both logic and exegesis—the two props of the Halakha—being differently conceived by the various rulings Tannaim, and differently taught. According to a tradition (which has historical confirmation The Mishna of Akiva, as his pupil Rabbi Meir had taken it from him, became the basis of the Six Orders of the Mishna.

The δευτερώσεις τοῦ καλουμένου Ραββὶ Ακιβά (Mishnah of the one called "Rabbi Akiva") mentioned by Epiphanius, as well as the "great Mishnayot of Akiva", are probably not to be understood as independent Mishnayot (δευτερώσεις) existing at that time, but as the teachings and opinions of Akiva contained in the officially recognized Mishnayot and Midrashim. At the same time, it is fair to consider the Mishnah of Judah ha-Nasi (called simply "the Mishnah"), as well as the majority of all halakhic Midrashim now extant, as derived from the school of Akiva. One recognizes here the threefold division of the halakhic material that emanated from Akiva: (1) The codified halakhah (i.e. Mishnah); (2) the Tosefta, which in its original form contains a concise logical argument for the Mishnah, somewhat like the Lebush of Mordecai Jafe on the Shulchan Aruch; (3) the halakhic Midrash. and the Sifre to Deuteronomy, the halakhic portion of which belongs to Akiva's school.

Akiva's Halakha

Akiva was responsible not only for systematization of the Halakha, but also for hermeneutics and halakhic exegesis, which form the foundation of all Talmudic learning. 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. who saw in the Hebrew construction of the infinitive with the finite form of the same verb and in certain particles (adverbs, prepositions, etc.) some deep reference to philosophical and ethical doctrines, Akiva perceived in them indications of many important ceremonial laws, legal statutes, and ethical teachings.

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. The following two illustrations will serve to make this clear:

  • For him a "Jewish slave" is a contradiction in terms, for every Jew is to be regarded as a prince. Akiva therefore teaches, in opposition to the competing halakhah, that the sale of an underage daughter by her father conveys to her purchaser no legal title to marriage with her, but, on the contrary, carries with it the duty to keep the female slave until she is of age, and then to marry her. How Akiva endeavours to substantiate this from the Hebrew text is shown.

His hermeneutics frequently put him at odds with the interpretation of his colleagues, as particularly demonstrated by his attitude toward the Samaritans. He considered friendly discussion with these potential converts as desirable on political as well as on religious grounds, and he permitted not only eating their bread, but also intermarriage, considering them as full converts. This is quite remarkable, seeing that in matrimonial legislation he went so far as to declare every forbidden betrothal as absolutely void and the offspring as illegitimate. For similar reasons, Akiva rules leniently in the Biblical ordinance of Kil'ayim; nearly every chapter in the treatise of that name contains a mitigation by Akiva. was so powerful with him that he would have exempted agriculture from much of the rigour of the Law. These examples will suffice to justify the opinion that Akiva was the man to whom Judaism owes pre-eminently its activity and its capacity for further development in accordance with the tradition he received. According to Louis Ginzberg, "this story gives in naïve style a picture of Akiba's activity as the father of Talmudical Judaism."

Tinnius Rufus asked: "Which is the more beautiful—God's work or man's?" Akiva replied: "Undoubtedly man's work is the better, for while nature at God's command supplies us only with the raw material, human skill enables us to elaborate the same according to the requirements of art and good taste." 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. He then put the question, "Why has God not made man just as He wanted him to be?" Akiva had an answer ready: "For the very reason, man must perfect himself."

The aggadah explains how Akiva, in the prime of life, commenced his rabbinical studies. Legendary allusion to this change in Akiva's life is made in two slightly varying forms. Likely the older of the two goes as follows:

Akiva taught thousands of students: on one occasion, twenty-four thousand students of his died in a plague. His five main students were Judah bar Ilai, Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Eleazar ben Shammua, Jose ben Halafta and Shimon bar Yochai. It is related that, during his stay in Rome, Akiva became intimately acquainted with the Jewish proselyte Ketia bar Shalom, a very influential Roman (according to some scholars identical with Flavius Clemens, Domitian's nephew), who, before his execution for pleading the cause of the Jews, bequeathed to Akiva all his possessions.

The Talmud enumerates six occasions in which Akiva gained wealth. In one case, his success as a teacher led his wealthy father-in-law Kalba Savua to acknowledge such a distinguished son-in-law and to support him. Another source of his wealth was said to be a large sum of money borrowed from a heathen woman, a matrona. As bondsmen for the loan, Akiva named God and the sea, on the shore of which the matrona's house stood. Akiva, being sick, could not return the money at the time appointed; but his bondsmen did not leave him in the lurch. An imperial princess suddenly became insane, in which condition she threw a chest containing imperial treasures into the sea. It was cast upon the shore close to the house of Akiva's creditor, so that when the matrona went to the shore to demand of the sea the amount she had lent Akiva, the ebbing tide left boundless riches at her feet. Later, when Akiva arrived to discharge his indebtedness, the matrona not only refused to accept the money, but insisted upon Akiva's receiving a large share of what the sea had brought to her.

This was not the only occasion on which Akiva was made to feel the truth of his favourite maxim ("Whatever God does, He does for the best"). Once, being unable to find any sleeping accommodation in a certain city, he was compelled to pass the night outside its walls. Without a murmur he resigned himself to this hardship; and even when a lion devoured his donkey, and a cat killed the rooster whose crowing was to herald the dawn to him, and the wind extinguished his candle, the only remark he made was, "All that God does is for the good." When morning dawned he learned how true his words were. A band of robbers had fallen upon the city and carried its inhabitants into captivity, but he had escaped because his abiding place had not been noticed in the darkness, and neither beast nor fowl had betrayed him.

Another legend according to which the gates of the infernal regions opened for Akiva is analogous to the more familiar tale that he entered paradise and was allowed to leave it unscathed. There exists the following tradition: Akiva once met a coal-black man carrying a heavy load of wood and running with the speed of a horse. Akiva stopped him and inquired: "My son, why do you work so hard? If you are a slave and have a harsh master, I will buy you from him. If it be out of poverty that you do this, I will take care of your needs." "It is for neither of these," the man replied; "I am dead and am compelled because of my great sins to build my funeral pyre every day. In life, I was a tax-gatherer and oppressed the poor. Let me go at once, lest the demon tortures me for my delay." "Is there no help for you?" asked Akiva. "Almost none," replied the deceased; "for I understand that my sufferings will end only when I have a pious son. When I died, my wife was pregnant; but I have little hope that she will give my child proper training." Akiva inquired about the man's name and that of his wife and her dwelling place. When, in the course of his travels, he reached the place, Akiva sought information concerning the man's family. The neighbours very freely expressed their opinion that the deceased and his wife deserved to inhabit the infernal regions for all time—the latter because she had not even performed brit milah for the child. Akiva, however, was not to be turned from his purpose; he sought the son of the tax-gatherer and laboured long and assiduously in teaching him the word of God. After fasting for 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?" "Because he is just the kind to work for," was the prompt answer. Akiva persevered until his pupil was able to officiate as a reader in the synagogue; and when there for the first time he recited the prayer, "Bless the Lord!" the father suddenly appeared to Akiva and overwhelmed him with thanks for his deliverance from the pains of hell through the merit of his son. This legend has been somewhat elaborately treated in Yiddish. Another version of this story exists in which Johanan ben Zakkai's name is given in place of Akiva.

Historical novels available in English which feature Akiva as a main character include:

  • Akiba [German] by Marcus Lehmann (1880), translated into Hebrew (Rothblum 1896) and English (Schaffer 1925, Leftwich 1956, Zucker 2003)
  • The Son of a Star by Benjamin Ward Richardson (1888).
  • Festival at Meron by Harry Sackler (1935)
  • As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg (1939)
  • The Last Revolt [Yiddish] by Joseph Opatoshu (1948), translated into Hebrew (Ben-Israel 1948) and English (Spiegel 1952)
  • Prince of Israel by Elias Gilner (1952)
  • The Soldier and the Sage by Richard Gibson Hubler (1966)
  • Son of a Star by Andrew Meisels (1969)
  • If I Forget Thee by Brenda L. Segal (1985)
  • Four Who Entered Paradise by Howard Schwartz (1995)
  • My Husband, Bar Kokhba by Andrew Sanders (2003)
  • The Orchard [Hebrew] by Yochi Brandes (2012), translated into English by Daniel Libenson (2018)

According to Barry W. Holtz, "It is no accident that Akiva has inspired works of fiction—not only because of his importance in Jewish religious history, but also because of the simple fact that so many of the details of his life are unknown and therefore grist for the mill of a novelist."

Notes

References

See also

  • Rabbinic stance on Bar Kokhba revolt

Sources

  • Rothenberg, Naftali, Rabbi Akiva's Philosophy of Love, New York, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2017.
  • Aleksandrov, G. S. "The Role of Aqiba in the Bar Kochba Rebellion." In Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Vol. 2, by Jacob Neusner. Leiden, Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1973.
  • Finkelstein, Louis. Akiba: Scholar, Saint, and Martyr. New York: Covici, Friede, 1936.
  • Ginzberg, Louis. "Akiba" In Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 1. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1912.
  • Goldin, Judah. "Toward a Profile of a Tanna, Aqiba ben Joseph." Journal of the American Oriental Society 96 (1976): 38–56.
  • Lau, Binyamin. The Sages, Volume III: The Galilean Period. Jerusalem: Maggid Books, 2013.
  • Neusner, Jacob, ed. Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity. Vol. 20, The Jews Under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian, by E. Mary Smallwood. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1976.
  • Rabbi Akiva and the Development of the Mishnah Thinktorah.org by Rabbi Menachem Levine
  • "Crowns: Moses Visits Rabbi Akiva's Beit Midrash": An animation telling the story in Menachot 29b
  • "Rachel, Wife of Akiva: Women in Ancient Israel," Video Lecture by Dr. Henry Abramson
  • Rabbi Akiva chabad.org