Yahrzeit of Rabbi Akiva

 The Tanna Rabbi Akiva zt"l

הרב עקיבא בן יוסף זצ"ל

Tishrei 9 , 3897 / 136 – Tishrei 10 , 3897

Rabbi Akiva was born in Lod in the year 3777

His father, Yosef, a descendant of Sisera, the general of Yovin, King of Canaan, was a righteous convert (see Sanhedrin 32b and Rambam’s introduction to Mishneh Torah).

He was an ignoramus until the age of forty, when he was shepherding the flocks of the wealthy Jerusalemite Kalba Savua, whose daughter, Rochel, saw in Akiva good qualities and urged him to give up his shepherding and go to the Bais Medrash to learn Torah in return for marrying him. When Kalba Savua learned of their marriage, he disowned his daughter in anger and turned them out penniless from his home. They were so poor that they lived in a barn. One day, Eliyohu HaNovi, posing as a pauper, asked them for some straw for his wife who was about to give birth. They comforted each other that there were people even poorer than them.

The Yerushalmi (Shabbos 6:1) tells how Rochel sold her beautiful tresses so that she could support her husband’s Torah learning. He himself sold bundles of wood in the market and daily went to study the letters of the alef bais until he felt he was no longer in the category of a true ignoramus. He then realized that his own soul desired to study Torah, and that he would not learn merely at his wife’s insistence.

The Talmud Bovli, Maseches Yoma, Chapter 8 Mishna 9, reads (with my comments in parentheses):

“Rabbi Akiva said: Fortunate are you, the Jewish people! Before Whom do you purify yourself and Who purifies you? Your Father in Heaven. (They should rejoice that they are cleansed through teshuvah that is encouraged by Hashem and they are awakened to repentance by Hashem Himself), as the pasuk says, (Yechezkel 36:25), ‘I will sprinkle you with pure water and you will be cleansed.’ And it also says (Yirmiya 17:13) “The mikveh (literally means Hope) of Yisrael is Hashem.” (We can understand mikveh to mean a ritual bath rather than just hope.) Just as a mikveh [ritual bath] purifies the ritually unclean, so too does Hashem purify the Jewish people.”

It says in the Gemora (Berochos 61:):

“The time to recite Keriyas Shema arrived when [the Romans] took out Rabbi Akiva to have him executed. He accepted upon himself the complete yoke of the kingship of Heaven – ol malchus shomayim sheleima. [He recited the Keriyas Shema with this full intent.] His talmidim said, ‘Rebbe, stop here already [is this really the appropriate time for such kavonos?]’ He responded to them, ‘All the days of my life I was pained because of this pasuk (Devorim 6:5): “…with all your heart and with all your soul.” I asked myself, “When will my moment arrive? When will I finally have the opportunity to fulfill it?””

The seforim teach us that Heaven forbid that such a righteous individual would have something terrible like this [execution] happen to him! Rather [what really happened was that] they executed someone else. Someone from among their own rank and file, someone who appeared to them to be the Tzaddik [Rabbi Akiva, but was actually a Roman] was mistakenly executed in his place instead. * (Noam Elimelech Chukas)

This amazing idea is found in the Sefer Emek HaMelech by Rav Naftoli Hertz Bachrach (Sha’ar Olam Ha’Tohu, Gate 68), citing the Medrash Pirkei Heicholos Rabbosi (Chapter 6), which teaches us that all the ten martyrs known collectively as asora harugei malchus were not actually physically executed at all. Rather, Hashem tricked the wicked Romans by sending malochim down to switch the captives for Romans such as Lupiyanos for Rav Chanina ben Tradyon and they made Rav Chanina’s appearance similar to his. Rav Chanina went and ruled in his place while Lupiyanos was made to look like Rav Chanina and the Romans executed their own man. And this was the same regarding all ten martyrs. Nonetheless, their willing self-sacrifice still counts, since the wicked Romans carried out their execution (even though it was on their own men) and the martyrs mentally gave up their lives.

The Emek HaMelech concludes by saying that this is the meaning of the response of Hashem to Moshe and the malochim (Menochos 29b), when they were shown Rabbi Akiva’s cruel execution and asked, “How can this be the reward for Torah?” Hashem responded, “This is what came to mind –  כך עלה במחשבה.” The Emek HaMelech explains that this is the true, literal answer; this is what Rabbi Akiva had in mind. This execution was all in his mind, a willing self-sacrifice and a mental exercise that happened in thought alone. The Tzaddikim willingly sanctified Hashem’s name. Since Hashem joins a good thought to a deed, it is considered as if they laid down their actual lives.

Source:  https://nertzaddik.com/tzadik-info/3182/