R. Akiba saw a man drowning in a ship that had foundered. He afterwards met him on land. The waves had carried him to shore. He was saved for giving a poor man his own loaf of bread and thereby sustaining him. Reward for observing the injunction: “ Cast thy bread upon the waters ” etc. (Eccles. XI1.)
Rabbi Akiva Sees the Man the Waves Refused to Keep
Gaster, Exempla No. 298 (Kohelet Rabbah 11:1)