Parshat Mishpatim5 min read

Aquila Bought What Lay Lowest on the Ground

Hadrian told his nephew to invest in whatever lay lowest, for it rises. Aquila took the advice as prophecy and chose the people of Israel.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. A Question Dressed as Trade
  2. The Face That Told on Him
  3. How a People Is Sorted from the Heap
  4. Against the Boast of Older Books
  5. The Rise That Hadrian Named Without Knowing
Aquila Bought What Lay Lowest on the Ground Click for full size

A Question Dressed as Trade

Aquila stood before his uncle Hadrian with a merchant's question on his tongue and a convert's secret in his chest. He wanted Torah. He feared the emperor. So he asked, in the language of commerce, in what merchandise a wise trader should invest.

"Whatever lies lowest on the ground," Hadrian answered. "For in the end it rises."

Aquila took the sentence home and turned it into a map. He left Rome for the Land of Israel. He sat in the houses of study until the shape of his face changed. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua knew at a glance what he had become. The lowest people on the empire's ledger had become the place where his soul rose. He slept on thin mats, learned letters until his eyes burned, and felt the covenant cut into his body as a door, not a wound.

The Face That Told on Him

When Aquila returned to court, Hadrian saw the difference before he heard a word. Aquila confessed. He had searched the nations. None were so trodden down as Israel. None were destined to be lifted so high. Isaiah had already promised that kings would one day rise before her. The nephew who had asked about merchandise had bought a people the market called worthless.

Hadrian struck him. A scornful assessor at the emperor's side mocked the prophecy, then fell from a roof to his death while a cry went up, "So may all Your enemies perish, O LORD." When Hadrian demanded why Aquila had circumcised himself, Aquila answered without apology. Without the covenant a man cannot truly learn. The Holy One gave Israel both Torah and ordinances, and warned that no world endures without justice. The generation of the Flood perished because it trampled justice. Therefore the Torah opens its civil code with "And these are the ordinances."

The blow from Hadrian's hand still stung. Aquila did not take it back. He had already paid a higher price on a different kind of flesh.

How a People Is Sorted from the Heap

Elsewhere the sages asked why Scripture says the LORD separated Israel from the peoples rather than the peoples from Israel. They pictured a farmer sorting a crop. When he reaches in to pull out what is good from a mixed pile, he keeps reaching, because something worth saving may still be hidden. When he throws out what is spoiled, he does it once and finishes. Heaven chose the first motion. God reaches again and again for what is precious.

Rabbi Levi walked through an ordinary farming year to show how that separation lives in soil and time. Israel plows differently, refusing to yoke ox and donkey together. They sow without mixing seeds in the vineyard. At harvest they leave gleanings and a forgotten sheaf for the poor. The ox treading grain eats unmuzzled. The freed servant goes out with a full hand. The nations measure days by the sun. Israel measures by the moon. From the first cut of the plow to the marking of a new month, a life is shaped to belong to God. Aquila had not joined a slogan. He had joined a calendar and a field.

That is what "lowest on the ground" looked like up close. Not dust for its own sake. Dust that still grows a holy crop when the sorting hand is patient.

Against the Boast of Older Books

In another court of argument Flavius Josephus faced Greek pride about antiquity. The Greeks admitted they learned their alphabet late, from Phoenicians or from Cadmus, yet could not produce inscriptions to pin the claim. Homer's poems, Josephus noted, were sung in parts before they were written as wholes, which is why variants swarm. Early historians and philosophers lived near the Persian wars and often confessed debts to Egypt and Chaldea. Josephus was not denying Greek genius. He was stripping the swagger from it. Jewish memory, he insisted, rests on a continuous chain of records and priests, not on songs that drifted until someone finally inked them.

Aquila's choice and Josephus's polemic meet at the same nerve. A people trampled in the marketplace of empires still claims an older, tighter memory of law and origin than the powers that mock them. The lowest merchandise rises when history is counted honestly. Scrolls kept by priests outlast ballads kept by fashion.

The Rise That Hadrian Named Without Knowing

Hadrian had meant a trading tip. His nephew heard a destiny. The face that changed in the study house, the circumcision that sealed learning, the ordinances that keep a world from flood, the farmer's hand that keeps sorting good from the heap, the historian who demands proof instead of rumor, all of them answer the same question. Where should a wise man put his life when the market prices Israel as dust?

Aquila's answer is still sharp. Buy what lies lowest. Watch it rise. The emperor who taught him the rule never meant to lose a nephew to it. The rule did not care what he meant.

AquilaHadrianConversionTorahRomeJosephusIsraelTanchuma
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Mishpatim 3:1Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Mishpatim

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

(Exodus 21:1:) AND THESE ARE THE ORDINANCES, etc. This is what Scripture says (Psalms 147:19-20): "He declares His words to Jacob, etc. He has not done so for any nation, etc." Aquila, the son of Hadrian's sister, sought to convert, but he was afraid of his uncle Hadrian. He said to him: "I wish to engage in commerce." He said to him: "Are you perhaps lacking silver or gold? Behold, the treasury is before you." He said to him: "I wish to engage in commerce, and to learn the mind of people, and I wish to take counsel with you as to how to do it." He said to him: "Any merchandise that you see that is set low upon the ground, go occupy yourself with it, for in the end it will rise up." Now he intended to convert. He came to the Land of Israel and studied the Torah. After some days, when he came before him, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua met him and saw that his face was changed. They said to one another: "Aquila has studied the Torah." When they came before him, he began to ask them questions, and they would answer him. He went up to Hadrian. He said to him: "Why is your face changed? Has your commerce perhaps suffered loss, or is blood distressing you?" He said to him: "No." "And why is your face changed?" He said to him: "Because I have studied Torah; and not only that, but I have circumcised myself." He said to him: "And who told you to do so?" He said to him: "I took counsel with you." He said to him: "When?" He said to him: "At the time I told you, 'I wish to engage in commerce,' and you said to me, 'Any merchandise that you see that is set low upon the ground, occupy yourself with it, for in the end it will rise up.' So I went about among all the nations, and I found no nation set low upon the ground like Israel, and in the end they will rise up; for thus Isaiah said (Isaiah 49:7): 'Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to him who is despised of soul, to him who is abhorred of the nation, to a servant of rulers, etc.'" His co-assessor said to him: "Are these whom you have destroyed destined to be those before whom kings will stand, as it is said (Isaiah 49:7): 'Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall prostrate themselves'?" Hadrian struck him upon his cheek. He said to him: "Does one apply a plaster except upon a wound? Would a man apply it upon sound flesh? It is upon the wound that he applies it. Now, if they see a single common soldier, they do not stand before him." What did his co-assessor do? He went up onto the roof, fell, and died. And the Holy Spirit cried out: "So may all Your enemies perish, O LORD" (Judges 5:31). Hadrian said to Aquila: "Why did you do this?" He said to him: "Because I sought to study Torah." He said to him: "You should have studied and not circumcised yourself." He said to him: "If a man is not circumcised, he cannot study, as it is said: 'He declares His words to Jacob, His statutes and ordinances to Israel' (Psalms 147:19), 'to Jacob,' to whoever of Jacob is circumcised. 'His statutes', this is the Torah; 'and His ordinances', these are the laws, as it is said: 'There He set for them a statute and an ordinance' (Exodus 15:25)." The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: "I have given them the Torah; give them the ordinances." The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: "Do you seek to endure in the world? Keep the ordinances, for the world cannot endure without justice. The generation of the Flood perished from the world only because they transgressed against justice." Rabbi Eleazar ben Pedat said: What is written concerning them? "From morning to evening they are crushed; without anyone heeding, they perish forever" (Job 4:20). Hence, AND THESE ARE THE ORDINANCES.

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Against Apion 2:2Against Apion

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Against Apion, trans. William Whiston · Public Domain

Flavius Josephus, in his Against Apion, grapples with precisely this when he contrasts the historical record of the Jews with that of the Greeks.

He points out that the Greeks themselves acknowledge the relatively late development of their alphabet. Some claim they learned it from the Phoenicians or from Cadmus. But Josephus asks a very pointed question: where's the proof? Where are the inscriptions, the documents, the anything that definitively dates back to that era? Even the Trojan War, a foundation of Greek identity, is shrouded in doubt. Did the Greeks even have a standardized writing system at that point? The prevailing opinion, he notes, suggests they did not.

What about Homer? These epic poems are foundational to Greek culture, but even here, Josephus throws a bit of shade. The story goes that Homer didn't even write down his poems! Instead, they were preserved through oral tradition, passed down in song. This, Josephus suggests, explains the numerous variations found within them. He references the ancient commentators and the term Rhapsodies, sung "like ballads, by parts" rather than a "composed and connected together in complete works". While acknowledging some find this hard to believe, he suggests the Greeks themselves don't fully claim anything ancienter than Homer.

Josephus isn't saying the Greeks had no ancient writings whatsoever. His point is more nuanced. He's arguing they don't fully own any writings claiming such great antiquity. There's a tentativeness, a lack of consensus.

Then he turns to the early Greek historians, figures like Cadmus of Miletus and Acusilaus of Argos. They lived relatively close to the Persian expedition into Greece. And what about the philosophers? Thinkers like Phercydes the Syrian, Pythagoras, and Thales. They themselves admitted they drew their wisdom from the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and they wrote relatively little. Josephus emphasizes that even the authenticity of the writings attributed to these figures is often questioned.

So, what's Josephus driving at? He's setting the stage to highlight the comparative strength and clarity of the Jewish historical record. By questioning the foundations of Greek historical claims, he prepares us to understand his later defense of the antiquity and reliability of Jewish tradition, rooted in the Torah and the prophets. It's a powerful rhetorical move, challenging his audience to consider the very nature of evidence and historical truth.

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Pesikta DeRav Kahana 5:5Pesikta de-Rav Kahana

Translation of the source text.Pesikta de Rav Kahana according to an Oxford manuscript, Dov Mandelbaum ed., N.Y. 1987 · CC-BY

Rabbi Levi opened: "You shall be holy to Me" and so forth (Leviticus 20:26). Rabbi Yudan in the name of Rabbi Hama bar Hanina, and Rabbi Berekhiah in the name of Rabbi Abbahu taught: had it said "and I will separate the nations of the world from you," the nations of the world would have had no standing. Rather it says "and I have separated you from the peoples to be Mine" (ibid.). This is like one who picks out the good from amid the bad: he picks and goes back and picks again. But when one picks out the bad from amid the good, he picks once and does not pick again.

Rabbi Levi said: in all their deeds Israel are distinguished from the nations of the world: in their plowing, in their sowing, in their reaping, in their gathering of sheaves, in their threshing, in their granaries and winepresses, and in their counting and reckoning. In their plowing, "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together" (Deuteronomy 22:10). In their sowing, "You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed" (ibid. 22:9). In their reaping, "You shall not gather the gleaning of your harvest" (Leviticus 19:9). In their gathering of sheaves, "And you forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back" and so forth (Deuteronomy 24:19). In their threshing, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it threshes" (ibid. 25:4). In their granaries and winepresses, "You shall surely furnish him out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress" (ibid. 15:14). And in their counting and reckoning, that the nations of the world count by the sun and Israel by the moon, "This month shall be for you the beginning of months" (Exodus 12:2).

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