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Rabbi Akiva Lost His Lamp His Rooster and His Donkey in One Night

Three losses in a single night left Rabbi Akiva in darkness outside a hostile town, and the next morning he understood why each one had saved him.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Night Nothing Worked
  2. What the Town Looked Like in the Morning
  3. The Fish and the Fox at the River's Edge
  4. Prison Water and the Cost of Precision
  5. The Last Word

The Night Nothing Worked

Rabbi Akiva was traveling and he carried three things with him. A lamp, to study by at night. A donkey, to ride during the day. A rooster, to wake him at dawn. He came to a town and knocked at every door asking for shelter. No one would take him in. He went outside the town walls, made camp in a field, and lit his lamp.

A wind came and blew it out. He said: "Kol de'avid Rachmana letav avid." Whatever the Merciful One does is done for the good. He had said this sentence so many times his students could finish it for him. He sat in the dark.

Then a cat came and ate the rooster. Whatever the Merciful One does is done for the good. Then a lion came and killed the donkey. Whatever the Merciful One does is done for the good. Akiva sat alone in the field in the dark with nothing. He slept.

What the Town Looked Like in the Morning

When he woke, he found out what had happened in the night. A Roman military cohort had swept through the town. They killed everyone inside the walls. Rabbi Akiva walked through what was left and understood. The lamp, if it had stayed lit, would have given away his position in the field. The rooster, if it had called, would have drawn attention to where he was sleeping. The donkey, if it had brayed, would have done the same. Each loss had kept him invisible. The wind and the cat and the lion had been the exact instruments of his survival.

He repeated the sentence he had said three times in the dark, and this time it was not an act of faith but a statement of completed fact. Whatever the Merciful One does is done for the good. He had been saying it without knowing. Now he knew.

The Fish and the Fox at the River's Edge

This was the form of Akiva's thinking, applied across every situation. When Rome forbade the teaching of Torah on pain of death, Akiva kept teaching in public. His friend Pappus ben Yehudah stopped him in the street and asked if he was afraid. Akiva told him a parable. A fox walked along the riverbank and saw fish darting frantically from pool to pool. The fox called down: "Come up on dry land and escape from the nets." The fish answered: "You are supposed to be the wisest of animals, but this is a foolish suggestion. The water is our element. Yes, we are in danger here. But out there we would die at once." Torah is to Israel what water is to fish, Akiva said. Dangerous to study now, in these conditions. But to leave it would be death of a different kind, immediate and complete.

Prison Water and the Cost of Precision

When the Romans finally arrested Akiva and threw him into prison, his disciple Yehoshua Hagarsi was permitted to bring him water each day, a small measured ration. One morning the prison guard noticed the water jug and said, sneering, that the quantity was excessive. He seized the vessel and poured half of it into the dust before Yehoshua could respond. What was left would barely keep a man alive.

Yehoshua carried the diminished ration to his master. Akiva was faint and parched. When he saw how little water there was, he did not ask what had happened to the rest. He asked Yehoshua to pour it out. He used the water to wash his hands before eating, according to the ritual requirement, and only then drank what was left. Yehoshua protested: "you will die of thirst if you wash with this." Akiva answered: "what will I do? The sages have decreed it, and I will die rather than transgress the words of my colleagues." He ate with clean hands and he waited.

The Last Word

Akiva died at the hands of the Romans. The hour of his execution fell precisely at the time of the morning Shema recitation. He recited it as they were tearing his flesh with iron combs. His students watched and begged him to stop. He told them that all his life he had understood the verse "with all your soul" to mean even when God takes your soul. Now, at last, the moment had come when he could fulfill it. He drew out the word Echad, one, the last word of the Shema, until his soul departed on that word. A heavenly voice spoke: "happy is Akiva, whose soul departed on the word Echad."

Rabbi AkivaDivine ProvidenceLampDonkeyTorahRomeFaith
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From the tradition

Sources

4 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Gaster, Exempla of the Rabbis, no. 150; cf. Berakhot 60bThe Exempla of the Rabbis (1924)

Rabbi Akiva had a saying he repeated so often his disciples knew it by heart: Kol de'avid Rachmana letav avid, "Whatever the Merciful One does is done for the best."

Once he was traveling, and he carried with him three things: a lamp, to read by at night; a donkey, to ride by day; and a rooster, to wake him at dawn. He came to a town and knocked at every door, but no one would give him shelter. The inhabitants turned him away. So Akiva went outside the town, made camp in a field, lit his lamp, tied his donkey, and set the rooster on his pack.

A wind came up and blew out the lamp. Akiva sat in the darkness and said, "Whatever God does is done for the best."

A lion came out of the hills and killed the donkey. Akiva, sitting on the ground now without his mount, said, "Whatever God does is done for the best."

A cat came from nowhere and strangled the rooster. Akiva, alone now with nothing at all, said again, "Whatever God does is done for the best." And he lay down to sleep.

In the morning he walked back toward the town. When he reached it, he found it sacked. Robbers had raided the village during the night, taken everything, killed many of the townspeople. The houses were empty. The streets were silent.

And then Akiva understood. If his lamp had burned, the robbers would have seen the light and found him in the field. If his donkey had brayed, they would have heard. If his rooster had crowed, they would have come to investigate. The three "losses" had been three quiet rescues.

Gaster's Exempla (no. 150, 1924) closes with no commentary. The story is the commentary.

Full source
Hebraic Literature (1901), Talmud section, Berakhot 61bHebraic Literature (1901)

When Rome forbade Israel to study Torah on pain of death, Rabbi Akiva went right on teaching it in the open, gathering crowds around him. His friend Pappus ben Yehudah stumbled across one of these gatherings and pulled him aside. "Akiva," he whispered, "aren't you afraid of what the Romans will do to you?"

Akiva answered with a parable. "Picture a fox walking along the riverbank. He sees fish darting frantically from one pool to the next and calls down to them, 'What are you running from?' 'From the nets the children of men have set to catch us,' the fish reply. The fox smiles. 'Then why not come up on dry land? You and I can live together, the way our ancestors did.' The fish look at him and laugh. 'They told us you were the cleverest of beasts, but you are a fool. If we are afraid in the water, which is our life, how much more would we die on the dry land!'"

Akiva let the parable land. "So it is with us. Torah is our water. It is written, for it is your life and the length of your days (Deuteronomy 30:20). If we are in danger while we are swimming in it, how much greater the danger if we abandon it?" The story is preserved in the Talmud (Berakhot 61b) and repeated in the 1901 anthology Hebraic Literature.

A tradition worth remembering: the thing that threatens you is often the only thing keeping you alive.

Full source
Eruvin 21bHebraic Literature (1901)

The Romans had thrown Rabbi Akiva into prison, and his disciple Yehoshua Hagarsi was permitted to bring him water, a small ration, carefully measured, just enough to keep an old man alive.

One morning the gaoler watched Yehoshua coming in with the jug and said, sneering, "Why so much water today? Are you planning to dig through the walls?" And before Yehoshua could answer, the gaoler seized the vessel and poured half of it into the dust.

Yehoshua carried what was left to his master. Akiva was faint, parched, waiting. When he saw how little water there was, he reproached his servant: "Yehoshua, have you forgotten that I am old, and my life depends on you?" The disciple told him what had happened at the gate.

Akiva heard this, and then, astonishingly, he asked for the water to wash his hands before eating.

"Master," Yehoshua cried, "there is not even enough for you to drink, much less to wash with!"

And Akiva answered, "What am I to do? They who neglect to wash their hands before a meal are judged worthy of death by our tradition. Better that I die by my own act from thirst than trample on the ruling of my colleagues."

And so, the Talmud records (Eruvin 21b; cited also by Maimonides, Hilchot Berakhot 6:19), Akiva tasted nothing until water was brought for his hands. The tradition of his fellow sages was dearer to him than the water of his life.

Full source
Berakhot 61bHebraic Literature (1901)

Rabbi Akiva had a habit, whenever he taught, of binding the body to the soul. "If we who study Torah suffer," he would say, "how much more would we suffer if we neglected it?" He had Deuteronomy at the tip of his tongue: ki hu chayecha (Deuteronomy 30:20), He is thy life, and the length of thy days. For Akiva, this verse was not metaphor. It was a literal address.

Not many days after he spoke those words, the Romans arrested him and threw him into prison. When the hour of his execution came, it fell precisely at the time of day when Jews recite the Shema, Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad. The executioners raked his flesh with iron combs. And while iron tore skin, Akiva's lips shaped the words he had said every morning of his life.

When he reached the final word, Echad, One, he drew the syllable out, holding it, extending the breath beyond what anyone thought a dying man could hold. And then, mid-syllable, his soul left him. One long breath of oneness, and he was gone.

A voice came forth from heaven, the Talmud records (Berakhot 61b), and it said: "Blessed art thou, Rabbi Akiva, for thy soul and the word One departed from thy body together."

Some deaths are endings. Akiva's was a final syllable of the only sentence that mattered.

Full source