Rabbi Akiva shares a story he heard directly from Rabbeinu Hakadosh — Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law). The tale concerns a man in the Land of Israel who went by the name "Merutah," which means "torn" or "plucked."
One day, Merutah climbed a hill to collect wood. As he made his way through the brush, he spotted a snake. The snake, crucially, did not see him. There was no confrontation, no bite, no physical contact of any kind. The man simply saw the serpent, and the serpent remained unaware of the man's presence.
Yet the mere sight of the snake triggered an extraordinary physical reaction. The hair of Merutah's head fell out on the spot — all of it. From that day until the day of his death, he remained completely bald. The experience was so defining that it became his name: Merutah, the torn one, the man whose hair was plucked away by the terror of seeing a serpent.
The story is brief but its implications run deep. The snake in Jewish tradition carries the weight of the primordial serpent in the Garden of Eden — the creature through whom death and fear entered the world. Merutah's hair did not fall out because of venom or violence. It fell out because of pure, primal terror. The sight of the snake alone was enough to mark a man permanently. This is what the rabbis meant when they spoke of the serpent's power: not its fangs, but the existential dread it embodies.