Gaster's exemplum No. 160 is one sentence long, but it unfolds into a whole theology.
"Rabbi Akiva in prison used half of the drinking water to wash his hands."
The Talmudic version of this story (tractate Eruvin 21b) gives us the context. Akiva was imprisoned by the Romans during the persecutions before his martyrdom. His disciple Rabbi Yehoshua HaGarsi was allowed to bring him a daily ration of water — enough for drinking, no more. One day less water than usual arrived; the guard had spilled some.
Akiva calculated. There was not enough water both to drink and to wash his hands before eating bread, as the rabbis had ordained. He poured half the water over his hands anyway. His disciple was shocked. "Master, there is not enough even to drink! You will die of thirst!"
Akiva answered, "Shall I eat bread without washing my hands, when the sages have said that one who does so is worthy of excommunication? Better I should die of thirst than transgress the words of my colleagues."
The scene is almost unbearable. A man about to be tortured to death, rationing the water that might keep him alive, so that his obedience to a minor rabbinic custom would not lapse. Akiva did not consider it minor. To him the netilat yadayim, the ritual hand-washing, was part of the same fabric as the Shema he would later recite as the Romans combed his flesh with iron. Both were pieces of the one Torah he would not release.
Sometimes the smallest obedience is the clearest witness.