The Roman Empire had outlawed Torah study. Jews who gathered to learn risked execution. Pappos ben Yehudah, a cautious man, saw Rabbi Akiva publicly teaching Torah in open defiance of the decree. Are you not afraid, he asked. Why provoke Rome? Is the risk not madness?
Akiva answered with a fable.
A fox was walking along the shore of the sea, he said. He saw fish dashing frantically from one spot to another in the shallows. What are you doing, he asked. The fish answered, We are fleeing the nets and hooks of the fishermen. The fox put on his most sympathetic voice. Come up on dry land, he said. Come live with me. There are no nets here. We will be neighbors.
The fish burst out laughing. Are you the clever one, the cunning animal they talk about? If even here, in the water, which is our life, we are not safe, how much more certainly will we die on dry land, where we cannot even breathe?
So it is with us, said Akiva. Torah is to the Jew what water is to the fish. It is written (Deuteronomy 30:20): For it is your life, and the length of your days. If we are in danger while studying Torah, how much greater the danger if we abandon it? Without water we are finished in a minute.
Not long after, both men were arrested. Pappos was imprisoned by the Romans for another offense entirely. When he was thrown into the same cell as Akiva, he said: Happy are you, Akiva, for you are imprisoned for the sake of Torah. I am imprisoned for nothing.
Akiva was soon led out to execution during the morning prayer, around 135 CE under the Hadrianic persecution. The Romans combed his flesh with iron combs. As they tore at him, he recited the Shema. He lingered on the final word, Echad, One, and with that word on his lips he died.
This story from tractate Berakhot 61b, preserved in The Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924), is the moment that made Rabbi Akiva the pattern of Jewish martyrdom. The fox still offers the deal. The fish still refuse.