Rabbi Eliezer lay between life and death. His disciples and friends gathered around the bed, weeping openly. The great teacher, the man who had trained a generation, was slipping away. Only one face in the room looked almost cheerful — Rabbi Akiva's.
The others rounded on him. "Why do you look happy? Our master is suffering."
Akiva answered carefully. "Do not weep. Be glad. If I saw that his wine had not grown sour, that his flag had not been struck down, that his life from beginning to end had been only ease — I would fear for him. I would think, he has already received his reward on earth, and nothing remains for him in the world to come. But now I see my teacher suffering. He taught us himself that the most righteous among us still commit some sin. So let him bear it here, in this bed, in this hour. In the world to come he will have peace."
It is a hard comfort and a Jewish one. The suffering of the righteous is not evidence that Heaven has forgotten them. It is evidence that Heaven is clearing the last small debts before the gate. Akiva was not callous. He was reading the ledger.
Sometimes the tears at the bedside are the wrong response to what the soul is actually about to receive.