His was the ultimate redemption story. The destitute shepherd who became the wealthy leader, the man who said of himself that he would venomously bite a Torah scholar if he saw one who became the greatest Torah scholar to have ever lived, the loner who is the central character in the Talmud’s greatest love story.
I am referring, of course, to Rabbi Akiva.
Rabbi Akiva lived during one of the most tumultuous times in Jewish history. Born in the year 50 of the Common Era, he saw the destruction of the Second Temple, was an influential figure in the failed Bar Kochba revolt and as we will read later this morning, he died a martyr at the hands of the Romans. Despite the chaos he was surrounded by, he managed to elevate Torah scholarship to such a degree that the Talmud (Menachos 29a) compares him to Moshe.
He is also responsible for the most well-known and widely practiced Jewish custom, the recital of Kaddish. The earliest source that connect Rabbi Akiva to the custom of a mourner saying Kaddish is found in the Machzor Vitri, an 11th century prayerbook, that shares the following story:
One day, Rabbi Akiva was walking through a cemetery when he encountered a terrifying-looking man. Unclothed, filthy, and most notably, wearing a crown of thorns. The man was running at full speed, chopping wood and loading the wood on his back. Rabbi Akiva caught up to him. Who are you? And who is your master? “I will free you!” declared Rabbi Akiva. Undoubtedly, reminded of his own humble beginnings, Rabbi Akiva always had a soft spot for the poor.
The man tried to brush Rabbi Akiva off. But Rabbi Akiva was persistent. “Who are you? I want to help you!”
אמר לו אותו האיש, ‘that man’ replied: “I am actually not alive. I died years ago. But every day, I am sent to chop wood. I have no rest, not in heaven and not in hell. I am damned to this eternal existence.”
Rabbi Akiva was not one to give up easily. “Why? What’s your story? What’s your name? I am going to see what I can do for you.”
The man informs Rabbi Akiva that his name is also Akiva. He was a tax collector who favored the rich and persecuted the poor. “I lived such an evil life that there is nothing that could be done for me.” And with that, he runs off into the darkness.
Rabbi Akiva travels through the region, stopping in every city, and asking them if they knew of this man. Finally, he arrives at one city, and oh did they know him. They share with Rabbi Akiva story after story of how evil this man was. “Not only that,” they say, “he fathered a child out of wedlock!”
Rabbi Akiva finds the child; he is living on the streets. Nobody wants to have anything to do with him. Rabbi clothes him, educates him, and after months of hard work and practice, the boy stands before the congregation and says Kaddish.
That night, the other Akiva appears to Rabbi Akiva in a dream, to thank him. He is clothed, he is clean, and his face is shining. This, concludes the Machzor Vitri, is why children say Kaddish for their parents.
There are two oddities of the text that are worth highlighting. I know, you’re tired and hungry, but let’s do a little Talmudic analysis.
“Oso ha’ish, that man,” is a way of saying, a man whose name we will not mention. He is “wearing a crown of thorns.”
Whose name do many Jews not mention? Who is depicted as wearing a crown of thorns?
Yes, the man in this story is a not-so-subtle allusion to Jesus. You have to appreciate, Machzor Vitri was written in France in the immediate aftermath of the Crusades. This was not a time of peaceful coexistence between Jews and Christians. And yet, the author, a prime student of Rashi, sends us a full-throated reminder, Yisrael af al pi shechata, Yisrael hu! That a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. No matter what we do, no matter how far we fall, there is always a chance for redemption. Even a man who started another religion, whose practitioners were massacring Jews as this book was being written, nonetheless, every Jew can turn his or her life around.
But the second oddity is even more shocking than the first. When this man finally gives his name, it is – Akiva. The man is chopping wood. Before becoming a shepherd, Avot D’Rav Nosson informs us that Rabbi Akiva’s profession was that of a woodchopper.
You see, Rabbi Akiva was not looking at a ghost. Rabbi Akiva was looking in the mirror. He was looking at an alternative to his own life. He saw this ‘Other Akiva,’ he saw the life of spiritual ignorance, of ethical failures, and he said, “That could have been me.”
***
Long before he was governor, Wes Moore wrote a book called, The Other Wes Moore.
Love him or hate him, our governor, Wes Moore, has a very inspiring life story. A troubled youth but thanks to the influence of a number of incredible role models, he turned his life around.
By the time he was 21, in the year 2000, he was a Rhodes Scholar traveling in South Africa. One day his mother shared with him a newspaper clipping from the Baltimore Sun. There was a young man, the same age, who grew up just a few blocks away, and was being charged with manslaughter for killing a police office after a botched burglary in downtown Baltimore. The other man’s name was Wes Moore.
Governor Moore remembers thinking to himself: “The other Wes Moore is a drug dealer, a robber, a murderer. I am a Rhodes scholar, a White House Fellow, a former Army officer.”
And yet, “Our situations could easily have been reversed.”
All of us have numerous paths before us. Rabbi Akiva, Wes Moore, all of us have an Other. Had I not gone to that school, had I not met this person, had I not made that choice, my life would be radically different than it is. Do you ever wonder about the infinite possible paths your life could have taken?
The mistake we make is that we think that our path-choosing is done. That by the time Wes Moore wrote that book, at the age of 30, his life trajectory was already set in motion. Rabbi Akiva, the ever-growing, the ever-evolving, the ever-optimistic Rabbi Akiva rejects this. He was at least 80 years old when that story took place. He saw the Other Akiva and he said, “This could be me. I don’t want this life. I could do better!” And he did.
It was at around this time that he grappled with the fall-out of the failed Bar Kochba revolt, it was at around this time that thousands of his students died, his life work seemed finished. But Rabbi Akiva was undeterred. At every juncture, he saw two paths before him, and each time, Rabbi Akiva reinvented himself. “I don’t want this life. I could do better!” And he did. (See Yevamos 62b)
This, suggests Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, is the meaning behind the Yom Kippur service in the temple. There were two identical goats that were part of the service. One was brought as an offering; its blood sprinkled in the Holy of Holies. The other was thrown off a cliff, la’azazel. Says Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, every year on Yom Kippur we are reminded of the two, and really, not just two, but the endless paths before us. Which path will we choose?
***
One of the greatest techniques for helping us see the different paths open before us is by thinking about our parents. We have their genes, and thanks to nature and nurture, we can see ourselves in them. Some of us had magnificent loving parents, some had horrific abusive parents, and many had parents somewhere in between. All of us have traits that are a direct result of our mother and father.
The goal of life is not to simply perpetuate our parents’ legacy; it is to take it further, higher, grander. The term for child in Hebrew is ben from the word binyan; we are meant to build on their successes and failures. They remind us of who we could be, and that knowledge is meant to motivate us to be better. Because there are so many possible versions of ourself that are just waiting to be realized.
It is not a coincidence that when Rabbi Akiva came face to face with the Other Akiva, he instituted Kaddish. Kaddish, the prayer we say for our parents, the prayer that focuses not on the past but on a radical version of peace in the future, is meant to remind us of our possible future, the other you waiting to be realized.
***
Menachem Begin, former Prime Minister of Israel, once shared the following story: “I’ve been to jail three times,” he said. “The first time the communists arrested me in Vilna. The Soviets locked me up in one of their prisons. I was held there for six weeks and all I could think about was getting back home. The second prison was a forced labor camp in Siberia. By my sixth week in Siberia, I dreamt of being back in that first prison cell. The third time, the Soviets put me in solitary confinement, and I dreamt of being back in that Siberian labor camp.”
“The Jewish People as a nation have been through so many years of suffering, humiliation, and abuse. When they think of peace, they’re content when people aren’t shooting at them. When they think of freedom, they’re content by not being slaves. My job,” he concluded, “as prime minister of Israel is to make sure that Jewish children never dream of labor camps or of prisons, but that they dream the dreams of a free people.”
How many of us are simply content with survival, with living another year? How many of us are okay with keeping the status quo of our current relationships, with loved ones, with G-d?
Like the Jewish People as a whole, we’ve been conditioned through so many failures, that we’re content with so little.
And what a pity that is.
Because there is another version of you waiting to be realized. The ‘other you’ who overcomes the anger, the laziness, the jealousy, the judgmentalism, once and for all. Who says, just because I lived with these negative traits for decades, doesn’t mean I cannot overcome them.
There is another version of you who reconciles with his or her brother, sister, spouse, child, old friend. There is another version of you who is not content with an okay relationship with a loved one; but wants to live with passion and forgiveness and safety and works tirelessly until you get there.
There is another version of you who deepens their knowledge of their tradition. A version of you not content with an elementary understanding of this faith that our ancestors lived and died for. But who wants to speak to G-d as an intimate lover and to feel His presence through the good times and in the valley of death.
Let’s take advantage of these next few moments when many of us think about our parents and ask ourselves how we can take their legacy further. Let’s take advantage of these next few hours, as we read of the two goats, as we recall the story of Rabbi Akiva, and ask ourselves who we can be.
There is another version of you just waiting to be realized.
(h/t to Rabbi Jon Gross esq. for the brilliant Wes Moore-Rav Hirsch connection and to Rabbi Joe Wolfson for the majestic read of the Machzor Vitri)