Tevet 5772
1 January 2012
At the age of 40, Akiva (ca. 60 CE) was an illiterate shepherd.
At his wife's insistence, he went to learn, but was embarrassed to be sitting in school with kindergarteners. Yet he couldn't go home, because his wife told him not to return until he was a scholar.
Feeling sorry for himself. Akiva sat down by a stream and stared at the water.
As he watched the dripping water slowly wearing away a rock, he had a flash of inspiration:
"If water, which is so soft, can wear away a hard rock, surely a little Torah can get into my hardened heart!"
So inspired, he returned to kindergarten.
By the age of 64 he had become Rabbi Akiva, the greatest scholar in Israel, with 24,000 students.
Talmud Nedarim 50a, Ketubot 62b-63a
Wikipedia on Rabbi Akiva
A book about Rabbi Akiva
An amazing class by R. Akiva Tatz on the meaning of life
