Reflections on the High Holy Days

By Rabbi Solomon Maimon

For reflections on the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, I decided to write a story of one of the greatest heroes in Judaism, the story of Rabbi Akiva.

Rabbi Akiva, as a young man, did not know a word of Torah. He worked as a shepherd for "Ben Kalba Savua," one of the richest men in Yerushalayim. One day, Rachel, the daughter of Ben Kalba Savua, looked at Akiva and was extremely impressed by his modesty and his gentleness with her father's flocks. She also noticed in him a tremendous potential for accomplishment in Torah, although his potential was at this point totally unrealized.

Rachel approached the shepherd Akiva and suggested that they get married. When her father found out about this, he was very upset, because he had envisioned a Torah scholar as a husband for his daughter, rather than an ignorant shepherd. In his anger, he vowed to cut the young couple off financially, leaving them penniless.

One of Rachel's conditions for marrying Akiva was that he go to a Yeshiva to learn Torah, and he accepted.

Once, while shepherding his flocks, he gazed into a pool, where he saw a hollowed-out rock resting under a waterfall. He wondered how the rock, one of nature's hardest substances, had been hollowed out. When he was told that water had, over a long period of time, made the drastic change in the rock, he reasoned as follows:

"If a rock, though extremely hard, can be hollowed out by water, how much more so should it be possible for Torah, which is compared to water, to change my brain, which is soft. I will begin to study it, and try to become a Torah scholar."

Akiva and his son, Yehoshua, went to the same teacher at first. Together they studied the Aleph-Bet, the Hebrew alphabet. They went on at their own pace; Yehoshua at the pace of a bright child - Akiva analyzing the meaning of each new fact and idea that he learned, deeply and thoroughly. Rachel suggested that Akiva go to a Yeshiva and devote himself full time, for twelve years, to the study of Torah. Having the permission and encouragement of his wife, Rachel, Akiva went to study.

At the end of a dozen years, he returned to Jerusalem to greet his wife, accompanied by twelve thousand students. As she heard their approach, Rachel came out and out of great love for Rabbi Akiva, and honor for the Torah, she prostrated herself at his feet. When his students moved to push her away he restrained them, saying, "All the Torah knowledge that I have, and all the Torah knowledge that you have, are the direct result of this woman's love of the Torah!"

I appreciate the power of the good wives of Sephardic Bikur Holim to do great things for their husbands.

Tizku Leshanim Rabbot, Tovot Ve'neimot

Rabbi & Mrs. Solomon Maimon