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at The 92nd Street Y, New York. Supported by The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
Oct 29, 1987
The subject of the first Talmudic lecture in 1970, Rabbi Akiva. Who was “the song of my adolescence,” is here in tonight’s lecture revisited. Why was he so quiet, so passive? Why did he laugh? Why did he alone leave the orchard of forbidden knowledge in peace, seemingly insensitive to his friends’ suffering? Why did he rule against sharing one’s water in the desert? Why did he crown Bar Kochba the Messiah? Akiva, the hero of my childhood, emerges as a disturbing and complex figure. . . But read over again, Rabbi Akiva’s approach can be understood: his mystical quest in the orchard aimed to curtail suffering and bring redemption. When mysticism failed, he chose the messianic approach of Bar Kochba, so that at least one rabbi (Akiva himself) would support Bar Kochba. Surviving a desert alone carries the obligation of living for two, for himself and for the one who did not survive. Rabbi Akiva’s passivity in the face of death was in essence celebrating the opportunity to fulfill a commandment. And Rabbi Akiva’s laughter was knowing that signs of desolation actually reveal the consolation sure to come in the future. “It takes courage to laugh, when other people cry. It takes courage to see the future, when all of us are so still obsessed with the past.”
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