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Updated: May 16, 2025
Some scholars have sought to associate him with the philosopher at Rome that was visited by the four rabbis of the Sanhedrin, the Patriarch Rabban Gamaliel, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Eleazar ben Arach, and Rabbi Akiba, when they came to Rome in the reign of Domitian.
That may be all very well for a Greek woman, but in the house of Ben Akiba the woman must obey her husband's will, as the ship obeys the helm, and have no will of her own; her husband's will always coincides with what the law commands, which you yourself learnt to obey."
Gamaliel's nephew, Rabbi Ben Jochai, enjoyed a reputation little inferior to that of his father, Ben Akiba. The elder was the greatest sage and expounder of the law the son the most illustrious astronomer and the most skilled interpreter of the mystical significance of the position of the heavenly bodies, among the Hebrews.
"As I rather liked to tease her, I said she was mistaken, for here in Jerusalem did the great Rabbi Akiba fall in love with his wife before marriage. 'Oh, that was quite different! she replied. 'Not at all, said I, for were not feasts and rejoicing held so that youths and maidens could meet one another in the vineyards and dance in the meadows?
It was the strongest fortress and probably the richest town of Galilee in Christ's day, but so far as we know He never entered it. After the fall of Jerusalem, strangely enough, the Jews made it their favourite city, the seat of their Sanhedrim and the centre of rabbinical learning. Here the famous Rabbis Jehuda and Akîba and the philosopher Maimonides taught.
To this new learning of traditions and glosses the ardent youth of the nation devoted itself with a fanaticism not less vehement than that which had fought and bled half a century before. The name of the rabbi Akiba is preserved as a type of the hierophant of restored Judaism. The stories depicting him are best expounded as myths and figures.
To put it shortly: You are Jews when the Lord is most gracious to you, or threatens to try you most severely but you are heathen whenever your way does not lead you over the high hills or through the dark abysses of life. I cannot change your hearts but the wife of my brother's son, the daughter of Ben Akiba, must be a daughter of our people, morning, noon, and night.
He quickly reassured his friends in the city, that his fall had in no wise harmed him. He was only a little shaken up and weak; as soon as he had his accustomed daily meal, a roasted ox, he would be able to scale the wall and resume the struggle with the Babylonians. But human strength and artifice avail naught against God. A gust of wind arose, and Akiba was thrown from the wall, and he died.
The stones were hurled at the walls of the city from the catapults wielded by the enemy without, he was wont to catch on his feet, and throw them back upon the besiegers. Once it happened that a stone was so cast as to drop, not upon the wall, but in front of it. In his swift race toward it, Akiba was precipitated into the space between the inner and the outer wall.
And he answered, "This is a Halakah given to Moses on Mount Sinai," and not Moses was content. Moses returned to God and said to Him: "Thou has a man like Akiba, and yet dost Thou give the Torah to Israel through me!" But God answered: "Be silent, so has it been decreed by Me." Moses then said: "O Lord of the world!
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