Rabbi Akiva the shepherd
Author: Sraya Tanami
Illustrator: Jonathan Ben-shaul
Akiva was a shepherd. He was a shepherd from the time he was a child until he grew up, and was forty years old.
Akiva was a special shepherd. He had a flute, and he knew how to play beautiful melodies to goats. The goats loved to hear the melodies.
One evening the sun had set, and Akiva pondered in his heart:
I like to graze the goats. I like to play the goats. But many years have passed, and I cannot read. I want to learn so much, and I cannot read.
Akiva wondered,
I am forty years old. Maybe it's too late? Who would want to teach me? Can I still study?
At night, Akiva lay on his bed, tears welling up in his eyes. It hurt him that time was passing, and he had not yet learned to read.
Akiva wept, prayed, asked from the bottom of his heart to know how to read, so that he could learn.
The sun was shining, and Akiva awoke. Akiva went out to graze the goats. He reached a water well. Akiva liked to look at what he could see.
He saw grooves in the wall of the well. Akiva asked: How did it become grooved in such a hard stone?
There was a wise man there. He said to him: Do you not know the verse: "Stones fray water"?
The water falls on the stone every day, and they penetrate into the hard stone, making grooves in it.
Akiva said: And that my heart is harder than stone? If the water manages to penetrate the hard stone and change it, surely the study will be able to enter my heart. I will go and study one parsha from the Torah.
Akiva went to school with his son. The teacher wrote him the first letter, and Akiva studied. The teacher wrote him the second letter, and Akiva studied. The teacher wrote him a parsha, and Akiva studied.
This is how Akiva studied the Torah from the beginning, until he studied it all.
Thus, Akiva became Rabbi Akiva, and became a great sage.
In his youth he was a goatherd, and after studying Torah he had many disciples.
In his youth he would play beautiful melodies for the goats, and after he was well versed in the Torah he would teach the students wise things, which are like beautiful melodies.
