How did a Penniless Illiterate Convert become the Ultimate Torah Titan?

To truly understand Rabbi Akiva’s mind-boggling ascension, we have to first rethink pleasure.

We tend to think of pleasure as we think of sugar. Why is this sweet and that not? Because this has sugar, and that does not.

But why is sugar sweet in the first place? And why is a sunset, mountain range, or even a birth an uplifting experience, but a parking lot, not?

Pleasure, in all its various forms, from sugar to more ephemeral beauty, requires significantly more engineering for no seeming purpose. Food, for example, is an exclusive human treat. Eating for an animal is like going to the bathroom for us. It’s something you just have to do.

No more explanation required.

If we were engineered so that we ate, or did any of our other activities, with the same motivation for which we go to the bathroom, wouldn’t our purpose be fulfilled just as much?

Most people think of it the same way a mother sweetens medicine, making it easier to go down. I.e. pleasure helps to get us through life. Alternatively, God, in His mercy, sprinkled sweetness like pixie dust over the world, just to make life enjoyable, interesting, and give us something to talk about.

If either of these concepts were accurate, then it could be just as easy to spray some of that pixie dust on raw potatoes instead of expensive wine. And a hike in the alps could be as uninspiring as one in a landfill. Instead of an apartment facing Central Park, people could prefer a panoramic view of a sewage treatment center.

Since this sounds absurd, maybe pleasure is not simply a superficially added condiment, but rather is at the essence of our purpose here on Earth.

The reason we experience the pleasure of food as much as we do, and a dog doesn’t, is not because a dog doesn’t have the pleasure gene. It is because the pleasure of food requires a neshama (soul).

It’s hard to know with absolute certainty, but giraffe’s don’t seem to get anything out of a glorious sunset. And I never saw a hippo stare at an exquisite orchid. And even very talented chimpanzees don’t gawk at cute babies.

That’s because the essence of every pleasure is a ruchnius (spiritual) experience. So no matter how powerful a microscope, or how much we break up an atom, no one has yet found a joy molecule or bliss particle.

Physical pleasure is an oxymoron.

There is no such thing as a physical pleasure. Pleasure, like a flame, requires a wick. So too, the pleasure of a sunset requires a sun, and the pleasure of ice-cream requires a cone. Pleasure requires the physical even though it isn't.

The reason we gaze at a majestic ocean view and dolphins don’t, is because pleasure (which is spiritual) requires a higher soul. The greater meaning of this concept is that a dog CANNOT enjoy food like we do.

Excuse the language, it’s not intended as a slight against God (God forbid), but it’s impossible for God to make an animal that would enjoy the things we enjoy. If they did, they wouldn’t be animals.

The opposite is also true. Everything according to the level of their soul.

As such, even a human being can devolve down to something akin to the level of an animal.

The difference between a spiritual experience and a physical one, is that there is no such thing as a physical experience.

Atoms don't feel. Anything. When they collide, only the physicist says “ouch."

A feeling is the experience of two things experiencing each other. Even if those two things are your head and the finger you just slammed in the door.

And when it's your grandson’s finger that I accidentally slammed, it’s an entirely different feeling. And a bigger ouch. For me.

And it still hurts. Me.

The hurt comes from me connecting with my grandson. Because connections create feelings. This explains why extreme narcissists don’t feel anyone else’s pain, because they only care about themselves.

Physical things cannot feel, because physical things are distinct and separate. Only a soul is capable of experiencing two separate things at the same time (Rabbi Sassoon zt”l).

Connection is therefore spiritual.

Pleasure is therefore spiritual.

Connecting to a Bentley is nice, connecting to your grandson is even nicer. Connecting to all of humanity is intoxicating. So much so, that people will go to extraordinary efforts for their cause.

The pleasure of a grandchild's hug is obviously not the hug.

It does require a physical hug, along with a grandchild. But importantly, it requires a special kind of thinking.

When it's your grandchild, you think differently.

Trust me.

Same hug, different thinking.

It’s only the thoughts of the bride and groom that make a Chuppah a meaningful experience. That’s also true for the grandfather watching that once little girl walk down the aisle. She is named after his mother who died in Auschwitz. His pleasure is a whole nother universe.

Same physical reality, very different thinking.

I just saw an $11,000 toilet. I am sure people buy it, but the newest model is not going to create a headline like the latest model car or smartphone.

Just like God cannot engineer an animal to experience higher levels of pleasure, so too He can’t engineer a bathroom (and all similar experiences), because they don't create connection. And without that, there is no pleasure, no matter how many dials, buttons, or even how much easier it makes life.

When we were young it might have been a pet, then it developed into friends, then a romantic connection. Each level up becomes more intoxicating.

Therefore a phone, yes; a toilet, not.

Enjoying life more does not happen by making life easier, but by finding greater levels of connection.

It's true, an enjoyable life feels easier, and it therefore is easier. Making dinner for your grandchild is a lot easier than making dinner for a complete stranger. But that formula doesn’t work in reverse; trying to make life easier ends up being no fun. Nor easier.

Skydiving is definitely one of life’s greatest thrills.

That is, unless you use a parachute.

Why do good people pay good money to get so close to death?

The usual answer is that it makes us appreciate life. But you can jump up and down till your Fitbit battery dies trying to appreciate life, and it’s still nothing like jumping out of a plane 10,000 feet up.

And I never saw anyone being ecstatic in a cemetery either. Nor is it anything to do with the wind blowing in your hair; you can prove that by turning the leaf blower on yourself.

As anyone who skydived will tell you, the thrill is that it feels incredibly real.

Reality is therefore dangerous. The more real, the more incredibly dangerous.

Now, if jumping out of a plane is the real, then by elimination, the life we are used to, is not! I don't want to sound too much like the Matrix, but the life we know is actually the aberration.

That’s because God protects us from reality

The Talmud explains:

These ten barriers (utterances) act as buffers to protect us from the dangers of reality.

God did to life what we typically do to a baby, and surrounded us with as much padding as He can get away with. Existence, in any place OTHER than where human beings are designed to reside, is very dangerous. Outer-space, the deep ocean, are places where the safety we are accustomed to, does not exist.

Our everyday life is a God created safe-place.

We do not have to focus when walking, but if we push the boundary just a little then life starts to get precarious. Skiing, roller-skating or even driving are just some examples. Each of these activities crosses a buffer, and automatically becomes a level of danger down.

The buffers are for our protection, they stop us from messing up, bigtime. But they also separate us from reality. Life is really meant to be lived on the other side of the barrier, and that is why crossing over engenders a special and unique blessing (HaGomel).

We can therefore compare life to riding a bicycle, but with the training wheels on. It’s not as much fun.

What makes it fun?

No training wheels. No buffers, and no parachute.

That is why people surround themselves with as much danger as they can get away with, even if it’s just on the television. Because we cannot bare to not live in reality.

We call it self-destructive, but all people are really trying to do is live in a greater reality. We see it as danger, but they see it as pleasure (reality) seeking. A gambler playing poker for a dollar a hand, is going to risk much higher stakes if he wins the lottery. It’s not the game that is the fun, it’s the danger.

Existence is therefore very precarious; too much danger could prove fatal. But too little is fatal as well. Boredom itself will actually kill you.

In 1985, Richard Laver was sucked out his Delta 191 flight to Dallas, Texas, without a parachute.

And survived!

You don’t forget something like that.

A person may forget what they had for lunch, they might have thought they had meat when they really had milk, but they cannot forget the moment they fell out of an airplane.

It’s not the fall, not the plane, not the accident, not even the gratitude, rather it’s the thrill that comes from breaking the barriers.

“Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” Winston Churchill

Pleasure is the ultimate mnemonic device.

Life's precious moments, whether a warm, loving family dinner, or an exhilarating vacation, are forever seared into our hearts.

Pleasure makes memory. All the more so, the ultimate pleasure and the ultimate connection.

All you have to do is break through.

That is what Rabbi Akiva is going to teach us.

Without jumping out of a plane.

Where did Rabbi Akiva learn it?

From a hole in a rock!

In 2003, Dave Brailsford took over the English cycling team and announced they would win the Tour De France within five years. They did it in three.

And have since won five more times.

What is really impressive, is that Brailsford had never won a medal in cycling, and the English had never won the Tour in it’s 121 year history.

How did he do it?

He harnessed the power of small

Imagine a feather falls on a giant bolder, and splits it in two. Yes, the feather did it. But how did the feather do it? How can a feather, which is light and flimsy, crack a rock that is hard and firm?

That was Rabbi Akiva’s question. Not with a feather, but with drops of water.

How does water make a hole in a rock?

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Every.

Single.

Day.

Rav Noah Weinberg zt”l explained that it’s deeper than that (excuse the pun). If eventually water makes a hole, it must mean that each SMALL drop has an impact. Even though it cannot be perceived.

If you have learned how to ride a bicycle then you can relate to this experience. Up until you could, you couldn’t. And now you can.

BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE!

Between the first attempt, and eventual success, are many micro successes that can only be realized with the final success. The time before you succeeded, you could ride 99%.

True, 99% is effectively zero, but in the world of truth it’s 99%.

The problem is, our eyes don’t see truth. So we cannot see how close we are.

The moment before success, is the darkest part of the night. It’s the most dangerous. Because that’s when people give up.

They give up because they thought there’s no hope. They could not tell that they were only 1% shy of success.

This is why parenting works, and many marriages don’t. EVERY SINGLE PARENT is tasked with molding and changing their child, AND EVERY SINGLE SPOUSE is similarly tasked with changing their partner.

EVERY PARENT, AND EVERY SPOUSE feels they are not getting through. However, parents don’t give up. Not because they have hope, but because they feel they don’t have a choice.

And a spouse thinks they do, so they do.

Even though they were 99% there.

That’s the secret of the SMALL drops of water, if you don’t give up you will break through to the other side.

In 1950, Dr. Curt Richter conducted a very interesting experiment with rats. He put them in buckets filled with water to see how long they could swim.

After around 15 minutes they all drowned.

The rats, not the scientists.

He then repeated the experiment (with different rats). But this time, after around 10 minutes, they rescued the rats and dried them off. Don’t get too hopeful, because after a short rest the rats were again returned to the buckets.

How long did the rats last this second time?

I would have thought the max would be 15 minutes. And probably a lot less than that. But that is not what happened.

The rats survived for an average of 60 hours!

It’s hard to know what rats are thinking, they aren’t very communicative. It also doesn't help that they are dead. So, the researchers surmised, that the rats had hope. They had been saved once, so they had hope to be saved again.

The gap between 15 minutes and 60 hours is massive. Both groups of rats were trying to survive, the ones who were not rescued, and the ones that were, but their efforts were world's apart.

Yes, you are making an effort, but it's not the same effort as someone who knows they are going to win.

Imagine you were told next week's winning lottery numbers for a lottery 2000 miles away, the only condition being that you have to use roller skates to get there. Very few people would not make it, even though the obstacles are formidable. Knowing with certainty that you are going to win $1 billion is plenty motivation.

It’s this kind of certainty that we are calling hope. And it makes all the difference.

It's easy to judge a person as a lost cause; we can't tell that they are just 1% away from change. I don’t mean other people, I mean me. And I mean, I cannot tell what I am capable of achieving today.

How many times have I tried, and not succeeded?

And then succeeded?

Failure is no indicator of future success. At some point I/we will win. It’s a certainty!

Connection.

The ultimate connection.

Rabbi Akiva broke through to the ultimate reality. The ultimate connection. The ultimate pleasure.

And everyone wanted what Rabbi Akiva was teaching (Talmud, Kasubos 63a).

Practically Speaking

#1 of How to Learn

What is the one thing that God does not do very well?

You are not second best.

Your life is not second best.

And nothing about your existence is second best.

You are not living at the wrong time, or with the wrong people.

This is the best. Period.

If your life could be any better, it would be better.

Nothing in your life is a product of circumstance or chance, nor the result of someone else’s delinquency, or even malice.

Whatever you think will make your life better, won’t.

Your 16-year-old son has matched five out of six numbers for a billion-dollar lottery. As the final number is about to be drawn, you both start praying.

But not for the same thing. You are praying that he loses. That’s because a 16 year-old with a billion dollars is a train wreck waiting to happen.

Both of you wish it could be different. Your son wishes he had won, and you wish that he didn’t need to lose. Despite that, losing is not second best.

Thinking you are living a second best life inflicts greater damage than the harm you imagine you are suffering through.

We tend to think of resentments as tiny little annoyances that are part-and-parcel of living in the modern world. A small fly in an otherwise scenic vacation spot.

NOT!

If you don’t think that what you are going through is good for you, then you will resent it.

The word resentment is simply a more PC term for abuse. And no one listens to anyone who they think is abusing them.

If you have resentments, even if it’s towards people, then you have resentments towards God who sent them, and allowed it to happen.

And that creates distance. And that closes you off from being open to learn and grow.

The Torah is the mind of God, and if you resent God, you resent the Torah.

I don’t remember where I heard it, but why like dust?

Because the dirt on the ground doesn’t care. Be like that, and don't take it personally.

When resentments go, hearts open.

God wanted you to go through this. For your good. Therefore don’t blame and resent the guy who ripped you off.

The reason the Beis Hamikdash (Temple) could only be built in the portion of Binyamin, is because he was the only brother who did not have resentments.

This wasn’t Rabbi Akiva’s attempt at a cute bumper sticker. He is telling us the secret to learning Torah.

It’s antithetical to be resentful, and learn Torah. You can do one, or the other. But not both.

That doesn’t mean we should bury or even ignore our annoyances. That’s very unhealthy. But it does mean we need to understand them to the point where we appreciate that they are good for us.

That is, if we want to learn. And grow.

And enjoy life more.

Where is God?

In the things we resent.

Practically Speaking

#2 of How to Learn

In 1977, Laura Shultz, a 63 year old grandmother in Tallahassee, Florida, picked up a Buick automobile.?Up until that point she had never picked-up anything heavier than a 50-pound bag of pet food. It is important to appreciate that cars back then were a lot heavier than they are today.

How was she able to do it?

Her grandson was trapped underneath.

If Laura Shultz had enough time to think about her grandson’s predicament, she would have been absolutely certain it was beyond her. But in that moment she forgot who she was.

Give up your pre-conceived ideas of who you are and what you are capable of learning, understanding, and how high you can go.

The Torah is in front of you and it contains the greatest of thrills. This is the time for your epiphany. Now uncover paradigm-shifting concepts and insights never before realized. Ever!

Discover the secrets to success that will help you and everyone you love. And change the world.

The fact that yesterday you didn't get through, means nothing. Now is your moment.

You don’t have to be the greatest Torah scholar to enjoy an orange or a sunset. Pleasure and connection is equally available to all. So too, you don’t need to be Moses to connect to the Torah.

Thinking that you need to be some kind of genius, or a descendent of King David to decipher the Torah is to say: God couldn't write a Torah for me!

The Torah is speaking to you!

God is speaking to you.

Personally.

He’s telling you something.

God wants to connect. He’s waiting for you.

You don’t have to know everything, you just need to learn one small thing really well to break through to the other side.

Personally, I use this prayer when struggling with a piece of Torah: “God, I understand why winning the lottery might mess up Your plans, but what harm would it do if You opened up the gates of wisdom and let me in on what this means?”

Practically Speaking

#3 of How to Learn

When an explosion on the Apollo 13 space rocket stranded three astronauts 250,000 miles away from Houston, they soon realized they did not have the necessary equipment to get back.

Gene Kranz, the flight director at NASA ground control, gathered all the technicians and scientists, and in only five words explained how they were going to bring their boys home:

And that's how Rabbi Akiva became.

Rabbi Akiva’s wife gave up a life of luxury to marry him. She did so with only one condition, that he learn Torah.

Therefore, for her husband, failure was not an option.

God gave Rabbi Akiva a special gift. He had an exceptionally poor memory. He could not remember what he learned (Talmud, Kasubos 63a).

He could have easily been resentful, but then he would have never been open (Gam Zu Letova). A poor memory is not a lack. It’s not second best. Whatever we might think of as a negative is really a design feature to ensure our greatest talents are realized.

Therefore, the only way for Rabbi Akiva to remember was to have an experience akin to skydiving. Torah had to be a thrill so exhilarating and so enthralling that it would be impossible to be forgotten. He had to break through.

This is how to learn Torah. When you realize that you don’t have any other option, but to breakthrough, you will breakthrough.

Alternatively, thinking that if you don’t break through you can still enjoy dinner, vacation, or even skydiving, then you won’t breakthrough.

If you can breakthrough next week, then you won’t.

If you are satisfied with anything less than connecting with the Almighty, if you are satisfied with knowing the entire Talmud by heart (without breaking through), then you have given up!

Until you connect to God, you are NOT done.

Each and every pleasure and enjoyment is a creation. Ultimately, it’s an idea. Therefore experiencing those thoughts directly and in it’s purest form is to experience pleasure in it's most concentrated form. It's the ice-cream without the cone.

All the pleasures of this world are nothing compared to the ultimate thrill and connection. If your Torah is not like that, then you missed it.

FOOTNOTES:

footnote 1:

Or HaChaim (Devarim 26:11):

??? ??? ??? ??? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??? ????? ??? ??????? ???????? ????? ??? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ????? ?? ?????? ??????

footnote 2:

Abraham? Isaac? Jacob?

The splitting of the Red Sea? The 10 Commandments?

From all the magnificent epic events of history, only Rabbi Akiva’s Torah gets Adams attention?!

Yes.

Because Rabbi Akiva ate from the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9). And changed everything.

“The sun rises and the sun sets” (Koheles 1:5)

Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: Don’t we not know that the sun rises and the sun sets? Rather, before God causes the sun of a righteous person to set, the sun of their counterpart rises. The day that Rabbi Akiva died, Rabbenu Yehuda HaNasi was born... Before the Holy One blessed be He caused Sarah’s sun to set, Rebecca’s sun rose...” (Medrash, Beraishis Rabbah 58:2)

So, who came before Sarah?

No one. She was the originator. King Solomon is giving us a profound truth, that originators don't die. This was the fear in Aish Hatorah, would the path that Rav Noah originated, die with him?

No. Even though they brought into the world a new concept, it doesn't die with them. Someone will continue the cause, even if they never met.

They are not a bright spark in a dark world, and when they fade, the world reverts back to the previous void. Rather, whoever brings the light of Torah into the world, does so for eternity. The glow continues to shine, albeit from someone else.

Same light different wick.

There is no going back in Torah. Torah does not die.

Akiva ben Yosef’s name spread from one end of the world to the other. (Talmud, Kesubas 63a)

There were greater sages than he. Rabbi Dosa?ben Horkinas was the leader from the previous generation, yet was alive at the time of Rabbi Akiva (Rambam, Introduction to the Mishna 23:1). Yet it was Rabbi Akiva’s classes that everyone was going to. In fact, the Torah and Judaism we have today all stem from Rabbi Akiva’s five students.

Because Rabbi Akiva brought into the world the Torah of Ultimate Connection.

And changed everything.

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