The Rabbi Laughed

On Tisha B’Av we read the kina that begins Arzei ha-L’vanon, The Cedars of Lebanon, a 13th-century poem that recounts the tragic and cruel murders of 8 rabbis of the Mishnah by the Roman empire. The author of this kina is drawing on legends that appear in their earliest forms in the Talmud. One stanza speaks of Rabbi Akiva’s martyrdom which appears both in the Talmud Bavli and the Talmud Yerushalmi. The poem follows the Bavli’s version of the story, but it is the Yerushalmi’s version that adds an inspiring detail. Here is the Talmud Yerushalmi’s account of that episode:

Rabbi Akiva was being tried (and tortured) before the wicked Tyranos Rufus [Quintus Tineius Rufus, the provincial governor of Judaea, circa 130 CE]. The time came for the reciting of the Shema; he began to read and laugh. He [TR] said to him: “Old man! Old man! Either you are a sorcerer or you scorn sufferings!”

He [Rabbi Akiva] said to him: “May you perish! I am neither a sorcerer nor do I scorn sufferings.

Rather, all my life I have recited this verse:

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all

your soul (b’khol nafshekha) and with all your might” (Deut 6:5)—

I have loved Him with all my heart; I have loved Him with all my money;

but “with all my soul” I have not been tested. And now that “all my soul” has arrived [for me], and the time for the reciting of the Shema has come and I did not desist from it — for this reason do I read and laugh.” – yBerakhot 9:5 (Ven. ed.) 14b

In this telling of the event, very different than the version in the Talmud Bavli, Rabbi Akiva does more than just fulfill his understanding of the dictum in the Shema – b’khol nafshekha. He publically demonstrates an attitude that is emblematic of Rabbi Akiva: His laughter. Here it signals the ultimate vindication and the victory he snatches from the enemy. Yes, the Roman consul Tineais Rufus and indeed the whole imperial machine may have subjected our people to countless inhuman acts of brutality and abuse. Yes, they may have attempted to snuff out our uniqueness – our Jewish way of life. But in that moment of ironic laughter, as he reads the Shema, Rabbi Akiva has triumphed. With that small gesture, the storyteller is telling us that Rabbi Akiva has vanquished Rome.  

And this approach is emblematic of Rabbi Akiva  – his subversive laughter  – as depicted in other stories in the Talmud. (e.g. the story of Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues walking on the ruins of the Temple Mount, which appears at the end of bMakkot 24a. In that tale, R. Akiva’s laughter initially upsets his colleagues but then consoles them of their grief over the catastrophic loss).

That ability to somehow be able – in the face of terror, pain, and tragedy – to laugh, to go on with life – whether it’s the holy or the prosaic – is a spirit that Rabbi Akiva bequeathed to the Jewish people. It’s become part of our DNA. And we see it in our brothers and sisters in Israel today who have experienced and continue to experience terror, pain, and tragedy like never before in our recent history. They have found Rabbi Akiva’s spirit deep within as they go on with their lives despite it all. May we all be able to find that spirit in our own lives.