How to Avoid Fanaticism, by Rabbi Akiva and His Students

If I had to choose a rabbi of the Talmud as my roomie in a college dormitory, it would certainly be Rabbi Akiva.

Look, I need my breathing space. I have my faults and I’m kind of married to a few of them. Judging from anecdotal evidence of his unconditional love and concern for even the biggest sinner and the dumbest ignoramus, Rabbi Akiva comes across as the most understanding and non-judgmental figure of the Talmud. As well, he’s famous for instructing us that “Love the other guy just as yourself”1 is an “underlying, fundamental principle throughout the Torah.”2

That’s why I find this particular anecdote jolting:

Rabbi Akiva had 12,000 pairs of students spread over Judea from Givat to Antipatris [i.e., a big area] and they all died in one period of time [between Passover and Shavuot, which is why that’s considered a period of mourning].

Why? Because they did not treat each other respectfully.3

They what? The students of Rabbi Akiva? How could he, of all teachers, fail to teach them proper respect for one another?

The Akiva Personality

So along comes the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, and points out another feature of Rabbi Akiva’s personality: He was a firebrand. Like an acetylene torch that never ceases to throw flames. More than that: He was a man who threw himself into the flames again and again every moment of his life.

When the Roman authorities attempted to obliterate Jewish teaching and practice with sadistic, draconian measures, Rabbi Akiva stood defiant, publicly breaking their decrees, leading a revolt, sticking his neck out without fear of consequence.

Eventually, they caught up with him. As the Roman executors flayed his skin with metal combs before his students, he recited the Shema Yisrael. His students exclaimed, “Rebbe! Even now?”

He replied, “It says to love G‑d with all your soul. All my life, I have waited for this moment, saying, ‘When will I have the opportunity to give up my soul for G‑d in love?’” 4

His students, of course, burned with the same fiery passion. That fire swept through all they did–including their love for their colleagues. They loved each other so intensely, they smothered one another with love.

Each one felt he had to ensure that the other was doing everything as Rabbi Akiva had taught, according to his understanding—which was, of course, the most correct understanding. (Look, these guys were brilliant, rigorous, and thorough. They really meant it.)

So what if your colleague did otherwise (since, being wise luminaries in their own right, each understood their teacher differently)? Well, how could you respect someone who claims to be a student of Rabbi Akiva and does not follow his instructions in the best possible way? So they didn’t.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to. They were honest people. They just couldn’t.

You know someone like this. Not a great tzadik like one of Rabbi Akiva’s students, but a stepped-down version. Maybe you’ve had one as a roommate. Or a spouse. Or a parent. The guy who makes sure you know how concerned he is for your wellbeing, who gets into every detail of your life, and who is full of advice, especially advice to do things you’re really not interested in doing.

Why does he do that? Because he needs to fix you. He is not interested in you as you. He’s interested in you as his project.

But then, at least he’ll talk to you. There’s the other version of this personality that won’t even acknowledge your existence if you don’t embrace his beliefs.

At its extreme, this is the religious fanatic. When you are a fanatic, there is no world, there are no people, all that exists is you and the cause. The cause is your redeemer, my redeemer, everyone’s redeemer, it has one way of playing out and no other. And if someone’s not on the side of the cause the way you understand it, potentially or actually, he has forfeited his right to exist.

The crucial question: Is this the only modality for people of conviction? Is it impossible to be passionate about your beliefs without being a religious fanatic? Or can you believe you have the truth, be ready to put your life on it, and nevertheless leave space for others, even those you believe are undermining everything you stand for?

The Akiva Balancing Act

Yes, you can. That was Rabbi Akiva. It was the dimension of him that iteration 1.0 of his students did not manifest. With all his fervor and conviction, he never lost touch with the world outside of himself.

As we see from another Talmudic anecdote:5

Four entered the orchard [a code-word for esoteric knowledge and the experience of mystic union with the divine]: The son of Azai, the son of Zoma, Rabbi Akiva, and “The Other” [code name for Elisha, son of Avuya]...

The son of Azai looked and died [i.e., his soul escaped his body and did not return—something that kind of goes with the territory of these sort of experiences]...

The son of Zoma looked and was harmed [i.e., something similar to the above]...

“The other” looked and cut down the trees [i.e., he became a heretic]...

Rabbi Akiva entered in peace and left in peace…

Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains:6 The son of Azai was a man who never married (which explains his lack of title). He had no interest in anything of this world. He only sought mystic union with the divine. And that is what he achieved in the end.

Rabbi Akiva also sought that same ecstasy. But, simultaneously, he saw purpose in life in this world. On the contrary, the further he reached upward into the celestial mysteries, the more energy and light he was able to bring downward into everyday life. He was the perfect balance of opposites, in the language of Kabbalah, of “running and returning.”7

That’s what the ancient Book of Formation counsels, “If your heart should run, return to one.”8 When your contemplation awakens in you a yearning to merge with the Infinite and your soul can no longer bear to remain within the confines of a body because it thirsts for divine light like a wanderer lost in the desert thirsts for water, then you must return to this world. Return and quench that thirst by fulfilling the purpose for which He has placed you here. In that fulfillment, you will be one with Him.

The first three sages sought to be enlightened, to soar high, to satisfy the thirst of their souls with heavenly ecstasy. But they did not seek peace. Only Rabbi Akiva sought peace. He entered this mystic orchard with the sole intent of making peace between his soul and his body, between heaven and earth, spirit and matter.

To create peace between these opposites requires that you open yourself to a perspective that transcends them both. You must escape not only the confines of your body but also the constraints of your own soul. You must be able to see yourself from the vantage point of your Creator, and know that you have a purpose in being where you are now, a soul in a body.

This tortuously precarious balance, this seemingly impossible act of running in two directions at once, Rabbi Akiva had clearly achieved with himself. He had not achieved it with these 24,000 students. They couldn’t achieve that peace with themselves because they remained locked within the perspective of their own souls. That’s what didn’t allow them to see that the other guy also has a space of his own. Space, respect–they’re one thing.

How did he fail and what did he need to do to transmit this attitude? To understand that, we need a deeper understanding of what this attitude is and where it comes from. Indeed, the great kabbalist, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, “the Ari,” described this modality as one of the primary elements of the cosmic scheme.

The Akiva Tikun

In the language of Lurianic Kabbalah, we call the state of these students a modality of Tohu. The alternative, that which Rabbi Akiva had attained, is a modality of Tikun.

Tohu modality is the raw, default state of this world. Each thing competes to grab as much as it can, propagate, dominate, and ensure its survival. In the animal world, things mostly work out in the end, since each creature has its limitations, its handicap. It’s brutal, but it works.

But in the human world, where almost anything is achievable and each human being instinctively feels the right to dominate every square inch of Planet Earth, the tohu modality is our doom.

Humanity only survives through invoking the tikun modality. Tikun means to repair and to perfect. It’s a state that only comes through intelligent, intentional, visionary human intervention.

In this mode, we all see ourselves as particular iterations of a single whole, each with our own vital purpose and place in the destiny of humanity and the planet. None of us is the all, but all of us is each of us, and each of us is all of us. Tikun is harmony, a symphony conducted by an invisible orchestrator that each player follows in his or her individual way. It requires that incessant act of “running and returning” at every moment—escaping your little box to see the big picture, and then returning to complete your particular detail of that whole.

Tikun, Rabbi Schneur Zalman tells us, is the heartbeat of the Torah, throbbing inward and outward in its every teaching. And indeed, Rabbi Akiva is “the fountain of the Torah,” the man who first collected and organized the entire gamut of the Oral Torah that eventually became the Talmud.9

That’s very enlightening because it explains why one of the most salient features of the Talmud is its diversity of opinions. On almost every issue, we hear multiple voices—often diametrically opposed. Yet they are all taken seriously, all considered divine Torah.

Of course, they’re all on a search for a single resolution—you can’t have every Jew and his fig tree keeping a different Torah. But even once the dust has settled and that final halachah has been resolved, codified, and universally accepted, we continue to study the divergent opinions. They are also Torah truths. Besides, if we hadn’t engaged them, we would never have come to the refined, clear halachah we have now.

This is tikun, a world that manifests G‑d’s unbounded light in the details. It is a wisdom so unrestricted it can reveal itself to every thinking person according to his or her perspective, providing a path for each one towards the divine.

The tohu mind can’t do that. In a tohu mentality, infinity plays only one tune, the right tune, over and over. There’s no room for counterpoint. But a tikun mentality hears the entire symphony, and from that perspective, there’s room for all sorts of players—even those that play a very different melody on an instrument bearing no resemblance to your own. The Conductor is one and the same.

It was vital that this tikun mentality be passed on to the next generation. Rabbi Akiva had to have another chance. And he did.

Akiva 2.0

The Talmud continues our story of Rabbi Akiva’s students, after the demise of those original 12,000 pairs:

The world was desolate.

Meaning, it was a world of tohu. Which was inevitable, given that 24,000 students of Torah saw no purpose in making peace between heaven and earth.

But Rabbi Akiva refused to despair. Instead, he forged a new beginning:

Until Rabbi Akiva went to our rabbis in the South and taught them. They were: Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Yossi, son of Halafta, Rabbi Shimon, and Rabbi Elazar, son of Shamua.

They stood the Torah back on its feet at that time.

These five students were the tikun of the world. And if you’re looking for the exemplary model of tikun, that was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. His path in Torah wisdom, the Talmud informs us, was the ultimate distillation of Rabbi Akiva’s teachings.10

But even for him, it didn’t come easy. Another story:11

Rabbi Shimon, like his teacher, was also persecuted by the Roman authorities. Eventually, he and his son, Rabbi Elazar, hid in a cave for twelve years where they lived on the fruit of a carob tree and spring water. For twelve years of solitude, they discussed and contemplated nothing but the Torah wisdom they knew by memory. The Talmud continues:

When they emerged from the cave, they saw people plowing and sowing. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai declared, “These people abandon eternal life and engage in the temporal!”

Every place Rabbi Shimon and his son Rabbi Elazar directed their eyes went up in flames. Until a divine voice called out to them, “Did you emerge from the cave to destroy My world? Return to your cave!”

They again went and sat there for another twelve months. Then they said, “The judgment of the wicked in Gehennom lasts for twelve months. Surely our sin has been atoned by now.”

And indeed, a divine voice called out to them, “Emerge from your cave!”

They left their cave, and this time, everything that Rabbi Elazar would afflict with his glance, Rabbi Shimon would heal with his.

“My son,” Rabbi Shimon said to Rabbi Elazar, “it’s enough for the world that you and I do nothing but study Torah. The rest of the world needs some time off to make a living.”

Twelve years brought Rabbi Shimon to a place far beyond this world. A thirteenth year brought him yet higher—to a place so high, he could see this world’s meaning and purpose. And he was able to heal it. The first question Rabbi Shimon asked of the first people he encountered upon this second emergence from the cave was, “Is there anything in your town that requires tikun?”12

Yes, he was the greatest sage of the hidden secrets, the author of the Zohar, his knowledge and wisdom far exceeding all his peers. And yet that only brought him to greater sensitivity and concern for every human being.

“There are three crowns,” he is quoted as saying, “three achievements a person can attain in this world. There is the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of royalty. Yet, above them all is the crown of a good name.”13

Rabbi Shimon had achieved the most magnificent crown of Torah, sparkling with the most precious jewels. Yet what mattered to him most was that on top of this crown should rest his good name, that he should be known for his respect and genuine concern for all people.14

There are two ways to seek a good name among people. One is to mold yourself to their mold, shape your beliefs to match theirs, and tell them what you imagine they wish to hear.

The other is to first hold tightly to the crown of Torah, and then to crown your Torah with your respect and faith in each and every person you meet. Believe in them. Be in awe of them. For they each have a unique path in Torah, a mysterious path never forged before, one they must find through their own journey. Perhaps you may have the privilege of encouraging them to keep going, to lend a helping hand, and to witness alongside them the unique wonders and beauty of their particular world.

Now tell me, which one would you rather have as your roommate?