Rabbi Akiba midrashim 158-168

The midrash about Rabbi Akiba is so rich its hard to know quite where to begin.IN this section is one of the most famous midrashim - about the four who go to paradise, buthtat one requires so much exposition just to get to the beginning, I think I'll skip it for now. Maybe I'll come back to it later.
So let's look at one tiny midrash... our masters taught that Rabbi Akiba gave seven charges to his son:
What is the content of these seven things that he thought his son should know. Don't live and study in the business district of a city. Commentators say that this is so that noise won't disturb your study - this is possible since the rabbis were wont to study in the marketplace, but then why warn against living there? I think that actually he may have had something else in mind, which is not simply that studying in the business district will disturb his son's study, but rather that he's warning his son not to absorb the transactional nature of the marketplace too much. Don't make it a habit to be around places where everything is for sale, because you will come to view every action as a transaction.
I think that this is borne out by the remainder of his advice : don't enter your own - or anyone else's- house unexpectedly- that is, don't forget to be polite - announce yourself and don't barge in, not even to your own family. Be practical - don't neglect your health by not eating properly or skipping shoes, know that people go through periods of good fortune and that they can help you when they do, so don't make enemies of them, and not final in the list, but final here - work on shabbat rather than take charity - this last is quite astonishing - violate shabbat rather than take charity!
From the turn of the last century to about the middle of it, this was often the case with Jews in the US. Immigrants, often ran their stores on shabbat or were obliged to keep working lest they lose their jobs. It was, of course, the liberal movements who chose to look the other way and make allowance for this. Many people got into the habit (and unfortunately many still are in the habit) of doing business on shabbat, of working, shopping, using money. My own movement wrote tshuvot to deal with this and gave over the leniency. When I read this, I started considering exactly how that fit into our tradition- it's aggadic material, certainly, not halakhic, and but clearly Rabbi Akiva felt that circumstances sometimes required such action. And yet, giving permission as a movement, has not served the Jewish people well. The drift away from shabbat observance in the home and the shul, the lack of distancing oneself from the world from one day of the week (or at least the distancing oneself from the business world)has made of us a people who, I think, are vulnerable to Madoff's and ethical lapses, because in refusing to ever walk away from money, we come to believe that money is most important - even when we can afford to spend a day less not buying, not selling. Perhaps this is the real reason rabbi Akiba didn't want his son to live too near the marketplace - even if he was obliged to work to avoid charity, he shouldn't come to believe that all life is the marketplace, and that there is nothing else, but rather, he should spend shabbat knowing that when he walks away from the market at last, there is another world out there, one in which the human is not primary,a nd over which we do not have power or sway.

Mahu Vayar?

The question that prompts aggadah 20 is, in my opinion, rather mistranslated in our English version. In response to the verse, “He [Moses] went out to his brothers and saw their suffering” (Exodus 2:11), the rabbis ask “Mahu ‘vayar’?” --What does it mean, ‘he saw’? What a great rabbinical question—asking us what seeing really means in this context. The commentators recognize that something greater than mere sensing is happening here; Moses develops an awareness of the Israelites’ suffering, and that development is encapsulated in the word “saw.” The translation, “How did he feel as ‘he looked on’?” doesn’t really capture the issue the rabbis have with this laconic description of Moses’ big realization.

So what does it mean that Moses sees their suffering? Through three separate teachings, the rabbis build the case that seeing means identifying with the sufferer and literally taking up the other’s heaviest burden. Seeing also means understanding the specific kind(s) of pain people are in and trying to alleviate their suffering through practical solutions. These stories present Moses’ empathy and capacity to bear the burden of the other as his strongest and truest characteristics. This is Moses as both the ultimate practitioner of Mussar (Jewish ethical practice) and a great community organizer.

Truly seeing another human being, especially one who is suffering, is often a challenge. Empathizing with suffering can be frightening and threatening to our sense of security or identity. It is much easier to feel pity for sufferers because that pity distances us from their reality and the sense that their suffering is bound up in our own well-being and touches our own lives. Moses’ deep capacity to empathize with the Israelite slaves and to take on their cause as his own—or perhaps his inability not to do so—qualifies him to lead b’nei Yisrael out of slavery.

I love the sense of human-divine partnership in the idea that Moses actually ordained Shabbat as a day of rest for the Israelites while they were still enslaved. It made me wonder, however, about how the Israelites would have reacted to the institution of Shabbat being transferred from the context of slavery to the context of freedom. I can imagine them thinking, “What does it mean that we still need to have Shabbat when we are free human beings who choose how to spend our time?” How is it different to celebrate Shabbat as a slave or as a free person? Perhaps the man who goes out to gather sticks on Shabbat in the wilderness (Bamidbar 15:32) just misunderstands shabbat’s purpose in light of his newfound freedom.

One note: If you have never read Zora Neal Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain, I highly recommend it as an extended midrash on Moses’ life with an especially fascinating treatment of Jethro and Moses’ time in Midian.

Chag sameach, everybody! May our week residing in our fragile sukkot help us "see" the suffering of those who lack shelter.