r
rather Pentateuchal, interpretation, his Midrash ha-Torah. The
importance of these new methods cannot be overestimated. The Oral Law
is nothing more than the Jewish interpretation of the Torah, and
consequently new methods of Pentateuchal exegesis meant the further
growth and development of the Oral Law. Akiba thus gave Judaism the
capacity for vigorous further development. He was indeed a firm
believer in the principle that the Oral Law, even as life itself, is
always in process of evolution--"immer in Werden," as the Germans put
it--but never completed. His main exegetical principle is quite
simple. The language of the Torah is not like the language of an
ordinary book. In the Torah every syllable, every letter is fraught
with meaning. It is all essence. Hence every detail in the Torah must
be interpreted. There is absolutely nothing superfluous. It was these
exegetical methods that excited the unbounded admiration of his
fellow-rabbis. They said of him that things that were not even
revealed to Moses were revealed unto Akiba. By his preservation of the
old Halakoth in the Mishnah and by his stimulation of newer
developments with his exegesis, Akiba laid the foundations of Talmudic
and Rabbinic learning, and truly earned for himself the title of third
founder of Judaism after Moses and Ezra.

Akiba's method of teaching also was extraordinary. The order and
system that he had brought into the Rabbinic curriculum coupled with
his novel methods of exegesis rendered his lectures clear, simple and
most interesting. Multitudes flocked to hear him. With hardly an
exception all the prominent Rabbis of the following generation
attended Akiba's academy. Notable amongst them was R. Meir, who handed
down Akiba's Mishnah to R. Judah Ha-Nasi and through him to posterity.

_Happiness and Affluence_

TOWARDS the end of the twenty-four years thus devoted to study, Akiba
turned his steps homewards, accompanied by a large band of disciples,
which tradition numbers in the thousands. At the rumor that a great
Rabbi was coming, Rachel's heart was all aflutter with hope and
expectation. Perhaps it was he at last! The whole village went out to
meet him, she with the rest. When she saw that it was indeed he, she
fell on her knees before him sobbing and began kissing his feet. The
pupils surrounding Akiba wanted to push her aside, but he said, "Let
her be. What knowledge I possess and what knowledge you possess
belongs to her." When Ka