The Man Who Changed His Life at 40 (Rabbi Akiva)

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Shais Taub’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

Okay, now it's time to have fun with my personal algorithm. I don't know what the algorithms deeper intentions were, but I'm going to show you a video that popped up in my feed today and tell you why it has deep significance for me and hopefully for you. Here we go. 10 years not much happens. A little dent. 25 years you get more of a valley. 50 years goes by 50 years goes by and the fruits of your labors are seen. Stay at it. Things take time. Okay, there you go. So, I'm going to tell you a story. A story about one of the great rabbis of all time, Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva lived during the time of the Roman domination over the Holy Land. In fact, he lived after the destruction of the he lived after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans and he ultimately was executed by the Romans for teaching Torah. But, he was not always a Torah teacher. In fact, he was not even literate. For 40 years, he was a simple shepherd. He was not a student of the Torah. He was uh we'll just say it as it is, rough and uncouth. uncouth. He was you know, your typical shepherd. You know what you know what shepherds are like or at least in those days, you know, shepherds. And uh here's the story of how his whole life changed in a moment. The story is contained in a rabbinic text called Avot deRabbi Natan. And it describes how Rabbi Akiva was at the mouth of a well, like a natural

Jump to a moment

1. 0:00Okay, now it's time to have fun with my personal algorithm. I don't know what the…
2. 1:32uncouth. He was you know, your typical shepherd. You know what you know what shepherds are…
3. 3:05life. But, Job is also a book full of poetry. There are many lyrical verses, lyrical…
4. 4:37learn. And uh eventually after 40 years he became one of the greatest teachers among the…
5. 6:08original source of it. But, I heard a few different few different people say this story.…
6. 7:40water keeps hitting it over and over again the same spot. But, the horse every time…
7. 9:13fascinating about Rabbi Akiva, >> [snorts] >> which is >> [sighs and gasps] >> obviously, he…
8. 10:46more depth than even what Moshe Rabbeinu was aware of, again, on a conscious level. But…
9. 12:17the same person. You know, you go from good to great. That makes sense. But to…
10. 13:50receive a an interface that will be more refined, and then this child will have an…

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