Akiba Baer ben Joseph Akiba ben Joseph
THE JEWISH EN'CYCLOPEDIA
Vicing very old settlers, wliile others emigrated from Abas-Tuman in the middle of the nineteenth century, owing til peiserulidii liy the Muliiunnicdans of that region. They Imve a synagogue and schools,
and are mainly coiton-weavefs and small Bibliography: Cbemy, Sefcr ha-Masa'nt. Senienov. Slurnr ltniwi»koi Imjierit,
Jmlcn
iin
KnuhUKm,
l.s.14,
liXiS, vol. 1.
traders. pp. 348-254
A. Katz, Die
18il4.
R.
II
AKIBA BAEB BEN JOSEPH (SIMON, AKIBA BAEB) Son of Jo.seph HanoUs. a Tal-
304
AKIBA EGEB THE ELDER, OF PBES-
BXJBO. See
EoKii. Akih.v,
the Eldku. ov Pres-
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AKIBA EGER THE YOUNGER, OF
POSEN.
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AKIBA FRANKFTTRT. Ami: AKIBA BEN JOSEPH:
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full history
lalialistie writer, one of the refugees expulsion of the Jews from Vienna in 1670. went to iJavaria, to promote Talmudii ul learning among their brethren in their new hoiiie. ]5eing thus reduced in circumstances he at first had to wander from town to town through liohemia and parts of Germany as a teacher, highly reputed for
of Akiba. based upon authentic .sources, will probably never be written, although he, to a degree beyond any other, deserves to be called the father of rabbinical Judiiism Ver. Sliek. iii 471"). H. H. i. 56rf). Legend, which delights in endjcllishing the memory of epoch-marking personages, has not neglected Akiba (see Akiba ben Josei'Ii in Leoend) but, despite the rich ma.ss of material afforded by rab-
his Talmudic and cabalistic knowledge as well as for his eloquence as a preacher. As the son-in-law of Veitel Isserlcs, rabbi of Kremsier. nejihew of Gerson
binical ,sources, only an incomplete portrait can be drawn of the man who marked out a path for rabbinical Judaism for almost two thousand vears.
Ashkenazi and David ben Isserles in Trebitsch, a relative of Aaron Teomim of Worms and Jlenahem Jlendel Bacharaeh in IJamberg, he was received everywhere with open arms. For six years he occupied
Akiba ben Joseph (written XTpV in the Babvand na'PV "> "'i^^ Palestinian— another form for r^2Pil). who is usually called simply Akiba. was of comparatively humble parentage (Yer. Bcr. iv. '7(1, Bab. ihiil. 27?;).* Of the romantic story of Akiba s marriage with the daiiirhter Parentage of the wealthy Jerusjdemite. Kalba and Youth. Sabua. whose she])herd lie is said to have been (see Akiba hen Joseph in Legend), only this is true, that Akiba was a shep-
niuilisi
who.
and
at the
the positi<in of rablii in the small community at Zeekendorf near IJamberg, and having found iu the learned Parnes, Isaac Seligman ben Meir Levi, a congenial coworker, he iiublished as the fruit of their common studies a small midrashic encyclopedia, based on the .Alidiashim Rabbot, under" the lille (taken from II Kiiiirs. ii. 9) of "Pi Shenayim " (A Double Share; Sul/.liach. 1702). printed by Aaron ben Uri al.so a Vienna refugee and friend of Akiba. His reputation as author, however, is due chiefly to a cabalistic commentary on the daily prnyers, entitled " 'Abodat ha Boieh""( Worship of'the Creator; Wilmersdorf, 108.S), and divided into Ave sections corresponding with the five letters of his name A K I B A. at which he worked for a year while rabbi at Burgprepjiach. Bavaria 168S). The book met with such general approval that he felt encouraged to issue a second edition (Berlin. 1700), and finally an enlarged third edition, comprising also a commentary on rhe Sabbath and holy day prayers (Sulzbaeh, 1707). lie then accepted a call to the rabbinate of the large community of Sehnaitach, extended to him tliroiigh the influence of Chief Kabbi Baeinian of Aiisbach but owing to the political turmoil he failed to lind there the looked-for rest. Upon a false accu.sation he was cast into prison, but, being soon released, he left and became rabbi of Gunzenluiusen and assistant rabbi of his relative and benefactor, Habbi Baermau at Ansbach, where lie also won the friendship of Jlodel Marx, the wealthy court Jew. Akiba was eminently a writer for the people, cotnpiling rabbinical anil cabalistic legends, and not even disdaining the use of the Juda'o-Gcrman vernacular for the ]iurpose of dis-
—
(
seminating this iiuaiut knowledge. The two works of this class that he published arc: " Abir Ya'akob." a haggadic history of the Patriarchs, based ujioii the first forty-seven chaptersof Genesis (Sulzbaeh, 1700). reedited many times, and "^^la'aseh Adonai " (The Deeds of the Lord), a collection of miraculous tales, compiled from the "Zohar." Isaac Luria, and other cabalistic writers (Frankfort -on-the-Main. lOill siiiee
afterward republished with addenda). His son Jo seph was rabbi of Schaffa and Gewitsch in Moravia, then rabbi of the .schoolhouse at Cleves, and after-
ward
assistant rabbi at
loniiin style,
herd Yeb. HO/;; comjiare iliifl. Uix). His wife's name was Rachel (Ab. R. X. ed. Schechter. vi. 29). and she was the daughter of an entirely unknown man named .loshua. who is specifically mentioned (Yad. iii. o) as Akiba's father-in-law. She stood loyally by her hu.sband during that critical period of his life in which Akiba, thitherto the mortal enemy of the rabbis, an out and-out 'iim Im-dnz (ignoramus) (Pes. 49i), decided to place himself at the feet of those previously detested men. A reliable tradition ( Ab. R. X. I.e. ) narrates that Akiba at the age of forty, and when he was the father of a numerous family dependent ujion him, eagerly attended the acailemy of his native town, Lydda" presided over by Eliezer ben Ilyrcanus. The fact that Eliezer was his first teacher, and the only one whom Akiba later designates as "rabbi," is of importance iu settling the date of Akiba's birth. It is known Ihiit iu 9.">-9() Akiba had already attained great prominence (Gratz, "Gesch. d. Juden." id ed., iv. 121), and, further, that he studied for thirteen years before becoming a teacher himself ( Ab, R, N. I.e.). Thus the beginning of his years of study would fall about 7.5-80. Karlier than this, Johailan ben Zukkai was (
"
living; and Eliezer, beini; his pupil, would have beenheldof no authority in JolKiMan's lifetime. Consequently, if we accept'the tradition that Akiba was forty when beginning the study of the Law, he must have been born about 40-.50. ftesides Eliezer, Akiba had other teachers principally Joshua ben Ilananiah (Ab. R. N. I.e.) and Nairiim of Gimzo (Hag. 12(/). With Rabban Gamaliel II.. whom he met later, he was upon a footing of ermality. In a certain sense, Tarphon was considered as'one of Aki-
—
ba's masters (Ket. 84«); but the pupil outranked his teacher, and Tarphon became one of Akiba's greatest
admirers (Sifre, Num. 75). Akiba probably remained in Lydda (K. H. i. 6), as long as Eliezer dwelt there,
Amsterdam,
Bibliograpbt: Kaufmann, Df* LclzttVertreibungderJuden aus Wien. 1889, pp. 303-205; Steinschnelder, Cat. Bodl. No. i310; Beajacob, 0j<ir
(
ha-Sefarim, pp.
3, 355.
K.
• A misunderstanding of the e.xpresslon "Zekut Abot" (Her. Joined to a tradition conierniDg Sisera, captain of the araiy of Hazor ((iit. 57b, Sanh. 966), is the source of another tradition (Nissim GaoQ to Ber. I.e.), which malies Aliiba a descendant of Sisera. (.r.).
