Dear members and friends,

During the last three weeks, I have been enjoying an incredible trip around the beautiful United States. Visiting the breathtakingly massive rock formations within many of our national parks always reminds me of our fleeting existence. One of the most beautiful — and one hard to remain indifferent to — is the rock formation in Sedona, Arizona. The sandstone and limestone deposits of millions of years, which were once a bottom of an ocean, are now revealed as a magnificent sculpture made by nature. The “natural artist” used the force of wind and water to shape its material. The red rocks are even analogous to blood and perhaps ourselves.

This sight immediately brought to mind the verse from Job (14:19): “The waters wear the stones; the overflowings thereof wash away the dust of the earth…” This verse also became the inspiration for Akiva to become Rabbi Akiva — the greatest sage of the Talmud (c 50-135 CE).  A Midrash (Avot de Rabbi Natan Ch. 6) lays out the story:

What were the beginnings of Rabbi Akiva? It is said: When he was 40 years of age, he had not yet studied anything. One day he stood at the mouth of the well. “Who hollowed out this stone?” he wondered. They said to him: “The water that falls on it every day.” They said to him: “Akiva, have you not read, Stones, worn away by water? Immediately, Rabbi Akiva drew an inference [kal v’chomer] with regard to himself: if what is soft carves out the hard, all the more shall the words of Torah, which are as hard as iron, hollow out my heart, which is flesh and blood. Immediately, he went to study Torah… The teacher wrote down aleph-bet for him and he learned it; aleph-tav, and he learned it; the Book of Leviticus, and he learned it. He went on studying until he learned the whole of Torah.

This story is about late blooming and the power of persistence — how Rabbi Akiva at one point as an adult decides to change his life and begins learning Torah as though he were a child. He compares the water to Torah that can shape him over time in the same way that water shapes stones. This became Rabbi Akiva’s motto: If water can wear down a stone, Akiva can become a scholar… If water can wear down a stone, then every Jew can and will study Torah… If water can wear down a stone, the Jewish people can overcome Rome… If water can wear down stone, then the Temple can be rebuilt…

However, we recently read about Lot’s wife, who turned back into a rock, into a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:26) “But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Perhaps this occurred because she turned back instead of letting herself go forward. Perhaps she was afraid of the long and slow road ahead. In the short run, perhaps rocks shape the path of water. But in the long run, water shapes rocks. We, too, should not resist the wind and the water of life, but let them shape and form us like red rocks, to become a refined version of ourselves. Let the waters wear the stones in us, and wash away the dust of the earth.

Chodesh Tov,

—Rabbi Gadi