Rabbi Akiva did not begin his journey as a learned man. He was an uneducated shepherd who did not begin studying Torah until the age of 40. At that age, he felt that he was too old to learn and doubted whether he could ever acquire knowledge.
One day, while out tending the sheep, he came across a rock that had a hole in it. Above the rock was a stream of water, and he observed how drops of water continuously fell onto the rock. Rabbi Akiva realized that the hole in the rock had been formed by the constant dripping of water, even though each drop seemed weak and insignificant.
“Amazing!” he exclaimed. “If something as soft as water can penetrate something as hard as rock through constant, steady effort, then surely Torah study can penetrate my mind if I apply myself consistently, no matter how difficult it may seem at first!”
Inspired by this realization, Rabbi Akiva began to study Torah with dedication. His persistence paid off, and over time he became one of the most learned and revered sages in Jewish history, with thousands of students and a profound legacy in Jewish thought.
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Today’s daf presents a deliberation over the minimum number of judges, based on a word in the Torah that is written in the singular but pronounced in the plural form. The Gemara proceeds to discuss whether primacy of meaning is granted to the written or verbalized form of a word in the Torah. In one example, our Sages debate the Scriptural derivation for the law to separate the tefillin of the head into four compartments. This requirement stems from the verse, “And you shall bind them as a sign upon your arm and as totafos טטפת (reminders) between your eyes.”
ודכולי עלמא יש אם למקרא והתניא לטטפת לטטפת לטוטפות הרי כאן ארבע דברי ר’ ישמעאל ר”ע אומר אינו צריך טט בכתפי שתים פת באפריקי שתים
Do all indeed agree that the verbalized form is prime? But we learned: The law of the four compartments is derived from the three instances of the word “totafos,” the third of which is inscribed with the letter “vav” included, thereby pluralizing its written form and implying a double reminder, thus bringing the total to four. These are the words of Rabbi Yishmael. Rabbi Akiva says: (Your complex proof) is unnecessary. The word טט-tet in Caspian is two, and the word פת-pot in African is two (making a total of four).
There is no such thing as the Caspian language or the African language. Till today, there are literally thousands of African languages, and likewise, the ancient Caspian peoples spoke a multitude of languages. Rabbi Akiva’s statement appears to be a play on words. “Caspian” כתפי comes from the word כתף meaning, “shoulder,” while the root word of “African” אפריקי is פרק meaning “joint” (and sometimes specifically the knuckle joint).
When the Torah tells us to bind tefillin upon “your arm,” it uses the word יד, yad, which is also the word for “hand.” Try making a bicep muscle by flexing your arm and bending your wrist inwards. Basically, you’ve just employed all the joints from the shoulder downwards. So, if you think of the joints of the כתף as being what we call the shoulder and the elbow, and the two joints of the hand as the wrist and the knuckles, we have a total of four יד, yad, joints (apart from the fingers).
Now take a closer look at the Hebrew letter you created as you flexed. This exercise is one of those optical illusions: Some will see a ט and others will see a פ. Explicating the Gemara in Tractate Shabbos,1 the Chasam Sofer2 notes that the two Hebrew letters ט and פ resemble one another at a 90° rotation. So the letter you chose would have depended on how you were holding your arm!
Now, if there’s no language called Caspian or African, what was Rabbi Akiva implying with his reference to a foreign language? In his day, Israel was ruled by the Romans, who spoke Latin. But he certainly wasn’t about to give any credit to those brutish antisemites (who would later execute him for teaching Torah). Nonetheless, what is the meaning of טט-tet in Latin? It is related to the word, “head,” as in the modern French word, tête. The same word also meant “pot,” and etymologists suggest the link between the two words being the shape of the skull. The other Latin word for “pot” is… “pot.” That’s right, טט-tet and פת-pot are related! In a beautiful and deft exposition, Rabbi Akiva has derived the quantity of head tefillin compartments from the placement of the arm tefillin upon the bicep!
Why would the Torah employ foreign languages to convey the details of how tefillin are constructed? The Shelah Hakadosh3 explains that Rabbi Akiva is not suggesting that the Torah borrowed from other languages. Rather, following the Great Dispersion of the Tower of Bavel, Hebrew words seeped into various world languages and their contextual usage aids our understanding of their original meaning.
In this instance, the Torah employs a codeword to redeem the holy sparks of the Hebrew language from the clutches of evil. To summarize Rabbi Akiva’s interpretation: The word טטפת consists of a double ט-tet followed by a plurality of the letter פ-pey. The full spelling of that letter is פה, and the plural (i.e., multiple letters פ-pey) would be פת-pot. We have a general principle that a plurality only implies “two,” since we cannot assume any greater amount than the minimum. Thus, we have a total of four letters that look like an arm bent at the four joints. Meanwhile, the two words in the Torah’s “abbreviation” טטפת both connote the “head,” suggesting that the four joints must find expression in the tefillin of the head. How so? By separating the portions into four compartments!
Anything in this world you seek to accomplish requires a degree of flexibility. When you are rigid, you never succeed in your personal relationships, professional interactions or social encounters. Those external flexibility requirements are represented by your arms, the symbol of action. However, the much greater challenge is becoming internally flexible, in your mind. Heaven alone sees your internal struggle and demands no less flexibility than the outward expression of your ability to change and bend where necessary. You might appear to the world to be incredibly devout, but unless you’re working on bending your mind to the will of God, your spiritual journey has yet to begin.
The mind is far more flexible than the arm. While the arm’s flexibility is limited by physical constraints—like joints, muscles, and tendons—the mind has no such boundaries. The mind can adapt, imagine and shift perspectives infinitely. It can change beliefs, learn new concepts and reframe experiences, all of which make it an incredibly flexible tool compared to the arm’s physical range of motion. But it doesn’t just happen. It takes focus and dedication to apply the lesson of the hand tefillin to one’s mind.
Why is mind flexibility so challenging? Because your mind is hardwired with certain beliefs that tell you that you cannot change. Everyone is prone to biases like confirmation bias, where people tend to seek information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs, limiting mental flexibility. Likewise, strong emotions like fear, anger or attachment may inhibit the mind’s ability to remain open and adaptable. As well, social norms, traditions and cultural beliefs built into the psyche by the false world that surrounds us can create mental frameworks that are difficult to break free from, restricting how flexible one’s thinking can be.
Whenever you find yourself in an internal conversation with your mind telling you that you cannot change or achieve success, remember Rabbi Akiva’s message: Even water can bore a hole in a rock. And internal flexibility is no less fathomable than external flexibility. If anything, the mind is far more flexible than the body. May you achieve flexibility throughout your life!
Rabbi Dr. Daniel Friedman is the author of The Transformative Daf book series. He battles Christian antisemitism and teaches International Relations at Landers.
1 103b
2 Drashos 2, Shavuos
3 Peh Kadosh 4; Shabbos Hagadol 3
