Our most recent mishnah, on forbidden sorcery, concluded with the following statement:
Rabbi Akiva says in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua: Two people can each gather cucumbers by sorcery. One of them gathers cucumbers and he is exempt, and the other one gathers cucumbers and he is liable. How so? The one who performs a real act of sorcery is liable, and the one who deceives the eyes is exempt.
The mishnah distinguishes between sorcery that is real and sorcery that is mere illusion. The former incurs liability but chicanery does not. Then, surprisingly, the Gemara brings a story of a rabbi performing sorcery — the real kind.
The Gemara’s discussion begins with the assertion that Rabbi Akiva did not learn this cucumber law from Rabbi Yehoshua, but from Rabbi Eliezer. A beraita quoted in the Gemara relates what happened after Rabbi Eliezer was excommunicated for failing to concede to the majority rabbinic opinion in the famous oven of Aknai incident. As Rabbi Eliezer lay dying, his students decide to visit him (despite the ban) and ask him to teach them Torah. Rabbi Eliezer, known for his severity, responds with anger:
He said to them: “And why have you not come until now?” They said to him: “We did not have spare time.” Rabbi Eliezer said to them: “I would be surprised if these sages die their own death (i.e. a natural death).” Rabbi Akiva said to him: “How will my death come about?” Rabbi Eliezer said to him: “Your death will be worse than theirs.”
The dying Rabbi Eliezer makes a bitter prophecy, foretelling his students’ gory and unnatural ends at the hands of the Romans. Rabbi Akiva, he predicts, will face the worst death of all. Then, Rabbi Eliezer goes on to lament more broadly, bemoaning how little Torah knowledge he has passed on, relative to his enormous store of it:
Rabbi Eliezer raised his two arms and placed them on his heart, and he said: “Woe to you, my two arms, as they are like two Torah scrolls that are now being rolled up. I have learned much Torah, and I have taught much Torah. I have learned much Torah, and I have not taken away from my teachers even like a dog lapping from the sea. I have taught much Torah, and my students have taken away from me only like the tiny amount that a paintbrush removes from a tube of paint. Moreover, I can teach 300 halakhot with regard to a snow-white leprous mark, but no person has ever asked me anything about them. I can teach 300 halakhot,” — and some say that Rabbi Eliezer said 3,000 halakhot — “with regard to the planting of cucumbers by sorcery, but no person has ever asked me anything about them, except Akiva ben Yosef.”
Rabbi Eliezer is bitter and woeful, thinking of all the Torah that is lost when teachers fail to transmit it to their students, or when the students fail to learn. Rabbi Eliezer himself didn’t learn all that his teachers knew, and much of the prodigious knowledge he himself has acquired will be lost soon with his death. Here is where we finally see the bemusing tie-in to our question of cucumbers: Rabbi Eliezer bemoans the fact that he has intricate knowledge about cucumber sorcery (an admittedly rather niche field) and no one but Rabbi Akiva ever even asked him about it.
Rabbi Eliezer next relates the story of Rabbi Akiva’s inquiry:
Once he and I were walking along the way, and he said to me: “My teacher, teach me about the planting of cucumbers.” I said one statement of sorcery, and the entire field became filled with cucumbers. He said to me: “My teacher, you have taught me about planting them; teach me about uprooting them.” I said one statement and they all were gathered to one place.
Rabbi Eliezer not only taught Rabbi Akiva the laws governing cucumber sorcery, he actually performed the sorcery himself! This appears to be an obvious violation, but the Gemara later clarifies that because it was done for pedagogical purposes, it was permitted.
The Gemara concludes by returning to its initial question: Knowing that Rabbi Eliezer is the uncontested cucumber sorcery expert, why did Rabbi Akiva report his cucumber statement in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua?
He learned it from Rabbi Eliezer but he did not understand it. Later he learned it from Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Yehoshua explained it to him.
The Gemara notes a meaningful distinction between having information relayed to you, and actually learning and comprehending it. Rabbi Eliezer was known to have immense knowledge, but throughout the Talmud many of his colleagues and students are unable to grasp his reasoning, through some combination of lesser acumen on their parts and a failure of pedagogy on his part. Rabbi Yehoshua, on the other hand, though he possessed less esoteric knowledge, was able to convey it in a way that his students internalized. Thus, despite Rabbi Eliezer’s great cucumber expertise — and the remarkable exception that allowed him to actually practice the craft — Rabbi Akiva’s statement is relayed in the name of the more gifted teacher, Rabbi Yehoshua.
Read all of Sanhedrin 68 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on February 23, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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