How the Talmud Can Change Your Life Quotes

“The first, Ben Azzai, looked at the divine presence and immediately perished. The second, Ben Zoma, lost his mind. The third, Elisha ben Abuyah, became a heretic and was, from that moment on, known simply as Acher, or “the Other.” Only Akiva, we’re told, entered in peace and left in peace. Why? Jewish scholars have spent centuries offering various intricate explanations, but Akiva’s is best. “It is not because I am greater than my colleagues,” he is quoted as saying in a midrash, “but because of the teaching in the Mishnah, ‘Your deeds will bring you near and your deeds will keep you far.’ ”25 Just as his status as a self-made man of low lineage kept him from receiving the highest honor on earth, so did his deeds enable him to receive the highest honor in higher, celestial spheres. In Yavneh, the kid from nowhere could never be appointed Nasi; in paradise, he and only he is welcomed and protected. Even the angels themselves, the Talmud tells us, resented Akiva this privilege and sought to push him out, but “the Holy One, Blessed be He, said to them: Leave this Elder, for he is fit to serve My glory.”26”
― Liel Leibovitz, How the Talmud Can Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book