Tribute to Akiva

"Do you fear it?"
"No."
"Because it's happened before?"
"Yes."
"Will you walk into it?"
"No."
"Try to evade it?"
"How can I? I will do this: only live. But as always, I will be with my people. And we'll survive. In small numbers, in large. The world will still fear us, attempt to purge itself of us."
"You will be a martyr, then?"
"Of course. I am a Jew."
"Are you all martyrs in the end?"
"No. We are all angels."
"Messengers?"
"Yes."
"The world listens, doesn't it?"
"Too well, I think. Like a spoiled child it listens. And rebells. It spits at us and rebells."
"And so you die?"
"One by one. But never all."
"Will you bring the moshiach soon?"
"That's not up to me. It's up to the rest of you."
"But there are disbelievers among you. Heretics. Blasphemers. People who leave you and people who doubt."
"As there are in every group. What is the difference? We are human, too."
"What is the message?"
"Don't you know by now?"
"Do I?"
"Listen closer. It's written all through history. Four thousand years, at least."
"Who will you be like?"
"Like Akiva."
"It's never too late. Correct?"
"Exactly. Like his stone. The water will persist and the stone will erode. The knowledge will persist and pervade the mind. It is never too late to begin."
"And even after a plague, you will persist?"
"Yes. Like Akiva. 24,000 students died. Yet he persisted. And the moshiach did not come."
"A martyr. Tortured."
"Yes. And still, in the end, he recited the Shema."
"Of the Four Who Entered Paradise, he was the only one who really knew."
"Yes. I will name a son after Akiva. Perhaps he will know Paradise, too."
"Perhaps. Beware of the times ahead."
"As always. We remember."