Ben Kalba Savua בן כלבא שבוע
rich man of Jerusalem, Rabbi Akiva's father-in-law
The second of the three rich men who offered to feed besieged Jerusalem; his storehouses were burned with the rest (Gittin 56a). His name in the Talmud is a byname: whoever came to him hungry as a dog left satisfied.
But he is remembered more for something else. His daughter Rachel married the illiterate shepherd Akiva, and her father disowned her by vow. For twenty-four years she sent her husband away to learn, living in poverty; when he returned with twenty-four thousand students, she pushed through the crowd to him, and when the students moved to hold the woman back he said: "Leave her—what is mine and what is yours is hers" (Ketubot 62b). The father, not recognising his son-in-law, came to the great sage to have his vow annulled—and heard: and if he had learned even one chapter? "Even one verse", said the old man. "I am that man". He fell before him and gave him half his fortune (Ketubot 62b–63a).
The sources give no years of life; the window of activity is set by generation, following Aharon Hyman's Toldot Tannaim ve-Amoraim.
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Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Gittin 56a — the three rich men and the burned storehouses
- Ketubot 62b–63a — the daughter, the vow and Rabbi Akiva's return
Basis: Talmud and midrash.