Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “‘Who will uncover the dust from your eyes?’: Mishnah Sotah 5 and R. Akiva’s Midrash”, Tarbiz 75 (2007), 1+2, pp. 96-128
in Mishna Sota 5 there are four drashot, about impurity, Eruvin, the reading of the song of the sea and the faith of Job.
He will prove that the first mishna does not belong to this sequence
the common thing about these four derashot is the manner of interpretation of R. Akiva; this whole sequence is praising it. Akiva's method is being contrasted with a minimalistic methods of other rabbis.
1. impurity of a third vessel: a major halakhic topic of the period. Ribaz had a certain halakha: a loaf in an impure vessel is not only impure, but also littering other things. This halakha is different than what is said in Lev. 11. he was afraid that later generations will cancell this halakha because it is not based in scriptures. [some important bibliography about this]. This halakha is not found in qumran (because it is tradition and not scriptures). R. Akiva is the first rabbi to connect this halakha to scriptures. R. Akiva is praised by R. Yahoshua. Akiva can make a drasha which Ribaz couldn't because of the different system of drashing: Ribaz just saw that the scriptural halakha was different; Akiva interpreted.
2. eruvin: there is a contradiction in the scriptures (Num. 35, 1000 ama in verse 4, 2000 in verse 5). again a halakha which Akiva connected with a verse.
Then comes R. Eliezer's drasha, which explains the verse but does not connect it to a halakha. This sheds sharper light on Akiva's interpretation, being an opposition to it: Akiva's system of deconstructing the verse (take it out of its context). The novalty of Akiva is that he learned about “tchum shabbat” from this verse, which is not the original meaning of the verse.
This was probably done before in qumran, where they understood the difference from two types of tchum shabbat because of this contradiction between these verses. And R.-Tz. Brings other examples. R. yossei, in this passage, brings the halakha but does not connect it to verses. The innovation of R. Akiva is that he connect the pharasian halakha with a vese. So the passage in the mishna here praises R. Akiva's system: it is not tradition vs scriptures, but Akiva's combination of the two which is praised; this system is not accepted by R. Eliezer son of R. Yossey the Galilean.
3. The song of the sea. The tosefta version is longer, and used to understand the mishna. This is wrong. The version in the tosefta and in the mekhilta, and in the later sources (talmudim) are elaborations on R. Nehemiah's system, which is not a respons system at all. So in the mishna the “reading of the Shma” is an oral reading by cantor and congragation together; in the tosefta it is different (p. 112).
explaining the mekhilta (is this explainig the tosefta too?): because the holy spirit rested on them they all sang the song; this is learned from the verse, and not from any drasha. So it is in the yerushalmi.
So again this section in the mishna is presenting R. Akiva's system of interpreting the verse and leaning about the respons-type reading of the song of the sea, in opposition to R. Nehemiah's system.
{R.-Tz.'s interpretation of the Tosefta's passage: the system of response is accepted, there are three systems of it: hallel like a small-one, hallel like a big-person and like in the shma. Only that there is no respons in the shma here, but a drasha is attached to the end of R. Nehemiah's statement, a drasha about the pasuk at hand, which is not really explaining his words; so is the case in the mekhilta}
4. the faith of Job. This drasha is different from the others in stucture and rabbi. It is of a different sources and was added here because of R. Yehoshua's reaction. it presents a mahloket between ribaz (learning from the simple meaning of the verse that Job feared God) and Yehoshua son of Hyrcanus who presents a sophisticated drash: learning from another verse of Job. This passage is praising the sophisticated reading vs. the simple one, like in the first case – the more “modern” reading (of Yehoshua) is better. It is not that love is better than fear in this passage {me: it will be so in the tesefta}. We don't know who this yehoshua was, but he is presented as a continuer of R. Akiva. The theme (readiness to give your life for God) is tpical Akivian.
5. the first mishna: the sota and her husband. Here there are two drashot of R. Akiva about “sota”. This passage seems to be stuck in the middle of chapter about “drinking women”. The difference between the previous chapter to the next is that in chpater 4 women don't drink because of their high status, and in chapter 6 they dont drink because of issues of testimony about them.
At the end of chapter 4 is discussed the relationship between the suspected woman and her suspected lover. R. Akiva brings in the lover-character into the mishna. He says 1. that the water she is drinking check him as well and 2. that she is fobidden to him. R. yehoshua says about the second case that a former sage said it too; Rabbi is saying a drasha which seems to be similar. {discussing some scholars that dealt with this passag}. R.-Tzi's understanding: the first mishna was added later to the four drashot learned above, and was formed as an intro to them all, by having Akiva's system praised by R. Yehoshua (by comparing it to an ancient sage), and having Rabbi's statement added as a contrasting opinion, in a manner similar to what is done in the four later drashot.
So the whole corpus is presenting the greatness of R. Akiva's system, in relation to earlier and later rabbis.
A sophisticated group of r. akiv'as drashot; in each one drasha is brought, first in halakha and then in aggada. They are presenting the akivian method: addition of “lemor”; addition of “vav”; learning halakha from a contradiction; and from a difference in staement (eyno omer). The akivian nature is in the focusing on single words and even letters, and is being made clearer by presenting a different views (which always read the verses in a simpler manner). The other opinions are brought in order to show the greatness of R. Akiva. There is a development in the drashot of R. Akiva (note 141); there is also a picture of a developing system of drasha from one generation to another: ribaz, r. yehoshua, r. akiva, yehoshua son of hyrcans. This image of r. Akiva, as a peak of drashic abilities, appears also in the talmudim. The greatness of R. Akiva is not only in his drashic-abilities, but in his using it in order to establish halakhas which already exist (discussing a passage from Sifre Num. about the kohanim with “mumim”). This connection could be, in fact, the voice of the editor (which is heard in the statements of R. Yehoshua).
Kahana wrote about this as well: the Tannaitic ever-growing tendency to connect halakha to and midrash. In our passage the heros of this tendency are R. Akiva and R. Yehoshu, but the connection made is between halakha and scriptures.
