Nedarim

The daughter of Kalba Shebu'a  betrothed herself to R. Akiba.  When her father heard thereof, he vowed that she was not to benefit from aught of his property. Then she went and married him in winter.  They slept on straw, and he had to pick out the straw from his hair. 'If Only I could afford it,' said he to her, 'I would present you with a golden Jerusalem.'  [Later] Elijah came to them in the guise of a mortal,  and cried out at the door. 'Give the some straw, for my wife is in confinement and I have nothing for her to lie on.' 'See!' R. Akiba observed to his wife, 'there is a man who lacks even straw.' [Subsequently] she counselled him, 'Go, and become a scholar.' So he left her, and spent twelve years [studying] under R. Eliezer and R. Joshua. At the end of this period, he was returning home, when from the back of the house he heard a wicked man jeering at his wife, 'Your father did well to you. Firstly, because he is your inferior; and secondly, he has abandoned you to living widowhood all these years.' She replied, 'Yet were he to hear my desires, he would be absent another twelve years. Seeing that she has thus given me permission,' he said, 'I will go back.' So he went back, and was absent for another twelve years, [at the end of which] he returned with twenty-four thousand disciples.  Everyone flocked to welcome him, including her [his wife] too. But that wicked man said to her, 'And whither art thou going?'  'A righteous man knoweth the life of his beast,'  she retorted. So she went to see him, but the disciples wished to repulse her. 'Make way for her,' he told them, 'for my [learning] and yours are hers.' When Kalba Shebu'a heard thereof, he came [before R. Akiba] and asked for the remission of his vow and he annulled it for him. From six incidents did R. Akiba become rich: [i] From Kalba Shebu'a.  [ii] From a ship's ram. For every ship is provided with the figurehead of an animal. Once this [a wooden ram] was forgotten on the sea shore, and R. Akiba found it.  [iii] From a hollowed out trunk.  For he once gave four it to sailors, and told them to bring him something [that he needed]. But they found only a hollow log on the sea shore, which they brought to him, saying, 'Sit on this and wait'.  It was found to be full of denarii. For it once happened that a ship sunk and all the treasures thereof were placed in that log, and it was found at that time. [iv] From the serokita.  [v] From a matron.  [vi]