Azzai could explain even those things in the Halakah that the schools of Shammai and Hillel had not understood. His love of study induced Ben Azzai to remain unmarried, although he himself preached against celibacy, and even was betrothed to Rabbi Akiva's daughter, who waited for years for him to marry her, as her mother had waited for Akiva. When Eleazar ben Azariah reproved him for this contradiction between his life and his teachings, he replied: "What shall I do? My soul clings lovingly to the Torah; let others contribute to the preservation of the race". Another characteristic of Ben Azzai was his great piety. It was said, "He who has seen Ben Azzai in his dreams is himself on the way to piety". Thanks to this piety he could, without injury to his soul, devote himself to theosophic speculations, when he, like Ben Zoma, Elisha ben Abuyah, and Akiva, entered, as tradition has it, into the garden ("pardes") of the esoteric doctrine. Tradition says of him: "He beheld the mysteries of the garden and died; of him Scripture says: Precious in the eyes of God is the death of his pious ones." With reference to this verse, Ben Azzai himself had taught that God shows to the pious, near the hour of their death, the rewards awaiting them. Other sayings of his concerning the hour of death have been handed down. According to a tradition not entirely trustworthy, Ben Azzai was among the first victims of the persecutions under Hadrian; his name, therefore, is found on a list of the ten martyrs. Reputation Ben Azzai's posthumous fame was extraordinary. The greatest amora of Israel (Rav Johanan) and the greatest amora of Babylonia (Rav) each said, in order to mark their authority as teachers of the Law: "Here I am a Ben Azzai". The name of Ben Azzai is applied in the same sense by the great Babylonian amora Abaye and Raba. An aggadic legend from Israel relates of him the following: Teachings Many teachings of Ben Azzai's, with and without Biblical foundation, have been preserved. Two of these were included in Pirkei Avot. After a saying of Ben Azzai, at the beginning of the third chapter of Derekh Eretz Rabbah, this little book (which began originally with that chapter) is called "Perek Ben Azzai". In a teaching that recalls a fundamental thought of Akiva, Ben Azzai gives the characteristic