רבי שמעון בן עקשיא

Rabbi Shimon ben Akashya was a tanna whose words are preserved in the Mishnah at the close of tractate Kinnim. There he draws a contrast between ordinary people and Torah scholars in their old age: as the unlearned grow older their faculties weaken, while the elderly among the scholars find their minds settling and their wisdom increasing with their years.

His teaching is also taken up in later writings such as the Derashot HaRan, where it serves to illustrate the difference between the intellectual faculty, whose grasp of eternal and enduring matters remains constant, and the faculties tied to the body, which decline over time.