>> why didn’t Rav Shimon Hamosini think of Rebbi Akiva’s darush
best explanation, imho, I forgot the source: R Shimon for sure saw a possibility of such an answer. He was a baki, after finding derashot on all previous ones. But, in tis case, he felt that even if he can come up with an answer, it is not the EMES here, so he just followed Emes despite losing all his previous academic work. Now, you made me thinking, maybe, even more – he JUMPED at the opportunity to
1) receive a unique award for retracting. He had so many rewards for derashot, he did not care for one more, he knew the value of retracting is higher!
2) teach his students the value of EMES at the expense of his career. So, we need to review this regularly, he wanted us to
remaining question: how did R Akiva then dare to say the rejected opinion? He saw R Shimon – chachamim like that deserve the yerah like Hashem