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Our daf lists forbidden animals. When speaking of the et hagamal, the camel (Vayikra 11:4), Rabbi Shimon taught of the law that prohibits drinking milk from a non-kosher animal: the addition of the word et. Other believe that this is not a valid interpretation because they reject the notion that the word et can be used to teach Halacha. Et is not translatable to English; it is used in certain grammatical situations.
A baraita teaches that Shimon or Nechemia HaAmasoni learned the laws from every et that appeared in the Torah. Once he came to the passage HaShem Elokecha tira (Devarim 6:13), one should be in awe of G-d, he stopped his practice. He could not think of an appropriate thing to learn from the word et. His students asked what should be done with his earlier teachings, he said that they would not be rewarded for distancing themselves from his teachings.
Rabbi Akiva used the et to teach that Torah scholars themselves should be included in the list of those who are held in awe.
We explore the strongest original idea here “the hermeneutics of adjacency”: Rabbi Akiva does not place the talmid ḥakham on God's level; he locates the scholar in the grammatical space next to the divine name, making rabbinic authority simultaneously powerful and derivative.