Food grew scarcer with each passing day. Soon even the wealthiest residents of Jerusalem were starving.

One of the wealthiest women in Jerusalem, Martha, daughter of Beithos sent her servant to the market to purchase fine wheat flour. The servant soon returned and reported: “There is no fine flour, but there is still some white bread.” Martha instructed him to purchase the bread. He quickly returned from the marketplace, still empty-handed, and reported: “By the time I arrived, the white bread was gone. But there is still some dark bread.” Martha told him to purchase that. Once again he returned empty-handed, with the report: “There is no dark bread, but there is still some barley flour.” Again, Martha sent him back to purchase the barley flour. By the time he returned to the market, the barley flour was gone. When the servant returned empty-handed again, Martha could take it no longer, and decided to go to the marketplace herself. As her feet were swollen from hunger, she could not put on her sandals. Desperate and starving, she walked barefoot to the market. Walking barefoot for the first time in her life through the streets littered with filth and decay was extremely painful and degrading. When her foot touched some dung, she could take it no longer, and she fell to the ground in a faint. Her hand lay across a fig from which the juice had already been sucked.

This fig had been sucked by Rabbi Sadok, the holy sage who had fasted forty years to forestall the destruction of the Temple. He became so weak that anything he swallowed could be seen as it passed down his throat. To restore his health, his physicians would give him figs to suck. It was one of these figs that Martha had touched. She placed the fig in her mouth, and her delicate body began to tremble in revulsion. She took her jewels, cast them into the street, saying, “What are these worth to me now?” and she fell back and died.

The people of Jeusalem walked about half dazed from starvation. Dead bodies and carcasses littered the streets, as there was no cemetery within the confines of the city.

Anyone who attempted to leave the city to bury a friend or relative, was executed by the Zealots who assumed he was plotting to surrender to the Romans.

Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was walking through the streets when he saw some men huddled over a pot. They were boiling straw. When the straw boiled, they passed around the pot and sipped the water. “How low our people have fallen!” exclaimed Rabbi Yohanan.

He immediately called for his nephew Abba Sikra, one of the generals of the Zealots. “How much longer must our people suffer because you refuse to make peace?” 

Abba Sikra replied, “My men will kill me if I dare suggest peace.”

“Please allow me to leave the city,” pleaded Rabbi Yohanan. “Perhaps I can achieve some benefit for our People.”

After some thought Abba Sikrah suggested that Rabbi Yohanan pretend that he is ill, and have his students spread the word that he has died. Then his students should carry him out of the city in a casket.

Rabbi Yohanan did as his nephew suggested. His students, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua carried the coffin. As they approached the gates of the city, a Zealot guard stopped them.  

“Let me pierce the body with a spear to make sure he is dead,” said the guard.

Abba Sikra protested, “Shall the Romans say that the Jews stabbed their Rabbi?’ 

“Then let me hit him to see if he will move,” argued the guard.

“Shall the Romans say that the Jews strike their Rabbis?” said Abba Sikra.

The Zealots let the funeral procession through. The students left Rabbi Yohanan alone in the graveyard and returned to the city. Later, Rabbi Yohanan made his way to the camp of Vespasian.

“Peace unto you, Your Majesty, peace unto you,” Rabbi Yohanan greeted the general.

“Rabbi, you are deserving of death on two accounts,” responded the general. “First, I am not King, and when you address me as such, you mock me. And second, if I am indeed King, why have you not come sooner?” 

Rabbi Yohanan responded, “You are indeed King, because otherwise Jerusalem would not fall into your hands, as it states: ‘Jerusalem will fall by the hand of the mighty one’ (Isaiah 10). I did not come sooner because the Zealots do not allow anyone to leave the city.”

“If a serpent were coiled around a jar of honey, would you not break the jar to rid it of the serpent? Should you not demolish the city walls to rid yourself of the Zealots?” asked Vespasian.

Rabbi Yohanan did not respond.

At that moment, a messenger from Rome rode into the camp and declared, “Long live King Vespasian. The nobles of Rome have proclaimed the great general, Vespasian, as emperor. Long live the Emperor.”

The mood was euphoric. Just one thing troubled Vespasian. When the messenger arrived announcing the glad tidings, Vespasian was in the middle of putting on his shoes. He already had one shoe on. Now he couldn’t get his other foot into his shoe. He even tried to take the first shoe off, but evidently his feet had swelled, and it wouldn’t come off. Rabbi Yohanan explained: This is as it says in Proverbs” ‘Glad tidings make the bones fat’ (Proverbs 15:30). Therefore, think of one of your adversaries, and the swelling will subside, as it says ‘A depressed spirit dries up a bone’ (Proverbs 17:22).” Vespasian immediately followed Rabbi Yohanan’s advice, and he was able to don his shoe.

Vespasian was impressed with Rabbi Yohanan’s foresight, and granted him three requests. Rabbi Yohanan asked that the Rabbis of Yavneh be spared, that the family of Rabban Gamliel be spared, and that physicians be provided to heal Rabbi Sadok. All three requests were granted.

Vespasian left to assume his position in Rome and appointed his son Titus as general in his place.

In the meantime, in the city, the famine raged. The death toll continued to rise. People were scrounging for anything that would keep them alive — a piece of grass, a leaf, a mouse, a snake, an insect. Whenever a dead horse or other dead animal was found, the people would fight over it. People would eat garbage and even human waste. As a result, plague broke out, and those who had not fallen prey to hunger, now died in the plague. 

There were those who risked leaving the city to search for food with their wives and children. The Romans caught them, and they would kill the children. “Let us kill these children,” they would say, “then they will not grow up to fight like their fathers.” They killed the adults and crucified them opposite the city gates. Before long, there were five hundred men crucified opposite the city’s gates.

 Those who had wheat stored away were afraid to grind it, knead it or bake it, because they were afraid of the Zealots who roamed the city searching for food. When they discovered food they would take it for themselves. Therefore, whoever was fortunate to find food, would eat it in hiding. Husbands grabbed food from wives, and mothers snatched it from their children.

The desperate situation in the city did not stop the Zealots. The leaders of the Zealots would crucify the Roman soldiers they captured on the wall facing the Romans. They also crucified any Jew caught attempting to defect to the Romans. In all, the Zealots crucified five hundred men, equal to the number of Jews the Romans had crucified.

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The information in this chapter was drawn primarily from Gittin 56a – 56b and Josephus, Chapter 86.