After the destruction of the Temple, the wealthy families of Jerusalem were reduced to utter destitution. The Talmud (Ketubot 66b) records the most heartbreaking example: the daughter of Nakdimon ben Gurion, once one of the richest men in all of Israel.
Nakdimon had been so wealthy that when his daughter walked to the synagogue, servants would spread fine woolen carpets before her feet so she would not have to step on bare ground. Her marriage contract specified astronomical sums — hundreds of thousands of dinars in support.
After the destruction, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai encountered her outside Jerusalem. She was picking barley grains from among the dung of Arab livestock. She was starving, dressed in rags, reduced to scavenging food from animal waste.
"My daughter, who are you?" Rabban Yohanan asked. "I am the daughter of Nakdimon ben Gurion," she wept. "And what happened to your father's wealth?" "Is there not a saying in Jerusalem: the salt of money is its diminishment?" She meant: wealth is preserved only through charity. And her family, despite its enormous fortune, had not given enough.
Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai wept as well. "How blessed are you, Israel," he said. "When you do God's will, no nation can rule over you. When you do not do His will, you are handed over to a lowly nation — and not merely to the nation itself, but to its animals." The image of Nakdimon's daughter picking grains from dung became the indelible symbol of how completely fortune can reverse when a people loses God's favor.