The destruction of Jerusalem did not end when the Temple burned. In the years that followed, the Romans hunted down the children of the sages, enslaving some, executing others, scattering the survivors across the empire. The Talmud (Gittin 58a) preserves the heartbreaking story of the children of Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha the High Priest.
Two of his children were taken captive and sold to different masters in different cities. Years later, by a twist of fate — or by the hidden hand of divine providence — their masters decided to breed them together, not knowing they were brother and sister. They were placed in a room together in the darkness.
Each sat in a separate corner and wept through the night. "I am a priest's child," the boy cried, "descended from High Priests. Shall I marry a slave woman?" In the other corner, the girl wept identically: "I am a priest's daughter, descended from High Priests. Shall I be given to a slave?"
When dawn broke and light entered the room, they recognized each other. They fell upon each other's necks and wept until their souls departed. They died in each other's arms rather than transgress.
Over them, the prophet Jeremiah had already cried: "For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water" (Lamentations 1:16). The sages said that this was the deepest wound of the destruction — not the burning stones of the Temple, but the shattered lives of the innocent children who inherited a catastrophe they never caused.