Nakdimon ben Gurion, one of the three wealthiest men of Jerusalem before the Roman siege, had been so rich that, according to tradition, his daughter's dowry alone was twelve thousand gold denarii, with a thousand denarii earmarked for perfume. During the siege he kept the city in food while his water miraculously filled three dry wells. His name meant light; his household shone.
Then the Temple burned in 70 CE. The Roman army ground Jerusalem into rubble. Nakdimon's fortune, like every Jewish fortune in the city, evaporated in smoke and ash.
Some time later, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, the sage who had smuggled himself out of the burning city and rebuilt Jewish learning at Yavneh, was riding his donkey out of town when he saw something that stopped him. A girl, barefoot, was following the animals of a rich man and picking barley grains out of their dung. She was sifting dung to eat.
He looked at her face. He knew it. My daughter, he asked, who are you?
I am the daughter of Nakdimon ben Gurion, she answered.
Where is all your father's wealth?
Rabbi, she said, in Jerusalem they used to say: the salt of wealth is its loss. Meaning: only giving preserves it; hoarded wealth spoils. My father gave generously, but not quite enough.
Rabbi Yochanan wept. Then he took action. He married her to one of his own disciples so that she would not starve and so that the bloodline of the great Nakdimon would not die picking dung in the road.
This story from tractate Ketubot 66b-67a, preserved in The Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924), is a memorial stone for what the destruction did to Jerusalem. It also teaches that tzedakah, charity, is the only insurance a Jew truly has. What you give, you keep. What you hoard, the Romans take.