After Vespasian became emperor, his son Titus completed the destruction of Jerusalem. According to Gittin 56b, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai's famous encounter with Vespasian included a devastating exchange about strategy.
Vespasian compared Jerusalem to a barrel of honey with a snake wrapped around it. "Wouldn't you break the barrel to kill the snake?" he asked. The city had to be destroyed to eliminate the zealots inside it. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was silent.
The Talmud criticizes this silence. Rav Yosef—or perhaps Rabbi Akiva—applied the verse: "I am the Lord who turns wise men backward and makes their knowledge foolish" (Isaiah 44:25). Rabban Yohanan should have said: "We take tongs, remove the snake, and leave the barrel intact. Kill the zealots and spare the city." But he did not. And Jerusalem fell.
When Vespasian departed for Rome, he gave Rabban Yohanan one request. The Sage asked for three things: "Give me Yavneh and its Sages. Spare the dynasty of Rabban Gamliel. And provide a doctor for Rabbi Tzadok," who had fasted for forty years to prevent the destruction of the Temple and was near death.
The Talmud records the arrival of the news that made Vespasian emperor. A messenger came from Rome: the previous emperor was dead. Vespasian's foot had swollen with joy—"Good tidings make the bone fat" (Proverbs 15:30). The cure was sorrow—"A broken spirit dries the bones" (Proverbs 17:22). They brought someone unpleasant before him, his mood dropped, and the shoe fit.
The entire passage balances cosmic destruction against tiny human details—a swollen foot, a shoe that will not fit, a doctor for a starving rabbi. History turns on intimacies.