Under Siege

In Jerusalem, in the first century, while Vespasian’s legions sat outside the walls, the richest woman in the city sent her servant to the market for fine flour. The Gemara remembers her name, Marta bat Boethus, and the order in which her errand failed. By the time the servant reached the market, the fine flour was sold out. He came back; she sent him for white flour. By the time he arrived, that too was gone. She sent him for coarse flour, then for barley flour, and each time the available food disappeared during the interval it took him to walk there. “I will go out myself,” she said, “and see whether I can find something to eat.” In the street, dung clung to the sole of her bare foot, and she died. As she was dying, she carried out her gold and silver and flung them into the market square. “What do I need this for?” she said (Gittin 56a).

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai applied to her a verse from Ki Tavo. The verse describes the transformation of a formerly protected woman during a siege:

הָרַכָּה בְךָ וְהָעֲנֻגָּה אֲשֶׁר לֹא־נִסְּתָה כַף־רַגְלָהּ הַצֵּג עַל־הָאָרֶץ מֵהִתְעַנֵּג וּמֵרֹךְ תֵּרַע עֵינָהּ בְּאִישׁ חֵיקָהּ וּבִבְנָהּ וּבְבִתָּהּ׃

“The tender and delicate woman among you, who in delicacy and tenderness had never ventured to set the sole of her foot upon the ground, will begrudge the husband of her bosom, her son, and her daughter” (Deuteronomy 28:56).

The verse sits in the darkest stretch of the tokhechah, the catalogue of curses Moshe recites before Israel enters the land. A foreign army besieges Israel’s cities. The high walls in which the people trusted come down. Hunger grows until parents eat their children. In the middle of this, the Torah pauses to give us the history of a woman’s foot: before the siege, she had never tested it against the ground.

At the beginning of the chapter, fertility appears as a blessing. The Torah places the products of the womb, the soil, and the herd in a single sentence:

בָּרוּךְ פְּרִי־בִטְנְךָ וּפְרִי אַדְמָתְךָ וּפְרִי בְהֶמְתֶּךָ שְׁגַר אֲלָפֶיךָ וְעַשְׁתְּרוֹת צֹאנֶךָ׃

“Blessed will be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your soil, and the fruit of your animals: the offspring of your cattle and the increase of your flocks” (Deuteronomy 28:4).

Womb, soil, and herd share one word, פְּרִי (peri), “fruit.” The blessing is a world in which these forms of fruit sustain one another: the earth’s fruit feeds the animals and the human family. The siege inverts the system. After describing the attacking nation, Moses says:

וְאָכַל פְּרִי בְהֶמְתְּךָ וּפְרִי־אַדְמָתְךָ עַד הִשָּׁמְדָךְ אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יַשְׁאִיר לְךָ דָּגָן תִּירוֹשׁ וְיִצְהָר שְׁגַר אֲלָפֶיךָ וְעַשְׁתְּרֹת צֹאנֶךָ עַד הַאֲבִידוֹ אֹתָךְ׃

“It will consume the fruit of your animals and the fruit of your soil until you are destroyed. It will leave you no grain, wine, or oil, no offspring of your cattle or increase of your flocks, until it has caused you to perish” (Deuteronomy 28:51).

Once the enemy has consumed the fruit of the soil and herd, Israel consumes the only “fruit” left:

וְאָכַלְתָּ פְרִי־בִטְנְךָ בְּשַׂר בָּנֶיךָ וּבְנֹתֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר נָתַן־לְךָ ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּמָצוֹר וּבְמָצוֹק אֲשֶׁר־יָצִיק לְךָ אֹיְבֶךָ׃

“You will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God gave you, during the siege and distress with which your enemy will press you” (Deuteronomy 28:53).

The land stops feeding the family, so the family becomes its own land. The womb turns into the last field, harvested by its guardian. The curse forces the blessing to devour itself.

There is one other being in the Torah whose foot cannot find the ground. After the Flood, Noah sends a dove from the ark to discover whether the waters have receded:

וְלֹא־מָצְאָה הַיּוֹנָה מָנוֹחַ לְכַף־רַגְלָהּ וַתָּשָׁב אֵלָיו אֶל־הַתֵּבָה כִּי־מַיִם עַל־פְּנֵי כָל־הָאָרֶץ וַיִּשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וַיִּקָּחֶהָ וַיָּבֵא אֹתָהּ אֵלָיו אֶל־הַתֵּבָה׃

“The dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned to him, to the ark, because water covered the face of the whole earth. He put out his hand, took her, and brought her to himself inside the ark” (Genesis 8:9).

Eventually, the dove does find dry land. The piyut - yona matza bo manoach - recited on Shabbat, the dove found a resting place, evokes the name of Noach, and becomes a paradigm in Jewish history for the wandering nation, scattered in Exile, unable to find rest in Diaspora. The dove itself is Israel.

The fortified city has become an anti-ark: an enclosure that consumes what it was built to keep alive. The ark is reimagined not as a refuge, but as the worst place to be, singled out as a target.

Earlier in Deuteronomy, as Israel prepares to build a settled agricultural society, Moses legislates for scarcity in ordinary times. If an impoverished Israelite appears at one’s gate, fear of future loss must not harden the heart:

כִּי־יִהְיֶה בְךָ אֶבְיוֹן מֵאַחַד אַחֶיךָ בְּאַחַד שְׁעָרֶיךָ בְּאַרְצְךָ אֲשֶׁר־ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ לֹא תְאַמֵּץ אֶת־לְבָבְךָ וְלֹא תִקְפֹּץ אֶת־יָדְךָ מֵאָחִיךָ הָאֶבְיוֹן׃ כִּי־פָתֹחַ תִּפְתַּח אֶת־יָדְךָ לוֹ וְהַעֲבֵט תַּעֲבִיטֶנּוּ דֵּי מַחְסֹרוֹ אֲשֶׁר יֶחְסַר לוֹ׃

“If there is among you a needy person, one of your brothers, in one of your gates in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not harden your heart and do not close your hand against your needy brother. Rather, you must open your hand to him and lend him enough for whatever he lacks” (Deuteronomy 15:7–8).

The surrounding law addresses a predictable calculation. The seventh year, when debts are released, is approaching. A lender may fear that whatever he gives now will not return. Moses describes that fear entering his vision:

הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ פֶּן־יִהְיֶה דָבָר עִם־לְבָבְךָ בְלִיַּעַל לֵאמֹר קָרְבָה שְׁנַת־הַשֶּׁבַע שְׁנַת הַשְּׁמִטָּה וְרָעָה עֵינְךָ בְּאָחִיךָ הָאֶבְיוֹן וְלֹא תִתֵּן לוֹ וְקָרָא עָלֶיךָ אֶל־ה׳ וְהָיָה בְךָ חֵטְא׃

“Beware lest there be a lawless thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of release, is approaching,’ and your eye become evil toward your needy brother and you give him nothing. He will cry out against you to the Lord, and you will bear sin” (Deuteronomy 15:9).

Ki Tavo repeats that vocabulary under siege:

הָאִישׁ הָרַךְ בְּךָ וְהֶעָנֹג מְאֹד תֵּרַע עֵינוֹ בְאָחִיו וּבְאֵשֶׁת חֵיקוֹ וּבְיֶתֶר בָּנָיו אֲשֶׁר יוֹתִיר׃ מִתֵּת לְאַחַד מֵהֶם מִבְּשַׂר בָּנָיו אֲשֶׁר יֹאכֵל מִבְּלִי הִשְׁאִיר־לוֹ כֹּל בְּמָצוֹר וּבְמָצוֹק אֲשֶׁר יָצִיק לְךָ אֹיִבְךָ בְּכָל־שְׁעָרֶיךָ׃

“The tender and very delicate man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife of his bosom, and the children he has left. He will refuse to give any of them some of the flesh of the children he is eating, because nothing remains to him during the siege and distress with which your enemy will press you in all your gates” (Deuteronomy 28:54–55).

The ordered elements return: the evil eye, the brother, and the refusal to give. In chapter 15, the brother’s lack should summon my hand open. In chapter 28, my own lack turns my eye against the brother. The curse is not disconnected from the earlier social law. It shows the closed hand becoming the constitution of a city.

Rashi makes the refusal to share even more explicit. The next verse says that the woman will eat her newborn children secretly:

וּבְשִׁלְיָתָהּ הַיּוֹצֵאת מִבֵּין רַגְלֶיהָ וּבְבָנֶיהָ אֲשֶׁר תֵּלֵד כִּי־תֹאכְלֵם בְּחֹסֶר־כֹּל בַּסָּתֶר בְּמָצוֹר וּבְמָצוֹק אֲשֶׁר יָצִיק לְךָ אֹיִבְךָ בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ׃

“She will begrudge them even the afterbirth emerging from between her legs and the children she bears, for she will eat them secretly in utter want, during the siege and distress with which your enemy will press you in your gates” (Deuteronomy 28:57).

Rashi explains: בְּכֻלָּן תְּהֵא עֵינָהּ צָרָה כְּשֶׁתֹּאכַל אֶת הָאֶחָד מִלִּתֵּן לַאֲשֶׁר אֶצְלָהּ מִן הַבָּשָׂר (be-khulan tehei einah tzarah ke-shetochal et ha-echad mi-liten la-asher etzlah min ha-basar), “when she eats one child, she will begrudge those still beside her any of the flesh” (Rashi on Deuteronomy 28:57). The verse could have ended with the cannibalism. It continues because the horror extends into the hoarding of what cannibalism yields. Even food produced by destroying the family cannot reassemble the family around a table. She eats בַּסָּתֶר (ba-sater), “secretly,” so that no claim can be made upon her portion. The last covenantal scene to die is the shared meal.

The prophets later read these curses as a map of Jerusalem’s destruction. Leviticus had already stated the threat in full:

וַאֲכַלְתֶּם בְּשַׂר בְּנֵיכֶם וּבְשַׂר בְּנֹתֵיכֶם תֹּאכֵלוּ׃

“You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters” (Leviticus 26:29).

Jeremiah, warning Jerusalem shortly before the Babylonian destruction, lifts Ki Tavo’s siege language almost whole:

וְהַאֲכַלְתִּים אֶת־בְּשַׂר בְּנֵיהֶם וְאֵת בְּשַׂר בְּנֹתֵיהֶם וְאִישׁ בְּשַׂר־רֵעֵהוּ יֹאכֵלוּ בְּמָצוֹר וּבְמָצוֹק אֲשֶׁר יָצִיקוּ לָהֶם אֹיְבֵיהֶם וּמְבַקְשֵׁי נַפְשָׁם׃

“I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and each will eat the flesh of his neighbor, during the siege and distress with which their enemies and those seeking their lives will press them” (Jeremiah 19:9).

Lamentations, spoken from inside the destroyed city, keeps the Torah’s metaphor of children as fruit:

רְאֵה ה׳ וְהַבִּיטָה לְמִי עוֹלַלְתָּ כֹּה אִם־תֹּאכַלְנָה נָשִׁים פִּרְיָם עֹלְלֵי טִפֻּחִים אִם־יֵהָרֵג בְּמִקְדַּשׁ ה׳ כֹּהֵן וְנָבִיא׃

“See, Lord, and behold: to whom have You done this? Shall women eat their fruit, the children they have nurtured? Shall priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?” (Lamentations 2:20).

Two chapters later, the question receives its answer:

יְדֵי נָשִׁים רַחֲמָנִיּוֹת בִּשְּׁלוּ יַלְדֵיהֶן הָיוּ לְבָרוֹת לָמוֹ בְּשֶׁבֶר בַּת־עַמִּי׃

“The hands of compassionate women cooked their children; they became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people” (Lamentations 4:10).

In other words, the conditions described under siege - as punishment - are already anticipated as self-induced postures, without any theological intervention, as an expression of moral degradation.

This brings us to a problem hidden inside Ki Tavo’s description of the man. The verse calls him הָרַךְ (ha-rakh), “the soft one,” immediately before describing behavior of almost unimaginable hardness. His eye turns against his brother, wife, and children; he refuses them food; he eats his children and will not share their flesh. In what sense is such a person “soft”?

One obvious answer is that רַךְ (rakh) simply means “soft” or physically delicate. The verse does, after all, continue with וְהֶעָנֹג מְאֹד (ve-he’anog me’od), “the very pampered one.” On that reading, the Torah piles up two descriptions of bodily refinement before showing how hunger degrades even the most fastidious person.

Kli Yakar thinks that this leaves something unexplained. If רַךְ (rakh, “soft”) and עָנֹג (anog, “pampered” or “delicate”) both describe the same physical refinement, why does the Torah separate them with the word בְּךָ (bekha), “among you” or, more literally here, “toward you”? We might have expected הָאִישׁ הָרַךְ וְהֶעָנֹג בְּךָ (ha-ish ha-rakh ve-he’anog bekha), “the tender and delicate man among you.” Instead, the verse says הָאִישׁ הָרַךְ בְּךָ וְהֶעָנֹג מְאֹד (ha-ish ha-rakh bekha ve-he’anog me’od): literally, “the man who is soft toward you, and who is very pampered.” The odd placement allows Kli Yakar to hear two different qualities.

The second quality, עָנֹג (anog), “pampered,” describes how the man ordinarily treats his own body: he is accustomed to comfort and refined food. But the first quality, רַךְ בְּךָ (rakh bekha), “soft toward you,” describes how he ordinarily treats other Israelites. He is merciful and openhearted toward other people. Kli Yakar explains:

כִּי מִי שֶׁהוּא רַחֲמָן בְּטֶּבַע יֵשׁ לוֹ לֵב רַךְ וְלֹא יְאַמֵּץ לְבָבוֹ.

Ki mi she-hu rachaman ba-teva, yesh lo lev rakh ve-lo ye’ametz levavo.

“One who is compassionate by nature has a soft heart and does not harden his heart” (Kli Yakar on Deuteronomy 28:54).

The phrase לֹא יְאַמֵּץ לְבָבוֹ (lo ye’ametz levavo), “does not harden his heart,” takes us directly back to the charity law: לֹא תְאַמֵּץ אֶת־לְבָבְךָ (lo te’ametz et levavekha), “do not harden your heart” against your needy brother (Deuteronomy 15:7). Kli Yakar is therefore confirming the connection already suggested by the repeated language of the evil eye, the brother, and the refusal to give. He reads the “soft man” of chapter 28 as precisely the kind of person chapter 15 wanted Israel to create: someone whose heart remains tender when another person lacks.

That identification makes the curse more terrible. Kli Yakar describes this man, before the siege transforms him, as טוֹב עַיִן וְלִבּוֹ רַךְ לְרַחֵם (tov ayin ve-libo rakh le-rachem), “good-eyed, with a heart soft enough to show compassion.” He was capable of mercy even toward Israelites who were socially distant from him. Under siege, however, וְעַכְשָׁיו תֵּרַע עֵינוֹ אֲפִלּוּ בְּאָחִיו (ve-akhshav tera eino afilu be-achiv), “now his eye turns evil even toward his brother.” The movement is from the distant Israelite to the brother, and then from the brother to the wife and children. His circle of moral concern contracts until no one remains inside it but himself.

We can now see why the Torah needs both adjectives. רַךְ (rakh), “soft,” names moral tenderness: the heart that opens toward another person’s need. עָנֹג (anog), “pampered,” names bodily delicacy: the protected life accustomed to comfort. The curse separates what prosperity had allowed to coexist. The man remains exquisitely sensitive to his own discomfort while becoming insensible to everyone else’s suffering. His body is still tender; his heart no longer is.

That is the connection between Kli Yakar and the woman’s foot. Her untrodden sole represents bodily delicacy at its most extreme. Deuteronomy’s charity law represents tenderness of heart. Under siege, the first remains as memory while the second disappears. A sole that has never touched the ground also records a life carried by other people: farmers, porters, servants, merchants, roads, and markets. Marta’s tragedy is that she discovers this supporting world only at the moment of its death, when gold can no longer be converted into barley and the street she never walked has nothing left to give her.

This is why the image of the woman’s footsole is so alluring. A sole that has never touched the ground records a life carried by other people: farmers, porters, servants, merchants, roads, and markets. Marta’s tragedy is that she discovers this supporting world only at the moment of its death, when gold can no longer be converted into barley and the street she never walked has nothing left to give her.

The curse also repeats the cast of an earlier law. Deuteronomy 13 warns that even one’s most beloved relative may secretly entice a person to worship other gods:

כִּי יְסִיתְךָ אָחִיךָ בֶן־אִמֶּךָ אוֹ־בִנְךָ אוֹ־בִתְּךָ אוֹ אֵשֶׁת חֵיקֶךָ אוֹ רֵעֲךָ אֲשֶׁר כְּנַפְשְׁךָ בַּסֵּתֶר לֵאמֹר נֵלְכָה וְנַעַבְדָה אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא יָדַעְתָּ אַתָּה וַאֲבֹתֶיךָ׃

“If your brother, your mother’s son, or your son, your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods,’ whom neither you nor your ancestors have known” (Deuteronomy 13:7).

Brother, son, daughter, spouse of the bosom, secrecy: Ki Tavo reassembles the same list. In Deuteronomy 13, the family is dangerous because its love is almost irresistible. In Deuteronomy 28, that gravitational field is gone. No one must be warned against being swayed by a spouse who has become a rival for food. Onkelos sharpens the loss by translating the spouse of the bosom as אִתַּת קְיָמֵיהּ (ittat keyameih), “the wife of his covenant,” and גְּבַר קְיָמַהּ (gevar keyamah), “the man of her covenant” (Onkelos on Deuteronomy 28:54; 28:56). The national covenant does not collapse somewhere above the household. The household is where it collapses, marriage by marriage and meal by meal.

The Netziv asks why Deuteronomy 28:57 insists upon the moment of birth itself: the afterbirth emerging, the children אֲשֶׁר תֵּלֵד (asher teled), “whom she bears.” He answers that attachment to a child is naturally strongest at birth. To make the point, he cites Isaiah’s words of comfort to Zion, who fears that God has abandoned her:

הֲתִשְׁכַּח אִשָּׁה עוּלָהּ מֵרַחֵם בֶּן־בִּטְנָהּ גַּם־אֵלֶּה תִשְׁכַּחְנָה וְאָנֹכִי לֹא אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ׃ הֵן עַל־כַּפַּיִם חַקֹּתִיךְ חוֹמֹתַיִךְ נֶגְדִּי תָּמִיד׃

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, cease to have compassion for the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you upon My palms; your walls are always before Me” (Isaiah 49:15–16).

Hebrew keeps womb and mercy in one root: רֶחֶם (rechem), “womb,” and רַחֲמִים (rachamim), “compassion.” The Netziv reads מֵרַחֵם (me-rachem), “from having compassion,” as language of clinging and intense love (Haamek Davar on Deuteronomy 28:57). The curse places the evil eye at the moment when maternal attachment should be at its height. Biology continues; recognition stops. The womb still produces a child. It no longer produces a claim.

Isaiah’s answer then repairs Ki Tavo’s ruined images. The hand closed against the brother becomes a divine palm with Zion engraved upon it. The forgotten child becomes a city God cannot forget. The fallen walls stand permanently in God’s sight. Isaiah does not deny that human attachment can fail under catastrophe; the siege narratives stand behind his consolation. He asserts that divine covenant survives that failure.

Maimonides adds a complication. In the Guide for the Perplexed, he cites the phrase לֹא נִסְּתָה כַף רַגְלָהּ (lo nissetah kaf raglah), “the sole of her foot had never ventured,” to explain נִסָּיוֹן (nisayon), “trial,” as habituation or training. He is discussing why Israel endured hardship in the wilderness. The relevant verse recalls that God fed Israel manna in a place without ordinary agriculture:

הַמַּאֲכִלְךָ מָן בַּמִּדְבָּר אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יָדְעוּן אֲבֹתֶיךָ לְמַעַן עַנֹּתְךָ וּלְמַעַן נַסֹּתֶךָ לְהֵיטִבְךָ בְּאַחֲרִיתֶךָ׃

“He fed you manna in the wilderness, which your ancestors did not know, in order to humble you and habituate you, to benefit you in the end” (Deuteronomy 8:16, following Rambam’s interpretation in Guide for the Perplexed III:24).

For Rambam, the delicate woman’s foot is untrained; the wilderness trained Israel for endurance and courage. But if hardship can educate, why does the siege dissolve Jerusalem rather than strengthen it?

The two hungers operate by opposite rules. In the wilderness, Moses tells Israel not to hoard manna:

וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֲלֵהֶם אִישׁ אַל־יוֹתֵר מִמֶּנּוּ עַד־בֹּקֶר׃ וְלֹא־שָׁמְעוּ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וַיּוֹתִרוּ אֲנָשִׁים מִמֶּנּוּ עַד־בֹּקֶר וַיָּרֻם תּוֹלָעִים וַיִּבְאַשׁ וַיִּקְצֹף עֲלֵהֶם מֹשֶׁה׃

“Moses said to them, ‘Let no person leave any of it until morning.’ But they did not listen to Moses; some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank, and Moses became angry with them” (Exodus 16:19–20).

In the wilderness, hoarding fails and each household gathers what it needs. Dependence is disciplined into trust. In the besieged city, hoarding becomes the social order; each person conceals what remains, and dependence curdles into suspicion. The wilderness is exposed and becomes habitable. The city is fortified and becomes uninhabitable. Hardship educates or destroys according to the covenantal form through which it is lived.

The widow of Tzarephath stands where the mother of Ki Tavo stands and walks the other way. During a drought, the prophet Elijah asks this non-Israelite widow for bread. She explains that she possesses only enough flour and oil for one last meal:

וַתֹּאמֶר חַי־ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אִם־יֶשׁ־לִי מָעוֹג כִּי אִם־מְלֹא כַף־קֶמַח בַּכַּד וּמְעַט־שֶׁמֶן בַּצַּפָּחַת וְהִנְנִי מְקֹשֶׁשֶׂת שְׁנַיִם עֵצִים וּבָאתִי וַעֲשִׂיתִיהוּ לִי וְלִבְנִי וַאֲכַלְנֻהוּ וָמָתְנוּ׃

“She said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I have no baked bread, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a flask. I am gathering two sticks so that I may go prepare it for myself and my son; we will eat it and die’” (I Kings 17:12).

She nevertheless shares her food with Elijah. The narrative later records:

כַּד הַקֶּמַח לֹא כָלָתָה וְצַפַּחַת הַשֶּׁמֶן לֹא חָסֵר כִּדְבַר ה׳ אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר בְּיַד אֵלִיָּהוּ׃

“The jar of flour was not exhausted, and the flask of oil did not lack, according to the word of the Lord spoken through Elijah” (I Kings 17:16).

Ki Tavo calls the siege חֹסֶר־כֹּל (choser kol), “utter lack” (Deuteronomy 28:57). The charity law commands a person to provide דֵּי מַחְסֹרוֹ אֲשֶׁר יֶחְסַר לוֹ (dei machsoro asher yechsar lo), “enough for whatever he lacks” (Deuteronomy 15:8). The family that hoards its last food arrives at total lack. The widow who gives from her last food discovers that the jar does not lack. The story offers no arithmetic by which generosity manufactures flour. It records something prior to arithmetic: her handful remains food for persons and never becomes a store to be defended against them.

This returns us to the walls. The full verse describes the enemy besieging every settlement until the walls in which Israel trusted come down:

וְהֵצַר לְךָ בְּכָל־שְׁעָרֶיךָ עַד רֶדֶת חֹמֹתֶיךָ הַגְּבֹהֹת וְהַבְּצֻרוֹת אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה בֹּטֵחַ בָּהֵן בְּכָל־אַרְצֶךָ וְהֵצַר לְךָ בְּכָל־שְׁעָרֶיךָ בְּכָל־אַרְצְךָ אֲשֶׁר נָתַן ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ לָךְ׃

“It will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout your land. It will besiege you in every gate throughout the land that the Lord your God gave you” (Deuteronomy 28:52).

Shadal comments that the walls may “come down” figuratively when the inhabitants can no longer bear the siege and surrender (Shadal on Deuteronomy 28:52). The stones need not be breached first. A wall is already down when the life behind it can no longer hold together: food moving between households, neighbors trusting one another with their hunger, and the conviction that survival remains a shared project. Each is a form of the open hand. When the hands close, the enemy outside has little left to do.

Noah’s Flood ended with a leaf in a dove’s mouth, news that the ground could feed its creatures again and a foot could finally come down. Ki Tavo describes a flood that needs no water. The streets remain dry and the walls stand, for a while, but the earth becomes uninhabitable because inside the enclosure one has already become indifferent to the plight of one’s fellow.

Zohar (Etz Hasadeh)

P.S.- you can delve deeper into this essay w/ Yochai, your AI Torah learning companion, here.