כי אתא לקמיה דרבי יוחנן אמר ליה מאי טעמא לא תימא ליה מהא (שיר השירים ח, י) אני חומה ושדי כמגדלות אני חומה זו תורה ושדי כמגדלות
and that they are more in number than the sand? Seeing that of the whole of Israel it is written that they shall be like the sand on the sea shore,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Gen. XXII, 17.
');"><sup>25</sup></span> how can the righteous alone be more than the sand? — What the verse means, however, is I shall count the deeds of the righteous and they will be more in number than the sand. If then the sand which is the lesser quantity protects [the land] against the sea, how much more must the deeds of the righteous, which are a larger quantity, protect them? When Resh Lakish came before R. Johanan, the latter said to him: Why did you not derive the lesson from this verse, I am a wall and my breasts are like towers,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Cant. VIII, 10. ');"><sup>26</sup></span> where 'I am a wall' refers to the Torah, and 'my breasts are like towers'
Tosafot on Bava Batra
They collect according to the wealth of each individual: Since there is no life-threatening danger, we do not assess according to wealth. And this is also true in the last chapter of Bava Kamma (116b): A caravan traveling in the desert, and a troop of bandits stood over it, we assess according to wealth, for there is not danger to life since in the troop is attacking only for money. And even though it says in Sanhedrin (72a) that a tunneling thief is judged according to his end. And Rava explains that this is because there is an assumption that a person would not stand by idly while his money is threatened [and therefore, the fact that the homeowner would defend himself will lead the thief to respond with violence...thus a thief coming to steal money is prepared to act violently] even so, we assess [the caravan attacked by bandits] according to wealth, sinc the bandits only want to seize money, and if the caravan does not defend itself, they bandits will not physically harm them. Therefore, this is not considered a situation of danger. But in the case of bandits, if the caravan comes to terms with them, the amount is assessed by wealth. But when people get lost in the wilderness, it says there that the assessment is per capita, since when people get lost, there is danger to life.
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