There was once a custom in a Jewish town that newlyweds were greeted with a hen and a rooster, symbols of fruitfulness. One day Roman soldiers marched through the town, saw the birds, and ate them. The Jews, outraged at the insult to the ritual, rose up and attacked the soldiers. Rome read this as rebellion and dispatched an army.
The Jewish defense was led by a man named Bar Deroa, whose strength was said to be so great that he could leap a Roman mile in a single bound and strike down enemies along the whole length of his jump. Legionaries fell before him. The Roman emperor, watching his forces vanish, prayed in his desperation, “Let me not be delivered into the power of one man.”
For a while, Bar Deroa seemed invincible. But in the heat of one battle, he lost his footing and lost his mouth. He shouted, “God has forgotten us.”
The words had barely left his lips before a snake slid out of a crevice and bit him on the ankle. He died where he fell. The emperor, hearing of it, raised the siege and withdrew.
The town rejoiced and lit lamps in celebration. The Romans, seeing the illumination from a distance, read it once more as rebellion, returned, and destroyed everything. The town was so vast that the massacre was still underway in one quarter while citizens in the opposite quarter still feasted, unaware.
The rabbis preserved the story as a warning. The strongest warrior in Israel fell the moment he forgot who was holding him up. And the joy of victory, expressed without wisdom, became the signal for ruin.