A Roman official named Hadrakitilios wrote a letter to the Emperor Hadrian about the Jews. "Your Majesty evidently hates the Jews," Hadrakitilios wrote, "because they refuse to conform. They do not circumcise themselves like the Saracens, nor do they observe the Sabbath like the Samaritans. They insist on being different from everyone."
Hadrakitilios intended the letter as mockery — pointing out that the Jews were peculiar, stubborn, impossible to assimilate. But Hadrian's response was not what anyone expected.
The Emperor wrote back: "Let the God of the Jews be revenged on this man." Not on the Jews — on Hadrakitilios himself. Hadrian, whatever his other feelings about Jews, recognized that mocking another people's God was dangerous business. The divine was not to be trifled with, regardless of which nation claimed it.
From that moment, everything went wrong for Hadrakitilios. His enterprises failed. His wife's business ventures collapsed. Nothing he touched prospered. The curse he had drawn upon himself by mocking the God of Israel followed him everywhere.
In the end, Hadrian showed him a grim mercy. "Since your life has become nothing but misery," the Emperor said, "death is a kindness." Hadrakitilios was executed — not as punishment for a crime, but as a release from the curse he had brought upon himself.
The sages preserved this story as a warning: even the mighty Romans knew better than to mock another people's God. The person who ridicules what others hold sacred invites a reckoning that no earthly power can deflect. Hadrian understood this. Hadrakitilios learned it too late.