Blurs

  There was supposedly a creature so small that it could be carried in a container of barley bran. Yet according to an ancient Jewish tradition, its power was extraordinary. Place the creature against stone and the stone would split. Set it against iron and iron could be broken. Even the hardest materials were said to be vulnerable to it. Its name was the Shamir. According to later rabbinic tradition, King Solomon sought the Shamir because he faced an unusual problem while constructing the First Temple in Jerusalem: the sacred building was not supposed to be prepared using conventional iron tools. The solution was stranger than the problem. Solomon would need a mysterious substance or creature whose ability to cut stone seemed to belong more to magic than engineering. And to obtain it, according to one of the most extraordinary stories in the Talmud, he would have to deal with demons, a powerful demon king and a bird entrusted with protecting the Shamir. The Temple That Could Not B...