Talmud
Gittin (plural of “Get,” or writ of divorce) is a tractate in Seder Nashim (“Order of Women,” which addresses family law). Its nine chapters primarily discuss the process of writing and transmitting a get. Also included in the tractate are sections about tikkun ha’olam, or enactments instituted by the sages for the betterment of the world, stories about the destruction of the Temple, and discussions of medical advice.
Composed: Talmudic Babylon (c.450 – c.550 CE)נוצר/נערך: בבל התלמודית (450 – 550 לספירה בקירוב)
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CREATION ON THE EVE OF THE SABBATH [21A. i.]
TEN things were created (on the eve of the Sabbath) in the twilight (namely): the mouth of the earth; the mouth of the well; the mouth of the ass; the rainbow; the Manna; the Shamir; the shape of the alphabet; the writing and the tables (of the law); and the ram of Abraham. (Some sages say: the destroying spirits also, and the sepulchre of Moses, and the ram of Isaac; and other sages say: the tongs also.)
The Master said: Here they interpreted it: Male demons and female demons. The Gemara asks: Why was it necessary for Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, to have male demons and female demons? The Gemara answers: As it is written with regard to the building of the Temple: “For the house, when it was being built, was built of stone made ready at the quarry; and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was being built” (I Kings 6:7). Solomon said to the sages: How shall I make it so that the stone will be precisely cut without using iron? They said to him: There is a creature called a shamir that can cut the stones, which Moses brought and used to cut the stones of the ephod.
According to the אַשְמְדּאָי Ashmedai legend from the Talmud (Tractate Gittin 68a-b), the location of the Shamir was told to King Solomon by Asmodeus, who Solomon captured. Asmodeus was captured by Benaiah ben Jehoiada,[4] who captured the demon king by pouring wine into Asmodeus' well, making him drunk, and wrapping him in chains that were engraved with a sacred name of God. Once captured, אַשְמְדּאָי is brought to Solomon in Jerusalem, where אַשְמְדּאָי informs Solomon that the Shamir was not given to him, but to רַהַב, the angel/dragon/Leviatan of the sea. [7][8] The angel of the sea had then given the Shamir to a bird, identified by the Talmud as the דּוּכִיפַת, who had been using the Shamir to split rocks to build its nests. (The wood-grouse bird used the shamir to cleave bare rocks so that he might plant seeds of trees in them and thus cause new vegetation to spring up; hence the bird was called the "rock-splitter".) The Shamir is then retrieved by placing glass over the Hoopoe's nest, forcing the bird to use the Shamir to break through the glass.[9]
Solomon said to them: Where is Ashmedai? They said to him: He is on such-and-such a mountain. He has dug a pit for himself there, and filled it with water, and covered it with a rock, and sealed it with his seal. And every day he ascends to Heaven and studies in the heavenly study hall and he descends to the earth and studies in the earthly study hall. And he comes and checks his seal to ensure that nobody has entered his pit, and then he uncovers it and drinks from the water in the pit. And then he covers it and seals it again and goes.
At the end of three days Ashmedai came before Solomon. Ashmedai took a reed and measured four cubits [garmidei], and threw it before him. He said to Solomon: See, when that man, Solomon, dies, he will have nothing in this world except the four cubits of his grave. Now you have conquered the entire world and yet you are not satisfied until you also conquer me?
§ The Gemara returns to the discussion concerning the different remedies with which the chapter began: As a remedy for a headache caused by excessive blood in the head, let him bring cypress [shurvina], willow, fresh myrtle [asa dara], olive, poplar, sea willow, and cynodon grass and boil them together. And he should pour three hundred cups of this liquid on one side of his head and three hundred cups on this, the other side of his head.
From the time that the Temple was destroyed, the shamir ceased to exist, as well as the "sweetness of the honeycomb" (Ps. 19:11). Said Rabbi Yehuda, what was this "shamir"? It was created on the sixth day of creation. When it is placed on top of stones, [or] on top of beams, cuts them opens as though they are two boards of a writing tablet, and not only that, but when it is placed on top of iron, it would split it open from top to bottom (בוקע ויורד), and there was nothing that could withstand it. How did they do it (i.e., restrain it)? They would bind it up in a soft woolen cloth, and place it inside a lead cylinder filled with bran flour. And with it Solomon built the Holy Temple, as it is said (1 Kings 6:7, JPS Tr.), "When the House was built, only finished stones cut at the quarry were used, so that no hammer or ax or any iron tool was heard in the House while it was being built." [These are] the words of Rabbi Yehuda. Rabbi Nehemiah says, they were sawed with saws from the outside, as it is said, (1 Kings 7:9, see Steinsaltz tr.), "All these were costly stones, according to the measures of hewn stones, sawed with saws, from inside (מבית) to outside." What does "from inside to outside" come to teach? That in the Temple they were not heard; rather, they prepared it from the outside and they brought it inside. Said Rebbi, the words of Rabbi Yehuda are preferable to me as to the stones of the Temple, and the words of Rabbi Nehemiah as to the stones of his, (i.e., Solomon's) house (בית).