#midrash

Shelomo HaMelech needed to build the Temple from whole stones, without using iron to cut it. Which is kind of hard to do. So he asked the Sages of his time and they told him that Moshe Rabbenu used a special creature called the Shamir to carve the names of the Tribes of Israel into the gems used in the clothes of the High Priest, Kohen Gadol. Well then, asked Shelomo, how might I find this Shamir? Well, the sages didn't know, so they suggested he get a Shed and a Shidtin (like a Shed, but female. Something like a demon and a she demon) and force them to tell him. He did so, and they told Shelomo that they have no idea, they swear! But the king of the Shedim, Ashmedai, might have some idea! He lives on that one mountain, where he has a well of water covered by a huge stone that he moves, has a drink, then returns. And every day he flies to the heavens to study at Metivta Dirki‘a (the learning place of the heavens, roughly translated), then flies back to earth to study in Metivta De’Ar‘a, and goes back to his mountain to have a drink of fresh water.

So, Shelomo leaves the Shedim be and calls his special ops guy, his right hand man, the chief of his army: Bnayahu ben Yehoyada, one of the elite fighters of David HaMelech. He hands Bnayahu chains and a lock with G-d's name written on it, a bunch of wool and some wine. And armed with that, Bnayahu heads off to that one mountain.

In the mountain, Bnayahu does something kind of clever that was likely Shelomo's intention: he digs a pit downhill from Ashmedai's well and empties the water there, closing the whole with the wool; he then digs another pit uphill of Ashmedai's well and fills it with wine. Then he hides all traces of what he just did and goes hide in a tree. Ashmedai, upon returning, isn't actually that easily tricked. He knows it's wine, he can smell it, and so he quotes a few verses about how drinking wine is bad and refuses to drink. But then he becomes way too thirsty, gives in, drinks and falls asleep. Which is just the opportunity Bnayahu needs, as he heads down and immediately binds Ashmedai in the aforementioned chains. When Ashmedai wakes he immediately tries to break the chains. However, Bnayahu tells him: the name of your Lord is on you! Which Shedim can't erase. So he stops.

On the way back to Jerusalem, though, Ashmedai acts a bit weird. He scratches against a palm tree and makes it fall, then did the same to a house and was just about to do it to the hut of some widow. Bnayahu begged him not to, though, so he bent down and broke a bone. For some reason.

Next, they see a blind man straying from the route and Ashmedai guides him back to it. Then they see a drunk guy, to whom Ashmedai also helps. They saw a wedding celebration - and Ashmedai cried. They saw a guy asking the shoemaker for shoes that'll last seven years - and Ashmedai laughed. Then they saw a man conducting magic and Ashmedai laughed. What the hell is up with all that? Just wait, Bnayahu will ask Ashmedai about it later.

Next, Ashmedai is being ghosted by Shelomo for three days - you know, Shelomo, the guy who sent for him? Yeah. So Ashmedai asks, hey, why doesn't the king see me already? And he's told that oh, he drunk too much. So he puts two bricks on each other, and when Shelomo is told of that he tells his guards to supply the prisoner with more drink. But then Shelomo still doesn't see him, so Ashmedai asks what's up with it this time and is told he ate too much. So Ashmedai takes a brick off a brick, and Shelomo commands they bring him less food.

Anyway, three days have passed and Shelomo finally deigns to attend. Ashmedai throws a four cubits long (around six feet) reed, telling him: you'll have nothing more than these four cubits in the end, well now you conquered the whole world, that wasn't enough for you so you had to conquer me? So Shelomo tells him, oh, no, I only want the Shamir, I need it to build the Temple. Well, says Ashmedai, I don't have it. The Minister of the Sea does, and he only gives it to the Wild Cock (possibly hoopoe. Also, I know tumblr so I know where your mind will go, but "wild chicken" just doesn't work for me) because he trusts him to keep his word. Shelomo, incredulous, asks what the Wild Cock needs the Shamir for. Well, Ashmedai replies, he goes to mountains where no trees grow and uses the Shamir to split them and create fertile land where he can live. Al right then! So this is another quest for the special ops guy, the right hand man-

"Fine, I get it, I'll go." Says Bnayahu, and off he heads to the nest of the Wild Cock, along with a board of glass. You see, the Wild Cock has some chicks in his nest fpr whom he cares. So Bnayahu covers the nest with white glass. The Wild Cock, not knowing how to shatter it, heads off to the Minister of the Sea, borrows the Shamir to use it to split the glass- at which point Bnayahu makes an alarming sound, causing the Wild Cock to drop the Shamir and snatches it. Well, the Wild Cock cannot break his oath, so he- well. He commits suicide. This guy takes his oaths rather seriously. You'd think the Minister of the Sea will come back at some point, but no. Shelomo does get comeuppance for his pride in a bit, but not from the Minister of the Sea. Figures.

Anyway, Bnayahu is at the end of his spec ops missions for this story, so he stops by Ashmedai to ask what the deal of all the weird stuff he did earlier. By order, Ashmedai answers:

Why did he help the blind guy? Because they declared in the heavens he's perfectly righteous and whoever helps him will get a part in the world to come. What about the drunkard? Oh, well, it was declared in the heavens he's nearly completely evil and I helped him so he'll get all the reward he deserves in this world. So apparently Ashmedai isn't just a nice guy, maybe we should've figured that from the "demon" part.

Well, then why did he cry about the wedding? Ashmedai replies that the husband is to die in thirty days, and his wife will stay unable to marry for thirteen years because he has a little brother, abd such a case means she would require Yibum (marrying her late husband's brother) or Chalitzah, which still requires her brother in law to be an adult. Well, what about the guy with the shoes that'll last seven years? Yeah, he doesn't even have a week in this world. Fine, and the wizard? Well, that guy was using magic to find treasure in the other side of the world. And... Well... He literally had a kingly treasure right beneath his feet. Congrats on the epic fail and all that.

And then nobody talks to Ashmedai until the Temple is built. He's just... left there, bound with chains with G-d's name on them, doing nothing. And remember, this guy is the king of the Shedim/demons. I suppose Shelomo usurped him at this point. Fun stuff, because... You'll see.

So, after all of it is done, Shelomo comes to visit Ashmedai. And he's like, hey, it's said Shedim are one of the things G-d prides about alongside angels, in what way are you better than us? (Because he wasn't there for the palm tree incident.) So Ashmedai, kind of sick of all this, tells him: "free me from the chains and give me your ring and I'll show you." And, just to make it clear, they're alone.

So, well, Shelomo sees no issue with that (for some reason) and frees the King of Demons from his chains, giving him his ring. The the ring goes immediately into Ashmedai's throat and Shelomo is tossed 3200000 cubits away. Which is somewhere in the range of 1600 kilometers. Unrealistic yes, but we are talking about Shedim here so let's not nitpick things. Anyway, Ashmedai wears the form of Shelomo and becomes king in his place.

Now, it's important to note that this whole story is dotted with verses from two of Shelomo's famous books: Mishley (Proverbs) and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). Remember the make and female Shedim from the start? They come from Kohelet 2, 8. Ashmedai not wanting to drink wine? He quotes Mishley 20, 1 (and also Hoshea 4, 11, but that's a bit too weird because it very much wasn't written yet). The broken bone incident? Ashmedai immediately quotes Mishley 25, 15 to explain he broke his bone because he was willing to listen to what he was asked. Other two quotes include the Aramaic translation of Vayikra (Leviticus) 11, 19 in relation to the Wild Cock, where he's referred to as "Negar Tura", possibly meaning "breaker of mountains" or something, and right before Ashmedai tosses Shelomo out from Bemidbar (Numbers) 24, 8: "E-l Motzi’am MiMitzrayim KeTo‘afot Re’em lo", which is a praise of G-d from Bil‘am IIRC that say G-d has something like the horns of a Re’em. The To‘afot part, which sounds similar to the Hebrew word for flight, is interpreted by Shelomo to refer to angels instead of horns, abd the Re’em part refers to Shedim. But I'm saying all that because now the verse quoted is from Kohelet 1, 12. Well, in addition to two others referring to Shelomo's reward for all his work being his deposal from the throne. But 1 12 is specifically relevant, because he says there "I, Kohelet, was King over Israel in Jerusalem". Which is part of the reason the Talmud even has this story: because "was" indicates he's not king anymore while writing this. Also, the whole foreign worship thing at the end of Shelomo's reign kind of sounded wrong to them.

Anyway, after some time of having this madman go through the streets claiming to be Shelomo, the Sages say, hey. You know, madmen don't hold to one specific delusion all the time, consistently (no, they weren't psychiatrists don't trust that it's accurate). So they go tell Bnayahu, hey, did the king call you lately as his special ops guy, right hand-

"You know what, no. It has been blissfully quiet lately!" Replies Bnayahu. Well, they all agree this is worrying, so they send messengers to the king's wives to ask them what's up, and if the king is, ahem, meeting them. Apparently the answer is yes! So the Sages ask them to check his feet. And so it is found out that not only the king sleeps with his wives with shoes on for some reason, he also sleeps with them when they have their periods - which, beyond being not very nice, is prohibited according to the Torah - and asked to sleep with his own mother. So something is up. Thus, Shelomo - the real one - is brought to the palace with the chains. The chains, you know? The ones with the name of G-d on them? But Ashmedai isn't going to get captured a second time, so he flies away. The end.

Well. Except for one thing: Shelomo remains thoroughly traumatized from the whole deal. He keeps sixty guards around his bed at night for fear of Ashmedai coming back, as is said in Shelomo's third book, Shir HaShirim (the Songs of Solomon) 3, 7-8: "there, see Shelomo's bed, there are sixty mighty men around it, of the mightiest of Israel. They all know the sword and are proficient warriors, and each keeps his sword my his side for nightly fears."

הִנֵּ֗ה מִטָּתוֹ֙ שֶׁלִּשְׁלֹמֹ֔ה שִׁשִּׁ֥ים גִּבֹּרִ֖ים סָבִ֣יב לָ֑הּ מִגִּבֹּרֵ֖י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ כֻּלָּם֙ אֲחֻ֣זֵי חֶ֔רֶב מְלֻמְּדֵ֖י מִלְחָמָ֑ה אִ֤ישׁ חַרְבּוֹ֙ עַל־יְרֵכ֔וֹ מִפַּ֖חַד בַּלֵּילֽוֹת׃

Question: How can Potiphar be a eunuch if he’s married to a woman? That doesn’t make any sense!

A midrash: Oh, it’s because Potiphar did have a manhood, but when he bought Joseph as his slave, he intended to buy him as his sex slave. But before he could touch the 17-year-old, an angel came and cut off his manhood! And that’s why Potiphar is a eunuch yet married to a woman!

by Joshua Hoffman

The Torah isn’t a history book, a physics book, or a storybook.

It is torat chaim — literally “instructions for living” in Hebrew.

“The more Torah you know,” said the late, great Rabbi Noah Weinberg, “the more fulfilled you become. Every word, every phrase contains a message for how to maximize pleasure in life. Look for the deeper message — the wisdom within — and you will reap immense rewards.”1

In the Torah, the basics are laid out in writing, but the rest must be learned orally, know as the Mishnah.

“When an engineer has a problem, he looks up logarithm tables. A lawyer refers to case studies. A doctor has medical journals,” said Rabbi Weinberg. “A Jew has the Mishnah.”

The Mishnah refers to the later works of the rabbinic period — most prominently the Mishnah and the Gemara, jointly known as the Talmud — which explain and expound upon the statutes recorded in the Written Torah.

So, how much do you really know about the Torah?

Enjoy these five surprising facts:

1) Four Levels of Understanding

Rabbi Noah Weinberg once said that a single word in Torah can yield multi-layered understandings — “if you know how to apply the right tools.” This isn’t metaphor. It’s methodology.

The Torah is written in a code, not a secret one, but a multi-dimensional one. Jewish tradition teaches that the Torah operates on four primary interpretive levels:

P’shat (פשט): The simple, literal meaning of the text. What is the Torah saying at face value? This is the level explained by commentators like Rashi, who wrote in 12th-century France but saw his work as clarifying what the Torah meant all along.

Drush (דרש): The homiletic level, found in Midrash and Talmud. It explores how verses teach moral, ethical, or spiritual lessons — often reading between the lines to discover deeper patterns.

Remez (רמז): Literally “hint.” This level uncovers subtler meanings — using Hebrew wordplay, gematria (numerical values), or alternate pronunciations to surface ideas hidden in plain sight. One reason the Torah scroll has no vowels or punctuation is to make these alternate readings possible.

Sod (סוד): The secret, mystical level. This is the realm of Kabbalah, of the Zohar, of cosmic structures and divine energies encoded in the language of the Torah itself. It doesn’t contradict the other layers — it reveals what they were whispering all along.

Together, these four levels form the acronym PaRDeS (פרדס) — which means “orchard” in Hebrew.

It’s a stunning metaphor. The Torah is not a textbook. It’s an orchard, a place of sweetness, beauty, shade, and sustenance. But like any orchard, you don’t get the fruit unless you’re willing to walk through it, get your hands dirty, and reach.