So how do you create monumental Iron Age architecture without axes, hammers or iron tools? Yes, it could just mean that the milling happened at the quarry, many miles away where the ringing and clanging would not bother anybody. But that's too easy an answer for us Jews. Instead, our midrash, our vast array of legend, goes wild here. How did whole stones come to be so regular and perfectly shaped if iron chisels were forbidden? How were they transported if iron crowbars couldn't pry them onto wagons? One midrash suggests that the stones, once uncovered in the quarry, perfectly shaped, would hoist themselves up in the air and levitate to Jerusalem.

We are living in dark times. I know this because people are saying it to me all the time. We are living in dark times. We reach for that metaphor because we are frightened and we need big language. "Dark times" has a pageantry, an epicness to it. Yes, children, gather round and Grandpa Irwin will tell you about the Dark Times.