העורך Editor

‘I Hates the gLoRiOuS Union. ’Tis Drippin’ With Our Blood!’

For education and satirical purposes only, of course:

Listen here (the intros end at ~3:00):

The lyrics (unedited, courtesy of Wikipedia; doesn’t match perfectly):

O I’m a good old rebel,
Now that’s just what I am.
For this “fair land of freedom”
I do not care a damn.
I’m glad I fought against it,
I only wish we’d won,
And I don’t want no pardon
For anything I done.

I hates the Constitution,
This great republic too,
I hates the Freedmans’ Buro,
In uniforms of blue.
I hates the nasty eagle,
With all his braggs and fuss,
The lyin’ thievin’ Yankees,
I hates ’em wuss and wuss.

I hates the Yankees nation
And everything they do,
I hates the Declaration,
Of Independence, too.
I hates the glorious Union-
‘Tis dripping with our blood-
I hates their striped banner,
I fought it all I could

I rode with Robert E. Lee,
For three year near about,
Got wounded in four places
And starved at Point Lookout
I caught the rheumatism
A’ campin’ in the snow,
But I killed a chance o’ Yankees
I’d like to kill some mo’.

Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in Southern dust,
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever
And Southern steel and shot,
I wish they was three million
Instead of what we got.

I can’t take up my musket
And fight ’em now no more,
But I ain’t going to love ’em,
Now that is sarten sure,
And I don’t want no pardon
For what I was and am.
I won’t be reconstructed,
And I don’t care a damn.

P.S., You may want to save this one to your computer.

Rhetorical Footnote Regarding Temple Mount Measurements

I was just speaking with an antagonist about measuring the Temple Mount’s boundaries, a question of obvious vital significance.

Unlike regular Torah discussions, basic respect from our interlocutors is too much to expect. I started off with a certain calculation, and the response was an immediate attack, that this was utterly ridiculous, and either didn’t match the map or didn’t add up to what Chazal say, etc. etc. Not for the first time! (And it’s ostensibly no job of theirs to understand the sugya, either!) So, I told him to wait patiently until I had my full say (and I think it all made sense in the end, at least to me). But it later occurred to me to make another point.

You see, Chazal, apart from not interrupting (though there are exceptions to that, too), very often discuss numbers, and when the original, or preliminary answer is not good enough, simply say something like “ואכתי כך וכך הוו”. There is no snideness (or bdichusa: אנא שנאי חדא ואת שני חדא), no “בערך’ אין לו ערך'”, just hoping for a full answer.