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.
