“CHAD GADYA”

This is a fun traditional Passover song that takes about four hours to sing correctly.

One little goat, one little goat

That my father bought for two zuzim

The retail price is three zuzim

My father gets a discount because he buys a lot of goats

Along came a cat and ate the goat

Which sounds ridiculous until you realize that this song is an allegory about the history of Israel, with the cat symbolizing Assyria.

Along came a dog, symbolizing Babylonia, which bit the cat

Guess where it bit the cat?

On its ASS(yria)!

Ha-ha! We are having some fun with this traditional allegorical song!

Then along came a stick

Apparently, it was a walking stick

Stop it! We are killing ourselves with this wordplay!

Anyway, the stick symbolized Persia by hitting the dog

Along came a fire, aka Greece, and burned the stick

Along came water in the form of Rome and put out the fire

Along came an ox symbolizing the Saracens

Which, according to Wikipedia, is either an early Arab tribe

Or an English professional rugby team

Whoever they were, they drank the water

Along came a butcher, symbolizing the Crusaders, and killed the ox

Along came the Angel of Death, symbolizing the Ottomans—which sounds like a horde of lethal footstools, right?—and killed the butcher

Along came the Holy One, symbolizing the Holy One, and slew the Angel of Death

And a partridge in a pear tree