Monday, January 19, 2015

Seeking the Perfect Red Heifer

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

The Red Heifer mentioned in the bible is  being sought once again by the Temple Institute.  Such a perfect animal was used for a congregational sacrifice whose ashes would be mixed with water. It was used in order to remove impurity created by contact with the dead.

It had to be unblemished and never yoked. It has to be totally red without any white spots.   In the ancient days BCE, it was burnt outside the camp at Jerusalem on the Mountain of Olives while those that  handled it also required purification.  This is in detail in Numbers 19.
                                  
Later generations, finding the ceremony incomprehensible, put forward various explanations such as that the red heifer atoned for the worship of the golden calf or that the color of the heifer symbolized sin.  What we do know is that the ashes will be used to 

"purify today's Levitical priesthood and to "purify" the temple mount in 

preparation for the building of the Third Temple."  
                                                                       
The Temple Mount group in Jerusalem was planning on building the 3rd Temple when the time is right.  They had been planning and preparing before 1980.  "Israel is clearly moving towards the time when the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah - the prophesied Third Temple - will be rebuilt." 
                                                    

 My 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, was one of the leaders of the group but passed away in November 2006.   He spoke all over the USA in football stadiums about doing it.  "The honor of this last house will be greater than that of the first, says the Lord of Hosts; and in this place I will grant peace, says the Lord of Hosts" (Hagai 2:9)."  

The Temple must be built before the Moshiach arrives.  "But the sages of Israel enigmatically stated that when the Messiah arrives, he will stand atop the roof of the Holy Temple and cry out: "Humble ones! The time of your redemption has arrived!"  Throughout Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the feeling of the end of days for such an event is close at hand.  It's so hard for most of us to think of such a thing as we prepare dinner, shop and see a football game. " Nonsense," we say, but here we are with a world full of killing , Iran is about to have nuclear weapons, and the atmosphere is so full of hatred that even G-d himself must feel it.  
                                                         

The Temple Institute feels that "the fate of the entire world depends on the red heifer.the ashes of the red heifer rectifies humanity's most basic flaw: despair. The despair brought about by the loss of the Temple and the Divine Presence amongst us.


Purification with the red heifer reminds us that man has the potential to rise above his transitory physical existence, with all its false sense of hopelessness and misery... the "impurity" of death. This is the role of the Third Temple for all mankind, and this is the Messianic vision of the future: the call to live an eternal life, liberated from the sham and unhappiness which is the sum total of the human condition for so many people. The call for the true joy of living life to the fullest - with the knowledge of G-d.

The great sages of Israel consider this precept to be the deepest mystery of the Torah. For a great, enigmatic contradiction surrounds it: although the ashes of the red heifer have the inexplicable power to cleanse all those who have been rendered unclean, contact with the very same ashes for those who are pure has the opposite effect... it makes them unclean!  This seems to be a riddle that even King Solomon didn't understand, so don't feel bad if you don't, either.  

We humans just don't understand this, but it's one of those things you will do in your religion out of love and fear of G-d.  We don't always understand things at the time given, and this was given to Moses long ago (1391-1271 BCE).  Our people committed the great sin with the Golden Calf while waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain with the 10 Commandments.  They were told to wait patiently.  They built this calf and danced around it when they thought it was past time for him to be down.   The red heifer serves to atone for the spiritual chaos brought into the world through the golden calf.

Evidently with all the illogical thinkers, terrorist killers and hatred in the world, we still need something physical to use in order to understand.  It's back to the drawing board with an animal sacrifice.  

"For the entire time that the Temple stood in Israel, a total of nine red heifers were used. Jews believe that the appearance of a perfect red heifer would usher in the appearance of the long-awaited Messiah. The 10th red heifer has been found in America, and preparations are now underway to bring the animal to Israel."  This was written in June 20, 2014.  

Then again, one such animal has been born in Israel already.  "Much excitement has been generated by the arrival of a "Red Heifer"1 in Israel. The birth of a red heifer (cow) on a farm in the religious youth village of Kfar Hasidim (near Haifa) has excited sectors in the Israeli religious community."  It must be 2 years old before it can be sacrificed.  According to the Torah, the red heifer must be without blemish, and must be without defect.  

One slight problem exists besides finding the perfect red heifer without blemish.  The Arabs do not want their mosques torn down.  How is the 3rd Temple to be built and where?  Just as Zechariah predicted, Jerusalem is indeed becoming "a cup of trembling" and a "burdensome stone" to all the nations of the earth. The rebuilding of the Temple will be another intensifying aspect in the present Middle East imbroglio.  As it stands today, the Muslims refuse to allow the Jews on the mount to do any prayers at all where their 2nd Temple had stood.  This is causing the Pope to come up with an answer offered in 1947 and refused by the Muslims. "We understand that the Vatican has offered to "internationalize" the Temple Mount:They say to let the Muslims use it on Friday (their holy day); the Jews use it on Saturday (Shabbat), and the Christians on Sunday. This appears consistent with their ambition and agenda to lead the worldwide "ecumenical" movement, the Evangelicals feel.  The Jews will not go for it, either as  Jerusalem is all one city and happens to be the capital of Israel.  It's simply another  idea to take away the Israeli role here.  

This red heifer plays an important part of Christianity in their predictions, and they have a different assumption as to the meanings of all this.  

One thing we know is that the heifer comes before the Temple and the Temple comes before the Moshiach.  Of course the ashes can always be saved until the right time. 


 Interesting since ashes and animal fat are mixed with lye to 

make soap which purifies.  


Resource: http://www.templeinstitute.org/red_heifer/introduction.htm
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=22780
http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/15/
http://www.templemount.org/goldfoot/index.html
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/how-to-make-soap-from-ashes-zmaz72jfzfre.aspx

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