Red Heifer Genetic Code Cracked – Rabbis Move To Reassert Jewish Claim To Temple Mount

…Late last week, on the eve of the Shabbat in week the Torah portion Hukkat is read, in which the red heifer is mentioned, it became clear that the people associated with the Temple Institute, who for 25 years have been researching the Temple and its rituals, creating vessels for future use in the Temple and maintaining contact with scientists and research institutes worldwide, believe they have cracked the genetic code that will make it possible to clone a red heifer.…

…[A]ccording to halakha the red heifer can only be handled by priests who themselves are in a state of purity.

Because there are no ashes of a red heifer with which to purify priests, the only solution would be to find priestly families who are willing to give up their children immediately after their birth for a special mission: to have them raised and prepared in conditions of isolation and purity for at least 13 years, so that they can handle the next red heifer, if and when it returns.…

In other words, the Temple could be fully functional in about 13 years. So could a mishkan set up on or near the Temple Mount or in Shilo.

The consensus against going up on the Temple Mount also seems to be breaking apart. Rabbi Moshe Dovid Tendler went up last week, and several major haredi rabbis have recently gone up – sans publicity.

The reason for the change? It has become clear the Palestinians are doing so much damage to the Mount that even haredim now realize the need for Jews to reclaim it for ourselves – or at least reassert our rights.

Red Heifer Article.

Rabbis on the Temple Mount Article.

Comments

[yidandahalf]

Well, I think this is a pretty damned cool thing. No matter what I feel about the haredi excesses, people who want something this badly, deserve it. So I say, go for it all the way and succeed.

[yidandahalf]

There is a pro-Palestinian film "The Inner Tour", I recommend it highly. Anyway the camera and sound follow a couple of Palestinian guys up the steps of a restored crusader fortress. The one says to the other "Look at how well they look after all the old things, how well they restore them and keep them up. We don't deserve this land. If we deserved it, we would never have lost it."

[Bartley Kulp]

"Because there are no ashes of a red heifer with which to purify priests, the only solution would be to find priestly families who are willing to give up their children immediately after their birth for a special mission: to have them raised and prepared in conditions of isolation and purity for at least 13 years, so that they can handle the next red heifer, if and when it returns.… "

This will not work for two reasons. The first one is that everybody today is born impure invitro from their mothers. The second issue is that there is a real halachic doubt as to the lineage of all cohanim today. Just do the math.

When the time is right and we merit it, we will find a batch of prepared ashes from the time of the temple for use. The Moshiach will also straighten out all of our lineage issues.

[R]

Where are these pure babies meant to be born? Deffinately can't be hospital, or a house or anywhere on earth.
It sounds like a mad idea, but they can clone red cows if they want to.

[Paul Freedman]

Cant the red hiefer be handled with non-impurity-conducting kli?

Twelve foot plastic tongs or whatever.

Is this not practical?

[Paul Freedman]

...back in the day wouldn't there still be the circular problem if you needed a purified priest to handle the red hiefer--I thought the red heifer started out as being impure so why couldn't an impure priest handle it, then or now? After you get your first ashes purity is no problem. Or was there something about the Herodian political cronies appointed as priests that made them especially pure to have the type of purity you needed to handle the impure red heifer.

BK: please elucidate

[factual basis]

actually it can be handled by ANYONE until it is "declared" to be the para aduma...until then it is merely a red cow (if u understand the distinction). how we will deal with it once it is declared as such...good question I'm going to do some research

[Paul Freedman]

factual basis--please do--could be there be norms establishing the conditions under which priestly agents would be considered suitable to handle the cow in its mediating status as para aduma that wouldn't involve a trap of circularity -- a use mode of purity enabling the priests to derive benefit from the ashes--if the priestly purity to handle the heifer is itself only gained from the ashes themselves then how would you get around having to posit an initial given deposit of found ashes to get the chain going--BK's messianic ashes to speak but placed chronologically at the beginning of the process

[Ariel Sokolovsky www.Moshiach.ws]

B"H
Bartley Kulp writes:
This will not work for two reasons. The first one is that everybody today is born impure invitro from their mothers. The second issue is that there is a real halachic doubt as to the lineage of all cohanim today. Just do the math.

When the time is right and we merit it, we will find a batch of prepared ashes from the time of the temple for use. The Moshiach will also straighten out all of our lineage issues.

Posted by: Bartley Kulp | July 08, 2008 at 09:32 AM
"Because there are no ashes of a red heifer with which to purify priests, the only solution would be to find priestly families who are willing to give up their children immediately after their birth for a special mission: to have them raised and prepared in conditions of isolation and purity for at least 13 years, so that they can handle the next red heifer, if and when it returns.

The community of Mitzpeh Yeriho has expressed a willingness to allocate land for a compound for this purpose, but it should come as no surprise that few families have volunteered to hand over their children and have them raised in relative isolation for such a long time. "

This means that they found poskim who think this will work...

[alternative child care]

If we're going to be burning cows whole, shouldn't Rubashkin's be involved? :)

"If we're going to be burning cows whole, shouldn't Rubashkin's be involved? "
Scotty's girlfriend should be involved

[alternative child care]

Wow, that was a rapid pathological response to a humorous comment!
What could 12:12 be insinuating, that the failedmessiah blog is metaher temayim like the poro adumo? Doesn't sound like much of an insult to me!

[Paul Freedman]

Ariel--what was so pure about the original priestly moms' reproductive biology? What point are you trying to make here. Putting mom's afterbirth aside what especial status of purity do the ashes accomplish that the natal purity of the priests does not already possess?

[Tehiya]

I was at the Temple Institute 2 weeks ago and asked the question of whether the tuma is transmitted in utero or only upon birth inside a hospital. The rabbi there told me it was only upon birth that the baby could contract tuma. So, Bartley Kulp, what are your halachic sources for saying that the babies get it in utero?

[Yochanan Lavie]

Once again, I am on the same page with my friend Yid & 1/2. I am not an ultraliteralist, but every once in a while we need to return to the miqra to purify our faith of obscurantism. I am tired of talking to a wall. I am tired of being the member of what seems to be a second rate religion. We should build a mishkan/Temple that can be dismantled and eventually erected on Har Ha Bayit whenever that becomes politically possible. Meanwhile, it can be a focal point for prayer. We should be able to build a small synagogue on the Mount in an area that won't interfere with the mosques. I am a realist, and I don't want to start a world war (although one could argue it started already). But I am sick and tired of the Muzzies telling lies like the Mikdash never existed, or it is in har Grezim with the Samaritans, etc.

Like some nice Jewish boys once said: "You've gotta fight for your right to PARTY!" (or pray).

[Yochanan Lavie]

Fight for Your Right to Daven
with apologies to the Beastie Boys

You wake up late for shul man you don't wanna go
You ask your rabbi, "Please?" but he still says, "Lo!"
You missed two shabbatot and you're out of luck
'Cause your rabbi preaches mussar like you're some kind of schmuck

You gotta fight for your right to daven!

The Waqf caught you on the Har and he said, "No way!"
That hypocrite prays five times a day
Man, davening at the kotel is such a drag
Now the cops saw your weed in your best tefillin bag. Busted!

(repeat chorus)

Don't step out on Har ha Bayit if that's a tallit you're gonna wear
I'll kick you out of Nazerut if you cut that hair
The Waqf busted in and said, "What's that noise?"
Aw, Muslims you're just jealous it's the Levi'im Boys!

You gotta fight for your right to daven!

[Paul Freedman]

o i c the infinite regress ends with Moses' first preparation, after which ashes were always available to permit the necessary sanctification for the next preparation hence complete isolation (if that's enough) etc. lacking a chain of transmittal of ashes and the discussions of how maternal pollution is transmitted--I see Shmarya that you buy into a theocratic worldview after all, belying your pose of revisionist leanings--as you are promoting the ultimate theocratic vision-the return of the temple and sacrodotal leadership

My apologies to all. I hadn't grasped the actual relationship between orthodox aspirations, secular pragmatics, and received categorical idealizations.

Good luck.

l

[A reader]

WOW! This is incredible.

[Dave]

I think this is great.
I definitely am in favour of the 3rd Temple.
But no animal sacrifies. Surely we have gone beyond that stage, Rambam also said so. The Kohan can burn incense, if they want.
Can you imagine how wonderful it would be,
"a house of prayer for all nations".

[Reader]

Bartley Kulp wrote: "The first one is that everybody today is born impure invitro from their mothers. "

I think you meant in vivo.

[Michel S.]

Somehow this sounds like something out of Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union". Surreal!

ps Shmarya, got here from your profile on The Forward. Interesting blog!

[D. Hallsworth]

I am completely disgusted that not a single human being on here cares about the children who will be raised in isolation, apparently without human touch or parental love all in the name of your religion. Have you asked yourself, how can they remain "pure" if they are taught by rabbis (none of whom are pure enough themselves apparently) and if the rabbis won't even be in contact with them, will they be kept in a pre-lingusistic state? Will they ever become literate? Or, will some disembodied voice just perpetually recite scripture over a loudspeaker? How exactly will this "bubble of purity " be accomplished? What kind of nightmare are you willing to impose on children (I guess we already know that...see Palestine) How will they know empathy, compassion, simple tenderness? Won't they grow up to be insane/sociopathic? You would totally isolate a CHILD from birth to meet the specifications of some passage in the Torah? Don't you trust that your God has it together enough to give you a cow and a kid when the right time comes? When you check your humanity at the door over the life of a child, you have to know, somewhere deep within your heart that you are DEAD WRONG. Doesn't anybody here get sick to death of all the horrible, vile things done to each other in the name of God and religion? Doesn't anyone just want to breathe for a while? You guys are gonna end up blowing up the whole world- and there won't even be crickets left when the silence comes. Arrogant. Cruel. Vicious. If that's what your God makes you- you can have the bastard. You are just as bad as the Muslims, just as bad as the endless history of Christian brutality. I am so incredibly sick of the inhumanity of it all.