The Red heifer rite is one of the most memorable in the
Torah, and has explicit instructions on how and by whom it is performed. As we can see it was designated for the
priest (Kohen) to perform this ritual.
19 בְּמִדְבַּר
ד וְלָקַח אֶלְעָזָר הַכֹּהֵן,
מִדָּמָהּ--בְּאֶצְבָּעוֹ; וְהִזָּה אֶל-נֹכַח פְּנֵי אֹהֶל-מוֹעֵד,
מִדָּמָהּ--שֶׁבַע פְּעָמִים.
|
4 And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood
with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood toward the front of the tent of
meeting seven times.
|
5 And the heifer shall be burnt in his sight; her
skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall be burnt.
|
|
6 And the priest shall take cedar-wood, and hyssop,
and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.
|
|
7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he
shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he may come into the camp, and
the priest shall be unclean until the even.
|
In verse 7 we are told that the priest will launder his
clothes and bathe his flesh, but will remain unclean until evening. The bathing process is done in daytime, but
he does not attain purity until evening.
This is quite
explicit, and was practiced by the Kohanim until the foreign interference of
the Rabbanites, who very likely did not
have Jewish roots (many of the Pharisee rabbis were in fact foreign converts,
most notably Shemaya and Avtalyon). This is also evidenced by the fact the
genuine Kohanim of the 2nd Temple era
were Sadducees, and the Pharisees did
not have genuine Kohanim who would serve in the temple, Instead, they devised
false methods to tamper with the Priesthood, the rituals and the Torah.
The Rabbinic body of literature has its first appearance in
the Mishnah, which recounts how they dealt with all sorts of issues, including
the Red Heifer. The aptly named Mishna
“Parah” provides an account of how they
went about achieving their ends, and how they falsely interpreted the Torah.
In Parah 3:7 we see:
לֹא הָיְתָה פָרָה רוֹצָה לָצֵאת, אֵין מוֹצִיאִין עִמָּהּ שְׁחוֹרָה, שֶׁלֹּא
יֹאמְרוּ, שְׁחוֹרָה שָׁחֲטוּ. וְלֹא אֲדֻמָּה, שֶׁלֹּא יֹאמְרוּ, שְׁתַּיִם
שָׁחֲטוּ. רַבִּי יוֹסֵי אוֹמֵר, לֹא מִשּׁוּם זֶה, אֶלָּא מִשּׁוּם שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (במדבר יט), וְהוֹצִיא אֹתָהּ, לְבַדָּהּ. וְזִקְנֵי
יִשְׂרָאֵל הָיוּ מַקְדִּימִים בְּרַגְלֵיהֶם לְהַר הַמִּשְׁחָה, וּבֵית טְבִילָה
הָיָה שָׁם. וּמְטַמְּאִים הָיוּ אֶת הַכֹּהֵן הַשּׂוֹרֵף אֶת הַפָּרָה, מִפְּנֵי
הַצְּדוֹקִים, שֶׁלֹּא יִהְיוּ אוֹמְרִים, בִּמְעֹרְבֵי שֶׁמֶשׁ הָיְתָה
נַעֲשֵׂית:
If the cow refused to go out, they may not take out with
it a black one lest people say, "They slaughtered a black cow" nor
another red [cow] lest people say, "They slaughtered two." Rabbi Yose
says: it was not for this reason but because it is said "And he shall
bring her out" by herself. The elders of Israel
used to go first by foot to the Mount of Olives,
where there was a place of immersion. The priest that was to burn the cow
was (deliberately) made unclean on account of the Sadducees so that they should
not be able to say, "It can be done only by those on whom the sun has set."
We learn that these
Pharisee “elders” would deliberately defile the Kohanim, and thus invalidate
them from the ritual. This was to negate
the meaning of the Torah in Bamidbar 19:7, which says the priest will remain
unclean (impure) until sunset. The new interpretation of the Pharisees was that
the bathing itself will purify the Priest from the contact with the Heifer and
the burning process, and that the verse in the Torah is referring to an
unrelated form of impurity which does not invalidate him from the Red heifer
ritual!
If one delves into this
claim of the Pharisees, one will layer by layer uncover the falsehood of their
methods, and the cynical and sinister
nature of their political goals.
1)
The
Torah is very clear and explicit in what it says. The verse is giving a
sequential prescription for the process of the Red heifer and the multi-stage purification process. It states explicitly
that the bathing does not cause ritual purity on its own, and in fact it is the
sunset which brings to an end that
impurity.
2)
To
claim – as the Pharisees do – that the sunset is not part of the process , is a
vile and cynical attack on the torah
itself, rendering it illogical and rendering the verse a non-sequitur. How exactly can they derive anything from the
verse if it is not logical?
3)
Instead,
they claim that there was all along an unwritten rule book which gave the true
meaning of the verses in the Torah, even when the clear and obvious meaning
goes against their beliefs.
4)
The
intention of the Pharisees was never to really comply with the Torah, it was to
undermine the true heirs of Moses and Aaron, the Kohanim, who also had the Temple to tend to. Their intention was a coup, to take over from
the Priestly sadducees, and to own both the Temple
and the wealth of Israel.
Their destruction of Temple
purity resulted in the physical destruction of the temple. In this aspect, they
only had short term success followed by long term misery and exile of the
remaining Jewish people.
However, their long term
success was in writing a new religion, a surrogate “Judaism” which undermines
the Torah and its teachings, and purports to be the “authentic” form of Judaism
to the undiscerning.
