By Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr
This is the Shabbat when we add this special portion to our annual
reading cycle as a reminder in preparation for the coming of Pesach
when everyone if possible was required to be clean. Since there is no Temple
or Levitical Priesthood and most of us do not live in Israel it is
merited to us as if we preformed the necessary requirements of the Red
Heifer by studying it. When the Temple is Rebuilt and even when Messiah comes this ritual will be instituted once again (19:10).
Even now the Temple Institute
is breeding Heifers until a pure completely red female cow is born.
There have been recent close calls, but upon further examination some
faint white or black hairs were found therefore eliminating that
particular cow unfit to make the ashes of
the Red Heifer (19:2). You see:
"In Yohanan (John), he speaks about how the Jews were coming up to
Yerushalayim to purify themselves before the Passover. This is one of
the things they did; this is why they did it seven days before
Passover, to be cleansed. They had to wait to be sprinkled with the ashes on the third day, and sprinkled again on the seventh day.
After they were sprinkled on the seventh day, they remained ritually clean and they could enter into the Dwelling Place to bring the sacrificial lamb for the Passover. They had to go to Pesach seven days before it fell. We have the cycle of seven in this ritual." --
Rabbi Edward `Levi' Nydle of Bnai Avraham
The Red Heifer is still so very important to Judaism today, it is said that from Mosheh's time till 70 A.D. when the Temple was destroyed, there were nine red heifers slain. The rabbis teach in the Mishneh Torah that when the tenth red heifer is found and slain, Then Moshiach will come. Do you see why the red heifer is so important? After the tenth one, Moshiach will appear!
No doubt this passage is difficult and strange even for the most wise
of scholars to wrap their minds around, even King Solomon who wisdom
was given to him by G-d, it is said:
In reference to what did King Solomon say (Ecclesiastes 7:23), "I
thought to be wise to it, but it is distant from me"? He said: All of
the Torah's commandments I have comprehended. But the chapter of the
Red Heifer, though I have examined it, questioned it and searched it out--I thought to be wise to it, but it is distant from me.
(Midrash Rabbah)
Numbers 19
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
2 This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red
heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came
yoke:
3 And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her
forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face:
4 And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and
sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the
congregation seven times:
5 And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh,
and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn:
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 shall come into the camp, and the priest
shall be unclean until the even.
8 And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the even.
9 And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer,
and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept
for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of
separation: it is a purification for sin.
10 And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his
clothes, and be unclean until the even: and it shall be unto the
children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them,
for a statute for ever.
11 He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
12 He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the
seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.
13 Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and
purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the LORD; and that
soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of separation was
not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet
upon him.
14 This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the
tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.
15 And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, is unclean.
16 And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open
fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be
unclean seven days.
17 And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt
heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto
in a vessel:
18 And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and
sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the
persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave:
19 And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third
day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify
himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be
clean at even.
20 But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself,
that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath
defiled the sanctuary of the LORD: the water of separation hath not
been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.
21 And it shall be a perpetual statute unto them, that he that
sprinkleth the water of separation shall wash his clothes; and he that
toucheth the water of separation shall be unclean until even.
22 And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean; and the
soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even.
In everything that
G-d taught Moses, He would tell him both the manner of contamination
and the manner of purification. When G-d came to the laws concerning
one who comes in contact with a dead body, Moses said to Him: "Master
of the universe! If one is thus contaminated, how may he be purified?"
G-d did not answer him. At that moment, the face of Moses turned pale.
When G-d came to the section of the Red Heifer, He said to Moses:
"This is its manner of purification." Said Moses to G-d: "Master of the
universe! This is a purification?" Said G-d: "Moses, it is a chok, a
decree that I have decreed, and no creature can fully comprehend My
decrees." (Midrash Rabbah)
"One thing you will come across in the Torah and that is also in the Brit Chadashah is the commandment of ritual purity.
It is found in the four Good News of accounts of Yahshua; a topic of
His teachings, and also found in the book of Acts and in the letters of
Rav Shaul. It is
the Torah of ritual purity, and preparation for the Passover.
According to the Torah one of the most common things that would cause ritual uncleanness was any contact with the dead. Anyone who touches a dead body or carcass, touches a grave or a grave stone, walks on a grave, comes in contact with the bones of the dead, and even anyone
who the saddle of a dead person touches, becomes ritually unclean.
This is why Yahweh established this chaqqaq of the Parah Adumah or the Red Heifer.
Chuqqim are the commandments decreed by Yahweh that do not seem to have any logic or reason for them. Kashruth, the dietary laws are laws that do not seem to make any sense. We have had the mishpatim or the moral laws are easy to understand. The edoth or the remembrances such as the Feast Days, and tzitzit, help us to remember who we are as Yisrael.
They are very easy to understand. The chuqqim seem so illogical. How
can the burning of the red heifer in a fire, taking a bundle of hyssop
and wrapping it in scarlet, throwing it into a fire, grinding the bones
into a powder, mixing it with mayim hayim [living water], and then
sprinkling the mixture upon an unclean person make them ritually clean?
Totally illogical captain.
Everything in the Torah is according to the pattern given to Moshe at Sinai. Everything in the Torah symbolizes something about Moshiach. Every commandment, law and decree, and judgment, Yahweh has given us in the law has a deep spiritual truth behind it.
Many of the chuqqim have not been revealed to us by Yahweh. Perhaps in
the kingdom, when we totally understand some of the chuqqim." -- Rabbi
Edward `Levi' Nydle of Bnai Avraham
The mystery about the ashes of the Red Heifer lie in the fact that if touched it makes a clean person unclean and an unclean person clean!
The same also goes for inanimate objects too. Death is the focus of the Red Heifer. Death
makes one unclean and separates one for G-d. The clean person shall
sprinkle upon the unclean person... and he shall be clean at evening...
[But] he that sprinkles the water of sprinkling... shall be unclean
(19:19-21)
All who are involved in the preparation of the Heifer from beginning to
the end, become impure, but the Heifer itself purifies the impure! But
G-d says: I have made a chok, decreed a decree, and you may not
transgress My decrees. (Midrash Tanchuma)
The fact that the ashes of the Heifer "purify the contaminated and
contaminate the pure" carries an important lesson to us in our daily
lives: If your fellow has been infected by impurity and corruption, do
not hesitate to get involved and do everything within your power to
rehabilitate him. If you are concerned that you may became tainted by
your contact with him, remember that the Torah commands the Kohen to
purify his fellow Jew, even though his own level of purity will be
diminished in the process. (The Lubavitcher Rebbe)
"When a child of Yisra'el comes in contact with death it separates
them from Yahweh. Why?
Because
Yahweh is Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh. He is set-apart. Yahweh is total
life! YHWH was trying to teach Yisra'el that contact with dead things
separates you from Him. The wages of sin is death;
therefore death has that connection to sin. YHWH was teaching them to
stay away from sin. Yahweh is holy and without holiness, no one can see
Yahweh.
He established this ritual to cleanse the children of Yisra'el from
impurity; and everyone, not matter who they were, even Yahshua, had to participate in this ritual of the sprinkling of the ashes of the red
heifer.
When the Temple stood, anyone who walked through the gates had to be sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer. It was precautionary measure. Why?
It has to do with Passover. There are the Sholesh regulim, the three pilgrimage feasts at which the men of Yisra'el were to go up to Yerushalayim to keep the feasts: Passover, Shavuot, Tabernacles.
What were they going to do in their
traveling to Yerushalayim?
There was a possibility that
in their traveling that they could have unknowingly walked over some
ground that held a dead body. There may have been battle there, or
there could have been people buried hundreds of years before underneath
that ground, and by walking on that ground they became ritual unclean.
Yahshua called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs full of dead men's
bones. One of the things the Yehudim did to prepare for the Sholesh
regalim, is they went out and they painted all the tombs white so that
no one could accidentally touch them or walk over them. The Master was
playing on this ritual to speak about the hypocrisy of some of the
Pharisees because people who came in contact with them would become
unclean." -- Rabbi Edward `Levi' Nydle of Bnai Avraham
But what of this cedar and hyssop and scarlet that is burn with the
Red Heifer? It is said that the cedar represents the proud man, and a
certain form of pride is a sin, and when a prideful man is "burned",
like cedar this gives of a sweet fragrance to G-d, it pleases Him and
makes Him happy. The hyssop is what we call oregano today and is a
humble plant that is said to have antiseptic and healing properties,
representing a lowly and humble man. The scarlet came from a worm's
larva and a woolen cord was stained in this dye from the worm larva.
We are to see ourselves as a worm in G-d's eyes in need of cleansing
whether we are prideful, humble or something in between.
Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, let us reason together," says Yahweh. "Though
your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though
they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
The Red Hefier is a righteous parallel to the Golden Calf:
"We are told that when they ground up the golden calf and put it into
the mayim hayim, the springs that flowed underneath Mount Sinai turned
red. Then Mosheh made them drink it. The red heifer was to be a calf
that had not had a yoke put upon it. This is the picture of the
children of Yisra'el casting off the yoke of Torah." -- Rabbi
Edward `Levi' Nydle of Bnai Avraham
Obviously we can see the shadow and picture of the redeeming work of Messiah Yeshua in the texts dealing with the Red Heifer.
Hebrews 9:12
"Entered into the Most Set-apart Place once for all, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, having obtained everlasting redemption.
13 For if the blood of bulls
and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the defiled, sets apart
for the cleansing of the flesh,
14 how much more shall the blood of the Messiah, who through the everlasting Spirit [Ruach] offered Himself unblemished [without spot or wrinkle] to Elohim, cleanse your conscience [the inner part of you] from dead works to serve the living Elohim?
15 And because of this He is
the Mediator of a renewed covenant, so that, death having taken place
for redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, those
who are called might receive the promise of the everlasting
inheritance.
16 For where a covenant is, it is necessary for the death of the covenanted one to be established.
17 For a covenant over those dead is firm, since it is never valid while the covenanted one is living.
18 Therefore not even the first covenant was instituted without blood.
19 For when, according to
the Torah, every command had been spoken by Mosheh to all the people,
he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people.
II CORINTHIANS 5:21
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of Elohim.
"The spotless Lamb of Yahweh, Who knew no sin, had no blemish, the One who was ritually pure, became unclean for us. He became sin; He became unclean for us, so that we could become the righteousness of Yahweh our Elohim. The Clean became the unclean in Moshiach. Yahweh, in this ritual or ceremony of the red heifer, has given us a picture of the future work of Messiah Yahshua for the children of Yisra'el so that they will not defile the Dwelling Place. The people who were cleansed with these ashes all came in contact with death. The Mount of Olives, the Mount of Anointing, was where the red heifer was slain. In this ritual of the red heifer Yahweh was giving us a picture of the resurrection.
When that last shofar sounds
on Yom Teruah and Yahshua returns, and the first resurrection takes
place, where is He going to touch His feet? The Mount of Olives." -- Rabbi Edward `Levi' Nydle of Bnai Avraham
Even in preparing this Drash I walk away still scratching my head knowing there is so much that is left uncovered and it is indeed a Divine Mystery to me that has its fullness in Yeshua Ha Moshiach.
Shabbat Shalom and Shavuah Tov!
-- Rabbi Yehudah
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