The Temple Institute in Jerusalem last week announced they are accepting candidates for training to prepare Red Heifer ashes.
The Torah (Numbers 19) describes the process for producing ash from a red heifer to purify Jews so they may enter the Holy Temple compound in Jerusalem. Tradition has it that from the time of Moses until the destruction of the Second Temple, a period spanning nearly 1,350 years, a total of nine red heifers were used. Maimonides writes that the tenth red heifer will be used in the presence of the mashiach.
While there is no prophecy in Jewish tradition predicting that the red heifer procedure is a harbinger of messianic times, Maimonides’ codification of the procedure as Jewish law unquestionably identifies the procedure as a condition for full services to be restored in the Holy Temple.
Temple Institute International Department Director Yitzchak Reuven told Jewish Home News that requirements for determining who is an halachically fit kohen (priest directly descended from Aharon High Priest, brother of Moses) for performing the Red Heifer ceremony are: “The kohen must, of course, base his status on a solid family tradition that he is a direct descendant of Aharon, brother of Moshe, Israel’s first High Priest, through his paternal line.”
Furthermore, continued Reuven, “The kohen must have reached the age of 15 years old.
“He must have never entered into a hospital, because in every hospital there is a halachic assumption that a corpse exists somewhere in the building that would cause tum’at met to exist in the entire building, based on the Torah principle that anyone located within a covered area (such as a tent or a hospital) where a human corpse is present automatically contracts the impurity of contact, (even indirectly) with a corpse. Therefore, the kohen must have come into the world via home birth, and never had occasion to enter into a hospital.
“The kohen must have never entered into a cemetery or, of course, ever found himself in any situation where he has come in contact with a corpse.”
The Temple Institute says these are the sole requirements to determine if a particular kohen is a kosher candidate for the task of performing the red heifer ceremony.
Qualified candidates will undergo intensive instruction on how to perform each of the Torah-mandated aspects of the process, to turn the red heifer into the desired purifying ashes.
“We have already made contact with a number of qualifying candidates,” said Reuven.
