In | The Red Cow

The sacrifice of the red cow in Numbers may be the most mysterious ritual in the Bible. The Midrash, an ancient Jewish commentary on the Hebrew Bible, suggests even Solomon did not understand this ritual. In it he is quoted as saying, “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.” We do know that the purpose of this ritual is purification from corpse impurity. 

In this ritual an unblemished red heifer is killed by the high priest, who sprinkles her blood with his finger seven times in front of the tent of meeting. The body of the cow is then burnt with cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet thread. The ashes of this fire are mixed with water to be used for purification. In a unique twist on purification rites, the priest who performs the sacrifice and gathers the ashes becomes unclean, even as he is providing for the cleansing of others. 

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, explained the counterintuitive nature of this ritual: 

1. The ashes of the Red Heifer remove the most severe of all impurities; yet those involved in its preparation become ritually impure themselves.
2. The Red Heifer must be completely red, a color which has connotations of sin and deficiency in Torah and Torah law; yet it must also be “perfect, without blemish.”
3. The Torah commands that it be slaughtered outside the holy city of Jerusalem in contrast with other sacrifices which must be slaughtered in the courtyard of the Holy Temple. 
4. The two components of the purifying mixture—ashes and spring water—represent two contradictory forces: fire, which represents the power of ascent, and water, which embodies the quality of setting down and saturation. 

Each of these aspects of counterintuitive logic set the red cow ritual apart from other Israelite sacrifices. Interestingly, they also foreshadow the counterintuitive logic of the saving death of Jesus in the New Testament. 

1. The paradox in the red cow sacrifice where the priest performing the purification becomes defiled is recalled in the story of Jesus. Jesus reconciles us to God and presents us to him “holy, unblemished, and blameless,” but He himself becomes a corpse, the most severe of all impurities. 
2. Like the red cow, Jesus identified with sin and deficiency but was without imperfection. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf” (NASB). 
3. In John 19:20, we learn that “the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city,” and according to Hebrews 13:12-13, Jesus “suffered outside the gate … outside the camp,” where the sacrifice of the red cow was performed.
4. Recalling the ascending and descending forces of fire and water in the red cow ritual, we find both ascent and descent in the New Testament’s account of Jesus. According to John 3:13: “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man” (NASB). 

In connection with this, an early Christian constitution called the Didascalia describes baptism in this way: “The descent into the water (is) the dying together with Christ; the ascent out of the water the rising again with Him.”

While the meaning of the red cow ritual may have baffled Solomon, and probably still baffles us today, the similarities between this strange ritual and the work of Jesus in the New Testament give us something to think about. At the least, they remind us that everything in the Old Testament is pointed toward him, who will become the fulfillment of not just the law, but the promises of God and the hopes of His people. 

Source: Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, “Ashes and Water,” adapted by Yanki Tauber. http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1504/jewish/Ashes-and-Water.htm  Accessed January 4, 2018.