About eight years ago, the Temple Institute began its red heifer program with the intention of certifying a cow that fulfilled all the requirements for the Biblical commandment. 

“This is the ritual law that Hashem has commanded: Instruct B’nei Yisrael to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid. Numbers 19:2

Last week, the Temple Institute announced that they had sent a rabbi to inspect five candidates to be the next red heifer., The institute was contacted by a cattle farmer in Texas who informed them that five red calves had been born on his ranch, about two and a half hours travel from Dallas. The Temple Institute charged Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Sabo, a community rabbi in Dallas, Texas with making the initial inspection of the calves.

Rabbi Sabo carried out his inspection with the aid of another rabbi and while being in contact with the Temple Institute. The inspection was thorough, taking about eight hours.

Ferrell noted that normally, calves are ear-tagged when just a few days old. Coincidentally, five calves were not tagged, all female and all red. 

As the head of the Red Heifer project, Rabbi Azaria Ariel remains optimistic and dedicated.

“All of the candidates were carefully inspected,” Rabbi Ariel told Israel365 News. “When they are older, a final decision will be made regarding their suitability. To be suitable for the ceremony,  they must be two years and one day old. Sometimes, a calf that is perfectly red when it is young develops black or white hairs as it grows older, or it may develop a blemish. Sometimes, the colored hairs fall out or disappear.”

“There are other calves in other locations in Israel that have yet to arrive at the stage to be checked. We are investigating other modern methods in the case that we cannot find a naturally occurring red heifer. But we are, of course, not despairing or giving up. We will continue to search in Israel and abroad and work towards producing a red heifer and purifying Israel and the Kohanim to perform the Temple Service. 

The difficulty of acquiring such a cow is understandable as the requirements are demanding. The heifer, born from a natural birth, must be entirely red, with no more than two non-red hairs on its body. It must also never have been used for any labor or have been impregnated. The existence of such a heifer is considered a biological anomaly and very rare. Fortunately, the ritual requires an infinitesimally small quantity of ashes. From the time of Moses, who personally prepared the first heifer, until the destruction of the Temple, only nine red heifers were prepared. Nonetheless, this was sufficient to maintain the ritual purity of the entire nation for almost 2,000 years.

According to Jewish tradition, there will only be ten red heifers in human history with the tenth heifer ushering in the Messianic era. Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides), the most renowned medieval Jewish scholar known by the acronym Rambam, wrote in his explanation of the mitzvah that “the tenth red heifer will be accomplished by the king, the Messiah; may he be revealed speedily, Amen, May it be God’s will.”

The red heifer was the main component in the Biblically mandated process of ritual purification for impurity that results from proximity or contact with a dead body.  Because the elements needed for this ceremony have been lacking since the destruction of the Second Temple, all Jews today are considered ritually impure, thereby preventing the return of the Temple service.