ISRAEL – While political experts worldwide pontificate on the war in Gaza, most have overlooked Hamas’ explicitly stated reason for its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, revealed on Day 100 of the war.
Incredibly, according to the terror group’s military spokesman, it has to do with attempting to prevent the “ceremony of the Red Heifer” – a mysterious event of great meaning to both Jews and Christians.
Abu Obeida, the military spokesman for the Izz ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas terrorist organization, made a televised appearance on the 100th day of the current war. It should be noted that although “Abu Obeida” first emerged in 2002, his actual identity remains unknown. Neither his face nor name have ever been revealed in any media. The televised speech was the first time he had appeared in seven weeks as, during that time, all of his public pronouncements were either audio recordings or written statements. A lapse of several weeks even led to speculations that he had been killed.
The iconic Abu Obeida, the military spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, made a televised appearance on the 100th day of the Israeli war on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/gu2LDVVMuh
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) January 14, 2024
Obeida’s speech was reported in the Palestine Chronicle on Sunday. While his speech was described as covering “the usual topics, the number of tanks destroyed by the Resistance [i.e. the Hamas terrorist organization], the number of military operations,” in the third paragraph Obeida listed the motives for the Hamas attack on Israel:
“We look back 100 days to remember the educated, the complicit, and the incapacitated among the world powers governed by the law of the jungle, reminding them of an aggression that reached its peak against our path (Al-Quds) and Al-Aqsa, with the start of its actual temporal and spatial division, and the ‘bringing of red cows’ as an application of a detestable religious myth designed for aggression against the feelings of an entire nation in the heart of its Arab identity, and the path of its prophet (the Night Journey) and Ascension to heaven.”
The “red cows” referred to by the Hamas leader were five red female calves brought to Israel in September 2022 by Boneh Israel, an organization that connects Christian lovers of Israel to the Holy Land, working under the auspices of the Temple Institute, an organization in Israel focusing on establishing the Third Temple.
In his speech, Abu Obeida referred to the Oct. 7 attack as “the Al Aqsa flood.” Palestinians call the gray-domed mosque on the Temple Mount “Al Aqsa,” literally meaning “the further mosque,” referring to a myth created by the Umayyad Calif in 682, some 50 years after Muhammad’s death. According to the myth, Muhammad was carried to the site of the destroyed Jewish temples in a miraculous overnight journey by al-Buraq, a magical horse with the head of a woman, wings of an eagle, the tail of a peacock, and hoofs reaching to the horizon. He tethered the horse to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and from there ascended to the seventh heaven together with the angel Gabriel.
Obeida continued, focusing his ire on Israel for aspiring to build the prophesied Third Temple:
“We will not tire or falter in calling all the free people of the nation to rise to support their Aqsa and the path of their prophet, which the criminal Zionists are practically advancing towards destroying and establishing their temple. This is what we have chosen with our blood in Gaza for 100 days and for which the epic of October 7th was about.”
In his speech, Obeida frequently describes Israelis as “Nazis” and calls on “every Muslim on the face of the earth” to join the religious war.
“We believe that it is our jihadist and religious duty to inform the two billion Muslims in the world that the Zionist enemy, over the course of 100 days, destroyed most of the mosques in the Gaza Strip, desecrated, burned and bulldozed those reached by its vehicles on the ground, and stopped the call to prayer and praying in a clear religious war, completing what the religious Zionist gangs started in their war on Al-Aqsa Mosque. This is an ominous sign and destruction for these Nazi killers, as they cannot wage a war against God, and this is affirmed by the text of the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur’an.”
Islamists do indeed perceive the five red cows from Texas as a dire threat. Arab-language media covered Obeida’s speech extensively, focusing on the red heifers. Both Cairo24 and Al Jazeera reported on the speech, emphasizing that the heifers had been acquired and brought to Israel by evangelical Christians.
After the announcement of the arrival of the cows last year, Hamas reacted almost immediately, warning that the potential Jewish ritual posed a threat to Al Aqsa. This warning came during the Jewish high holidays. Arab-language media, including the “Al Manar” channel, which is closely associated with Hezbollah, are reporting on the intention of the Temple organizations to make a sacrifice on the Temple Mount. The Hamas journal Al–Rassala published an article claiming that the slogan “Al Aqsa is in Danger” is no longer sufficient because the Israelis are already working on manifesting the Temple rituals that would “Judaize the holy mosques.”
Chapter 19 of the Book of Numbers gives an in-depth description of the mitzvah (Torah commandment) of the burning of the red heifer and subsequent mixing with water for the purpose of sprinkling on the Jews as a means of ritual purification from contact with or proximity to a dead body. Despite the biblical description, the mitzvah of the red heifer is considered the most enigmatic of all the biblical commandments. The red heifer is considered essential to the restoration of the Temple service.
In the language of the Bible, “red” is not exclusively what is known today as the color red. It also includes brown and other similar shades of red. This excludes black. All of the hairs on the heifer’s body must be the same color of brown. There can be no blemish, no holes in the ear, and no yoke may have been placed on the cow, nor may it have ever carried a burden. The animal must also be at least two years old. Until that point, it is considered a calf and not a cow. At that point, the cow can be slaughtered and prepared.
The red heifer ritual is performed outside of the Temple at a specific site on the Mount of Olives. Only a tiny bit of the ashes are required for the purification ritual, so one heifer will suffice for all of the Jews.
The return of the mitzvah of the red heifer is described by the Prophet Ezekiel as a stage in the final redemption.
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your fetishes.” (Ezekiel 36:25)
Ritual impurity does not prevent bringing time-bound communal sacrifices, but all other sacrifices must be brought when the Kohanim (priests) and supplicants are in a state of ritual purity.
The red heifer is not a sacrifice per se, so it is burned in an area outside of the Temple, on the Mount of Olives. According to Jewish tradition, there have been nine red heifers since the mitzvah was given at Mount Sinai and the tenth red heifer will be used in the era of the Messiah. The last red heifer was prepared by the high priest Ishmael Ben Piavi around the year 60, and its ashes sufficed for the next 300 years.
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 be only 10 red heifers in human history, with the 10th heifer ushering in the Messianic era. Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides), the most renowned medieval Jewish scholar, also 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 also features prominently in Christianity. The non-canonical Epistle of Barnabas (8:1) explicitly equates the red heifer with Jesus. In the New Testament, the phrases “without the gate” (Hebrews 13:12) and “without the camp” (Numbers 19:3, Hebrews 13:13) have been taken to be not only an identification of Jesus with the red heifer, but an indication as to the location of the crucifixion.
For Christians holding to a premillennial view of eschatology, even just one red heifer arriving in Jerusalem means the Rapture is imminent. They believe a Third Temple will be built during the End Times, at which point all the other prophesied events will follow.
While the Arab-language media reported the details of the biblical red heifer with varying degrees of accuracy, they all noted that the mitzvah is described in the Quran as pertaining to a yellow cow the Jews are commanded by Moses to slaughter. Other than the color, the other details pertaining to the cow are identical (i.e. unblemished, never milked, never burdened). The Quran implies that the sacrifice of the yellow cow hinted at the sin of the Golden Calf, and that the sacrifice was to cure Israel of its love of gold.
The Quran also relates the story of a poor but righteous man whose sole prized possession was a beautiful yellow cow. One day, someone murdered him, and his body was found lying on the road. His tribe assumed that a rival tribe had killed him. They were about to break out into civil war, when the Bani Israel (“Children of Israel”) asked Moses (Musa) for a judgment. He commanded them to slaughter a cow as an atonement, but they refused to obey. Instead, they kept asking for specific details about what cow they should slaughter.
