While I was at the Aleph Kallah I had the opportunity to participate in a Red Heifer ritual led by Rabbi Shefa Gold. This ritual is not one normally performed…at least not that I know of, and it likely has not been performed since the days of the temple. We, of course, in Jewish renewal style, created a ritual for those of us at the kallah to purify ourselves not from having come in contact with the dead – the stated reason for the ceremony – but to cleans ourselves of the fears that cause us to become impure in other ways.
Shefa explained to us that she sees the Red Heifer as the mother of the Golden Calf. Of course, the Gold Calf was created out of the Israelites fears. As they waited for Moses to return from atop Mt. Sinai, they lost their faith and turned back to idol worship, creating the Golden calf out of that fear. So, we got in touch with our fears by getting a “spirit buddy” and asking each other, “What are you afraid of?” Then we placed our fear into the fire pit to be burned along with cedar, hyssop and crimson. We allowed ourselves to do this with humility while raising ourselves up to our highest selves. And to the ashes we added living waters and then we anointed each other with the water and ash mix. During the ritual we sang and we drummed and we chanted while the dark clouds gathered outside the windows, the sun setting golden behind them, as if we were dancing at the foot of Mt. Sinai itself with a priestess leading us through our purification ritual and God’s presence hiding behind the clouds.
I must say, this was one of the most powerful rituals in which I’ve participated. I got in touch with some very deep-seated fears that have been holding me back and not allowing me to unfold and reach my fullest potential. I believe not living our lives fully, not fulfilling our purpose…these are sins indeed.
We may not have stuck to the letter of the ritual as outlined in our sacred Jewish texts, but it worked for me. And maybe Shefa’s interpretation of the Red Heifer isn’t classic, but that, too, worked for me.
If you’d like to know now a bit more about the traditional ceremony, lots of sources exist on line. The rarity of the animal, combined with the mystical ritual in which it was used, have given the Red Heifer special status in Jewish tradition. It is cited as the prime example of a chok, or biblical law for which there is no apparent logic, and is, therefore, supposedly of absolute Divine origin. The state of ritual purity obtained through the ashes of a Red Heifer, which was burned as a sacrifice, is a necessary prerequisite for participating in any Temple service. For this reason, efforts have been made in modern times by Jews wanting to rebuild the Temple to locate a red heifer and recreate the ritual. Most recently, a cow that was considered a potential candidate was disqualified because it sprouted several black hairs. Just two are enough to disqualify the cow. The ashes of the Red Heifer are combined with pure living waters to purify a person who has become ritually contaminated by contact with a corpse.
If you are wondering, we had no Red Heifer. We had no fire pit. We had no herbs. We placed paper into a dollar-store roasting tin, we symbolically spoke our fears into that tin, we symbolically added the herbs with a different chant and drum beat for each one. Then, someone took the tin outside and burned the paper. The ashes were brought back in and combined with living waters collected earlier in the day. We did anoint ourselves with that concoction.
You can do the same. And you can ask yourself what you fear and what  you create in your life out of your fear. Look at your life. Look carefully. What have you erected as a testament to your fear? What do you worship each day as part of your faith in your fear? How do you uphold your faith in your fear each day? How do you stay stuck in that fear, bowing to the statues you’ve built in its honor? And what would happen if you tore down those idols and began to worship the truth in yourself, the part of you created in God’s image? What would happen if you moved through your fear to create something new…a connection to God built on faith that allows you to be your true self? What would you have to leave behind? What would you gain? What new things would you create and would you create them in the name of God instead of in the name of fear?
You might say the ritual in which I participated at the kallah wasn’t “real.” I say, it’s all about the kavanah…the intention. And, I can tell you it felt awfully real to all the people in that room.
