Why the Red Heifer Matters: Purity, the Tenth Heifer, and Jews and Christians Together
The short answer: The red heifer is not a sacrifice for sin. It produces ashes that remove ritual impurity caused by contact with death (Numbers 19). Jewish tradition counts nine red heifers from Moses to the Second Temple and expects a tenth before the Messiah. Five red calves from Texas were flown to Israel for that purpose, but none has yet been certified. For believers, it all points to the One who conquered death.
A bridge between two worlds
In this conversation Pastor Chris welcomes Eliyahu Berkowitz, a senior journalist for Israel365 News and author of a book on the return of the red heifers. Eliyahu grew up in New Jersey, made aliyah to Israel, served as an IDF combat medic, raised dairy cows on a kibbutz, and spent ten years studying Torah in yeshiva before he began writing professionally in his fifties.
His story carries a lesson of its own. He believes everyone knows, deep down, what God is asking of them. The question is whether we listen.
I really started living the minute I got off the plane in Israel.
Impurity is not the same as sin
Eliyahu begins by correcting a common misunderstanding. The red heifer is not a sacrifice. It is a ceremony that produces ashes used to purify people. And in the Torah, impurity and sin are two different things. A person can be impure without having sinned at all.
The impurity the red heifer removes comes from contact with a dead body (Numbers 19:11–13). Caring for the dead is a great mitzvah, a kindness to someone who can never repay it, yet it leaves the caregiver ritually unclean. Numbers 9:6–12 records men who could not keep Passover because of exactly that, and God provided a second Passover a month later. Impurity was never meant to be permanent.
Jewish tradition calls the red heifer a chok, a statute beyond human understanding. The priest who prepares it becomes impure, while the ashes make others pure.
Nine heifers, and a tenth to come
From Moses until the first century, Jewish tradition counts nine red heifers. Maimonides writes that the tenth will be prepared by the King Messiah. That is the heifer the Temple Institute hopes to produce.
Because purification was needed across the land, small stores of ash were likely kept in many places, and each new batch included ash from the previous one. Eliyahu says some people believe a hidden store may still be found. He is careful to call that speculation.
How Texas ranchers became part of the story
The Talmud tells of a Gentile who honored his father so faithfully that God rewarded him with a red heifer born in his herd. The lesson, Eliyahu says, is that a red heifer can come from a non-Jew.
For a decade the search turned up nothing. A heifer may have no more than one or two non-red hairs and no blemish of any kind, which even rules out the ear tag ranchers routinely attach to calves. Then an organization led by Christian Byron Stinson placed ads in cattle magazines, and devout ranchers began calling.
Five red calves were born during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
On one ranch, the worker who attaches ear tags was in quarantine, so several calves were never tagged.
Because importing farm animals was restricted, the calves were brought to Israel registered as pets, at about one year old.
Eliyahu is precise about where things stand: none has been certified as fit, and none has been ruled unfit. In his assessment, if the rabbis believed one qualified, they would already have moved forward. At the very least, the heifers give Israel a breeding program that puts it far ahead of where it was.
Korban: drawing near
Eliyahu prefers the word offering to sacrifice, because the Hebrew korban comes from a root meaning to draw near. Many offerings had nothing to do with sin: firstfruits, grain offerings and thank offerings brought out of simple gratitude.
Pastor Chris added a prophetic layer. The Passover lamb was brought into the home, cared for, and became part of the family before it was offered. The whole system taught Israel the cost of sin and the need for a perfect substitute.
Jews and Christians, one olive tree
For Eliyahu, the biggest sign of the times is not earthquakes. It is Christians who have no history with Israel reaching out to the Jewish people in love. He was raised to believe Christians only wanted to use Jews. What he found surprised him.
Pastor Chris read Romans 11:17–18, where Paul tells Gentile believers they were grafted in among the natural branches and warns them not to boast, because the root supports them. Eliyahu was honest that the idea of grafting is a real struggle for Jews, and the two men talked it through with love and respect, even where they disagreed.
They agreed on something important: to understand Yeshua, you have to see Him in His Jewish world. When He walks through grain fields with His disciples on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1–8), it reads like a page of rabbinic discussion. When He is immersed in the Jordan, it is a mikvah.
If it's in love and respect, then we can totally disagree on the deepest level.
The One who cleanses from death
The red heifer dealt with the defilement of death. Yeshua dealt with death itself. Hebrews 10:19–22 says we now have boldness to enter the holy place by His blood, so we can draw near with a true heart, our hearts sprinkled clean.
That is the real korban, the drawing near that no ash could accomplish. The Messiah of Israel died, was buried, and rose on the third day, and He will return to the city where all of this began.
Frequently asked questions
Is the red heifer a sin offering?
No. As Eliyahu Berkowitz explains, it is a ceremony that produces ashes to remove ritual impurity from contact with the dead (Numbers 19), which is different from sin.
How many red heifers have there been?
Jewish tradition counts nine from Moses to the destruction of the Second Temple. Maimonides writes that the tenth will be prepared in the days of the Messiah.
Where did the red heifers in Israel come from?
Five red calves were born on ranches in Texas during the COVID-19 lockdowns and were flown to Israel through an effort supported by Christian ranchers.
Has a red heifer been certified?
Not yet. According to the project's leadership, none of the heifers has been certified as fit or ruled unfit.
Take the next step
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