From: Mermaid . (britannica@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Apr 13 2002 - 00:33:37 MDT
http://www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher041102.asp
Suggestion: Please visit the above url to reach the various link urls.
Re the red-heifer:
http://www.templeinstitute.org/current-events/RedHeifer/index.html
April 11, 2002 8:30 a.m.
Red-Heifer Days
Religion takes the lead.
Could this little calf born last month in Israel bring about Armageddon? The
concept would have struck many people as absurd the last time such a calf
was born, in 1997, and probably makes most readers laugh today. Big mistake:
Never underestimate the power of religious faith to shape events, especially
in the Holy Land. Especially right now.
Our eschatological heifer story begins on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem,
where tens of millions of Jews, Muslims, and Christians believe the central
events of each tradition's Last Days will play out. The site, the Biblical
Mount Moriah, was the site of the Hebrews' First Temple, destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, and the Second Temple, which the Romans leveled in
70 AD. Muslims, believing the site to be the place from which the Prophet
Mohammed ascended into Heaven atop a steed, began in 685 to build the Noble
Sanctuary, a 35-acre site in Jerusalem's walled Old City, containing the
Dome of the Rock shrine and the al Aqsa mosque.
To Jews who adhere to ancient tradition, whose number include religious
Israeli nationalists, the long-awaited Messiah will return to become the
king of Israel and high priest of a rebuilt Temple, which can only be on
Temple Mount. For Christian fundamentalists, Jesus Christ's return at the
height of the battle of Armageddon, in which forces of the Antichrist clash
in Israel with a 200 million-man army from the East, will require a Third
Temple from which the Lord will begin a millennial reign. And for Muslims,
an Antichrist figure called the Dajal will be a Jew who will lead an
all-encompassing war against Islam, which will culminate in the return of
Jesus (as a Muslim prophet), the Kaaba, or Sacred Rock in Mecca,
transporting itself to Jerusalem, and final judgment in the valley just
below the Noble Sanctuary.
"What happens at that one spot, more than anywhere else, quickens
expectations of the End in three religions. And at that spot, the danger of
provoking catastrophe is greatest," writes Israeli journalist Gershom
Gorenberg in The End of Days, his 2000 book about the apocalyptic struggle
over the Temple Mount.
So how does the calf recently born in Israel figure into things? As
Gorenberg explains, the ashes of a flawless red heifer an extremely rare
creature were required by the ancient Hebrews to purify worshipers who
went into the Temple to pray. In modern times, rabbinical law forbids Jews
from setting foot on the Temple Mount, thus violating the site where the
Holy of Holies dwelled, until and unless they are ritually purified. Without
a perfect red heifer to sacrifice, the Third Temple cannot be built, and
Moshiach the Messiah will not come. Writes Gorenberg, "[Israeli]
government officials and military leaders could only regard the requirement
for the missing heifer as a stroke of sheer good fortune preventing conflict
over the Mount."
In 1996, thanks in part to a cattle-breeding program set up in Israel with
the help of Texas ranchers who are fundamentalist Christians, a red heifer
was born. There was immense excitement among messianists of the Israeli
religious Right, and their American Christian counterparts. The world media
covered it as a joke, but it wasn't funny to David Landau, columnist for the
Israeli daily Haaretz. He called the red heifer "a four-legged bomb" that
could "set the entire region on fire." Muslim leaders worried about the red
heifer too, as they would see an attempt by Jews to take over the Temple
Mount as a sign of the Islamic apocalypse.
As it turned out, during the three years of waiting for the heifer to reach
the ritually mandated age of sacrifice, white hairs popped out on the tip of
her tail. This bovine was, alas, not divine. But now there's a successor,
and rabbis who have examined her have declared her ritually acceptable
(though she will not be ready for sacrifice for three years). She arrives at
a time when Israel is fighting a war for survival with the Palestinians, who
are almost entirely Muslim, and a time in which Islam and the West appear to
be girding for battle with each other, as Islamic tradition predicts will be
the state of the world before the Final Judgment.
"These kinds of circumstances are exactly what people are waiting for," says
Richard Landes, a Boston University history professor and director of its
Center for Millenial Studies. "We could be starting a war. If this is a real
red heifer, and strict Orthodox rabbis have declared her worthy of
sacrifice, then a lot of Jews in Israel will take that as a sign that a new
phase of history is about to begin. The Muslims are ready for jihad anyway,
so if you have Jews up there doing sacrifices, talk about a red flag in
front of a charging bull."
Landes says there is immense anger among Israelis, both religious and
secular, at the ingratitude of Muslims, whom the conquering Israeli army
allowed to occupy and control the Temple Mount in 1967. Add to this the fury
of a nation under attack by Islamic suicide bombers, and, says Landes, "it's
entirely conceivable that this [red heifer] could trigger a new round of
attempts to blow up the Dome of the Rock."
This is something the Israeli security forces have long been vigilant
against. But with their attentions drawn elsewhere by the war with the
Palestinians, it's possible that a radical group could slip the net. And
it's possible that religious extremists elements within the Israeli army
could help them.
"This idea is nothing to laugh at," says novelist Robert Stone, whose novel
Damascus Gate centers around a similar conspiracy. "There have been at least
four actual plots to clear the space where the Temple had stood. Some of
them went surprisingly high into the army and police."
Timothy Weber, dean of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard,
Ill., has written extensively about the worldview of apocalypse-minded
American Protestants. He tells NRO that "Bible teachers are foaming at the
mouth over what's happening now in Israel."
"It really does play into the longstanding scenario that dispensationalists
have believed would happen in the End: a growing disdain for Israel,
Israel's isolation from the rest of the world, and mounting pressure on the
Jewish state," Weber says. "This all leads up to the emergence of an
Antichrist, who will step up and bring peace to the situation, and Israel
and the world will welcome him as a solution to an apparently unsolvable
problem."
The unshakable belief in particular prophetic visions Jewish, Christian,
or Islamic makes the art of political compromise impossible when it comes
to Jerusalem. Says Weber: "There's no way to negotiate these ideas. If you
believe that this is in the prophetic cards, that this is history before it
happens, that this is how God is going to manipulate events to bring about
the final phase of human history, then you cannot negotiate land for peace,
or anything else."
Put another way: You don't have to believe that a rust-colored calf could
bring about the end of the world or that 72 black-eyed virgins await the
pious Islamic suicide bomber in paradise but there are many people who do,
and are prepared to act on that belief. This is a stubborn reality that
eludes many of us in the modern, secular West, particularly those who work
in the media, and who are therefore responsible for reporting and explaining
the world to the masses.
"Sometimes you look at religion events and you want to laugh out loud,
because they're so bizarre," says Terry Mattingly, a syndicated religion
columnist and scholar of media and religion at Palm Beach Atlantic College.
"If your worldview is essentially materialist, then to be 'real' something
has to present itself in a form that makes sense in a laboratory, or on Wall
Street, or in the New Hampshire primary, and anything that can't be
explained within those templates doesn't count. Thus we can't seem to
understand why people behave in ways that don't serve their self-interest."
Boston University's Landes agrees, saying that the American cultural elite
tend to disdain religion, when in fact it is a major factor in modern
history. "When 9/11 happened, one of the questions people asked were, 'Is it
religious, or is it political?' People are more comfortable explaining it as
politics. The very fact that people asked that question shows how little
they understand," he says.
"Since September 11, we have all been brought to the point of recognizing
the pervasive power of religions to shape all kinds of events," Weber adds.
"We are dealing with ancient religious convictions and memories, and they
are driving forces in the modern world. The secular press just doesn't get
it, but it seems to me there's no other way to understand this."
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