April
11, 2002 8:30 a.m. Red-Heifer
Days
Religion
takes the lead.
ould
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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