The Red heifer must be slaughtered at a certain age.
There is a window of about one year for the heifers to be slaughtered per J theology.
This means they don't necessarily need to be slaughtered this April. It could be any time between April 2024 - April 2025.
The sacrifice must take place on the Mount of Olives with the Al Aqsa compound within sight of the priests conducting the sacrifice.
The sacrificial altar must be connected to a bridge that connects all the way to the compound.
The bridge must have arches in order to allow air to pass underneath the bridge.
Why?
Per theology, the priests cannot touch the ground as there may be dead people buried underneath and it is impure for the priests to ever come in contact with the dead.
The priests themselves are required to be completely pure.
They cannot have ever come into contact with the dead.
Also, they must have a direct bloodline to the Prophet Aaron, the brother of Prophet Moses (peace be upon them both).
After slaughtering, the heifers will be burned. The ashes of the heifers will be mixed with water from a nearby spring of holy water.
This water will then be used to purify the Jews of Israel. The purification process takes 7 days to complete.
Therefore, a person must remain in quarantine and avoid impurification after the purification process.
Since the point of slaughtering the heifers is to produce holy water, the Al Aqsa compound doesn't necessarily need to be destroyed right away.
The heifers may produce thousands of gallons of water which can be stored in tanks and used for purification at a later date.
The water itself is collected from "Shiloach (Siloam) spring in the City of David, located at the foot of the Temple Mount. This spring is Jerusalem's original source of water, and it has always had great spiritual significance."
The water itself must also be collected by the purest of people
To guarantee that a person remained pure throughout their lives, compounds were built on top of a solid bedrock.
Why? Because it can be assumed that no dead person has ever been buried underneath such a rocky place.
Raising Children in Purity
Pregnant women would come and stay in these courtyards, and give birth to their children inside.Â
These children would spend their early years within in the courtyard, not venturing outside until the age of eight.
Thus, having been born in this protected environment and remaining within, they were never exposed to impurity in their lives.
These children would gather the waters for the solution of "waters of sanctification," when the time came to purify the priest assigned the task of burning a new heifer and preparing its ashes.
When they became of age, they left the courtyard in a manner as unique as was their stay inside.
Oxen were brought, and boards were placed across the oxen.
The children rode out of the courtyards atop these oxen, sitting on the boards and carrying stone vessels to hold the water they will gather.
All of this is to prevent contact with the earth which may contain the dead.
If successful, the water can be stored for years.
This means the compound may be safe from destruction for years, potentially even decades.
Still, the Red Heifer sacrifice precipitates the entire process.
How does purification work?
The Torah established that one who has had contact with the dead is impure for 7 days.
During the course of that week, on the 3rd day and 7th day, the individual would be sprinkled with the waters of sanctification.
A hyssop plant is used to sprinkle the water onto the person seeking purification.
Once pure, the Jews can begin to construct the Temple. The Temple itself must be pure, meaning the people and the tools used for construction must be pure.
There are even rules for how construction can take place.
For example, iron tools cannot be used once on the Temple Mount.
Therefore, the stones must be pre carved.
This Israeli has already carved stones for the Temple.
There is much more to this process.
To summarize, just know that this entire process requires that every single aspect of construction, from the heifer to the priest to the children to the holy water to the tools itself must be completely pure.
The Temple Institute is so committed to the Third Temple that they have already produced the holy items needed to place inside the temple itself.
Everything, from A-Z, is ready.
All that is needed now is the ash of the Red Heifer.
The effort to reconstruct the Temple is not just limited to religious zealots in Israel.
It's an entire movement in Israel, with politicians in the Knesset calling for the establishment of the Temple.
All of this information is sourced form the Temple institute, an organization in Jerusalem committed to sacrificing the heifers and building the Temple.
Our understanding of this process may be incorrect. Please feel free to add context, correct our mistakes, and contribute more information to this thread.
You can learn more about this process by watching this video we produced
Here’s where the war currently stands and where it might be heading next
Let’s start by remembering what each party wants
Hezb has declared that they want a ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza
Israel wants Hezbollah to change these conditions for ceasefire, negotiate separately from Gaza, and retreat behind the Litani River.
Israel is asking Hezbollah to do something it cannot reasonably do without appearing weak
They can’t appear to be abandoning the people of Gaza nor can they go back on what they have clearly stated as an immovable objective : end the genocide
And retreating behind the Litani River would destroy Hezb reputation as a formidable force, tantamount to suicide.
Israel on the other hand can end the genocide without appearing weak. Gaza is completely destroyed. Thousands have left Gaza and tens of thousands , if not hundreds of thousands, have been killed.
So there is a way for Israel to declare success, no matter how grotesque it would be, in Gaza.
They wanted revenge for Oct 7th. They got it.
But Israel won’t do this. The ball is in their court. They have now moved beyond the initial objectives of destroying Gaza, “freeing the hostages”, and taking revenge for Oct 7th.
Israel kicked into war time gear a year ago. Justifying the human and financial capital for this isn’t easy. It isn’t often that your population is ready and willing to deal with the inconvenience of war.
So Israel has decided to extend this war as long as possible to maximize the potential benefits.
Hezbollah has served as a legitimate threat to Israeli interests for decades.