Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Red Cow* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)

Spoilers:

• The Temple doesn’t need the Red Cow for its construction or existence. The only function of the Red Cow sacrifice is to allow the High Priest to purify himself from contact with the dead (by stepping on a graveyard or touching a corpse).

• The Red Cow isn’t sacrificed in the Temple. It’s sacrificed on the Mount of Olives facing the Temple, and on the ground, without an altar. The animal is fully burned to ashes and these ashes are to be mixed with water from the Kiyor. This mixture is sprinkled three times to purify the High Priest.

• There is no Kiyor, there is no Tabernacle and there are no proven priests and a fortiori no proven high priest because it’s a hereditary charge, the priest has to descend from the line of Aaron, and there is no record of Aaron’s DNA.