CBS News Story on Red Heifers Full of Inaccuracies

 We didn’t expect CBS to have a totally accurate report on the red heifers. When they called them cows and then spoke of Al Aqsa mosque while showing pictures of the Golden Dome, we knew CBS wouldn’t be accurate, but it’s still amazing that red cows and temples were spoken of on CBS TV!

So today we read the Jewish response to CBS’s story.

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On March 5, CBS News posted an article and video by Chris Livesay. The video was full of blatant inaccuracies, which all had one thing in common: portraying Bible-Observant Jews as religious fanatics intent on murdering Palestinians and cleansing Israel of any Islamic presence.

The article opened by citing Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida who claimed that the reason for the massacre on October 7 by Hamas “militants” was because “the Jews” had brought five red heifers to Israel. In a disgusting case of blaming the victim, that absurd statement shifted the blame from Hamas to the Jews and entirely ignored the Hamas charter written in 1988 in which the terrorist organization announced its intent to murder every Jew on the planet. Countless thousands of rockets and terrorist attacks can attest to their sincerity in carrying out that genocide. October 7 was just another attack, albeit their most successful to date.

Yet CBS and Livesay seem to believe that the cause of the attack on October 7 was motivated by the arrival of five cows one and a half years ago.

He also claimed that “some Jews and Christians believe they’re key to rebuilding the Jewish temple that once stood in Jerusalem, and to beckoning the Messiah”. That is a misrepresentation and twisting of Jewish theology. Jews believe that we can hasten the inevitable arrival of the Messiah by serving God and performing Biblical commandments, such as praying and keeping the Shabbat. The red heifer is simply one of those commandments.

Livesay wrote an article about the Red Heifer but did not speak to the Temple Institute, which is in charge of the Red Heifer project, or Rabbi Azariah Ariel, who is tasked with overseeing the project. This writer did interview Rabbi Ariel and this is his response:

“The main reason to recreate the red heifer is that it’s one of the 613 mitzvot in the Torah. One of them happens to be the red heifer ceremony,” Rabbi Ariel explained. “We do not do the ritual of the red heifer so that the Messiah will come so that God will do something like this or like that. He doesn’t work for us. God commanded us to prepare the red heifer, and that is what we do.”

“The messiah is something separate. It is written in the Torah so we know it will come.”

Livesay went on to write:

“To understand, you have to look back almost 2,000 years in the tumultuous history of the Middle East, when the ancient Romans destroyed the last temple in Jerusalem.”

“To rebuild it, fervent believers point to the Bible’s Book of Numbers, which commands the Israelites to offer a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke.”

“Only with that offering, they insist, can the temple rise again.”

No, Mr. Livesay, the Book of Numbers was NOT written in response to the Romans destroying the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Book of Numbers (Bamidbar, in the original Hebrew) is one of the five books of the Torah that Jews believe was given to Moses by God at Mount Sinai. And, Mr. Livesay, if you find it difficult to believe the Jews, every Biblical scholar who has ever expressed an opinion would agree that the Book of Numbers predates the destruction of the Second Temple by at least several hundred years.

This makes me wonder which sources you chose to believe.

And there is no source that claims that the purpose of performing the mitzvah of the red heifer is to reinstate the temple in Jerusalem.

Mr. Livesay, you also wrote: “What stands in the temple’s place now: The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, which are among the holiest sites in Islam.”

It would have been more accurate to say that the Dome of the Rock was built on top of Judaism’s holiest site, using materials stolen from the ruins of our Temple. The Dome of the Rock was actually built as a shrine commemorating the Jewish Temple and not for any reason connected to Islam.

Al Aqsa Mosque (the further mosque) was so named based on a myth created during the  Umayyad Dynasty, 50 years after Mohammad died, claiming the founder of Islam (who, the Koran claims never left Saudi Arabia) had made a miraculous overnight journey on a winged donkey in order to pray at the mosque that had not yet been built. Most Sunnis, especially those in Saudi Arabia, would be deeply insulted by the claim that Al Aqsa Mosque is in Jerusalem. They believe that the Al Aqsa Mosque is in Al Juraana, Saudi Arabia.

You also wrote: “Today, heavily armed guards ensure that only Muslims are allowed inside the complex. But that hasn’t stopped Jewish activists, like Melissa Jane Kronfeld, from leading groups up the Temple Mount five days every week.”

Yes, you saw that a state of anti-Jewish religious inequality is being enforced on the Temple Mount in contravention of Israeli and international law. And, as your statement indicates, this is entirely due to Palestinian violence.

While you cite Dr. Kronfeld’s belief that the Temple will be rebuilt and this could necessarily mean the destruction or moving of the Dome of the Rock, this prospect seems more horrifying to you than the destruction of the Jewish temples which Jews commemorate on a regular basis until this day. 

You wrote: “It’s a suggestion that many fear, if acted upon, could make the current war even bloodier, and see it spread rapidly beyond the Gaza Strip.”

I would like to remind you that Israel already fought and won a war for Jerusalem in 1967. Or did your researchers miss that as well? If we want to pray, or even build a Temple, we have every right to do so.

But we don’t. For Jews, Jerusalem is the city of peace, a place to worship God, and the focus of our prayers since King David purchased it. For the Palestinians, Al Aqsa was neglected until the Jews conquered it in 1967 and they resurrected a story that not even they believed. For the Palestinians, the Temple Mount is the current excuse to murder Jews.

And, by the way, your cameraman should be fired. While you were narrating about the Aqsa Mosque, the dark gray dome on the southern end of the Temple Mount Complex, he was filming the gold-plated Dome of the Rock located at the center of the complex.

The video also featured a large white structure. The voiceover stated, “A massive altar already awaits, where the heifers are to be burned.”

That was a lie. The structure in the video is a model of the altar as it stood in the Temple. The real altar must be made of stone. The model, located in Mitzpe Yericho, is used for Temple service reenactments and educational purposes. It is not made of stone and cannot be used for the Temple service.

https://israel365news.com/388190/cbs-documentary-lied-about-the-red-heifer-and-about-the-jews-in-israel/#google_vignette