Jewish leaders in Israel needed a red heifer for a temple ceremony. So a Texan sent five
Byron Stinson has always been a man of strong faith.
And recently that faith came into play for a mission. Jewish faith leaders he knew needed a red heifer to replicate a ceremony depicted in the Bible.
“I felt like it was my duty as a Texan to go out and look around Texas and see if I could find some completely red, pure red cows that fulfill the requirements of the red heifer and, if I could, then try to ship them here to Israel,” Stinson told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Stinson, of Glen Rose, didn’t just find one heifer. He found five.
Those five, perfectly unblemished red heifers landed in Israel in September 2022, a feat that cost around $500,000 when you factor in the first-class plane tickets for rabbis to come examine the heifers and the American Airlines trip to Israel.
They’re now being taken care of at a secure location, and Stinson and others hope to hold the ceremony they’ll be used for during Passover in 2024. Stinson runs a nonprofit called Boneh Israel that helps build up and revive Biblical sites.
The goal of the whole ceremony is unity, Stinson said in a video interview from Israel Wednesday.
“Why search for a cow?” an excerpt from Boneh Israel’s website reads. ”These Red Heifers can bring world peace! The bible teaches us, that the key for building the Third Temple (the House of Prayer for All the Nations) is purifying us with the red heifer in Jerusalem.”
If you’re wondering how such a ceremony works, the short of it is that at the end one of the heifers will die.
But while there are five heifers, only one will be needed for the ceremony. They’ll mix the ashes of the heifer with water from Israel’s Gihon Spring and other ingredients, and sprinkle that water on members of the priesthood and the workers and tools for the temple. The ceremony needs to happen at the Mount of Olives, just like it did in the Bible.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the red heifer appears in a portion of the Book of Numbers 19:3 that reads “This is the ritual law that God has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid.” The water and ash mixture is supposed to remove impurities from touching a corpse.
Such a ceremony has likely never taken place, Stinson believes.
“I don’t think the Jewish fathers, they haven’t done this in 2,000 years,” Stinson said. “I’ve never done it. They’ve never done it.”
Finding those heifers wasn’t a one person feat. Stinson said he put ads in magazines and sent mail to ranchers. Stinson and his team were able to find 20 red heifers they could use.
One of the heifers came from Urbanowsky Ranch just outside Houston. The other four came from Triple Creek Ranch in Rockwall, Stinson said.
“This is a mission of peace,” Stinson said. “It’s a mission of unity. It’s a mission of love.”
When the heifers arrived in Israel, Stinson said it was a huge celebration. And as he’s gotten questions from the media, Stinson has gotten a lot of comments saying what he’s doing is “weird” and “crazy.”
“It’s not a weird thing,” Stinson said. “It’s just what the Bible says.”
