Red Heifer

As Tamar gives birth to twins, the midwife ties red thread around Zerah’s wrist. The spies instruct Rahab to tie a red cord in her window. What is the significance of the red thread?

Several stories describe how the rabbis of the Second Temple period would force priests to prepare the ashes in the lower state of purity, tevul yom (immersed in water before sunset), and once even discarded ashes prepared in the stringent state of purity, meʿorav shemesh (after sunset), to demonstrate the law is not in accordance with the Sadducees. The Qumran halakhic text, 4QMMT, gives us the perspective of the other side of the debate.

Hint: The story follows the red heifer ritual, i.e., the laws of corpse contamination, and the death of their sister Miriam.

After contact with a corpse, a person must be sprinkled with a liquid mixture containing the ashes of a red heifer, together with cedar and ezov, alkaline plants that, when burnt, function as the key ingredients in a detergent.

Ezekiel 36 uses Priestly “purification” imagery similar to that of the red heifer ritual to describe God’s future reconciliation with Israel, inspiring the rabbis to choose this passage as the haftara for Parashat Parah.