15 Jul RED HEIFER AND RED BLOOD: SIGNS OF THE FINAL REDEMPTION

Rabbi Leib
Mintzberg writes (in
his sefer Ben
Melech) that there
are five primary
stumbling blocks in
Jewish history—
five major tragedies that shaped the
identity of the Jewish nation. Each one, he
says, carries an added dimension of
hardship or spiritual darkness not present
in the one before it. We will elaborate on
his words:
A. Egypt
B. The Babylonian Exile after the
destruction of the First Temple
C. The Roman Exile after the destruction
of the Second Temple
D. The Expulsion from Spain
E. The Holocaust
Egypt
The essence of the Egyptian exile was
Pharaoh’s attempt to prevent the formation
of the Jewish people. Unlike other nations,
Israel is a nation only through its Torah (as
Rav Saadiah Gaon states). Thus, as long as
we remained enslaved in Egypt, we could
not receive the Torah and become a true
nation. Pharaoh tried to block this through
three forms of oppression:
1. Intellectual Enslavement – He sought
to exhaust the people’s minds through
endless labor so they wouldn’t have
time or headspace to contemplate
divine ideas. As he said (Shemot 5:9):
“Let the work be heavier upon the
men so that they will not pay attention
to false words.”
2. Emotional Enslavement – Pharaoh
used psychological torture to break
the spirit of the people: killing their
sons, assigning women’s work to men
and vice versa.
3. Physical Enslavement – Through
harsh labor, he left them no physical
strength or time to pursue the divine.
Egypt was also sealed off through
witchcraft and other barriers, making
escape naturally impossible. But because
Hashem had a different plan, He redeemed
us with a strong hand and great miracles,
gave us the Torah, and formed us into a
people.
This may be why Egypt is not counted
among the Four Exiles in Daniel’s
vision—because the counting begins only
after we became a nation at Sinai.

Babylon
Once we became a nation, new disasters
came upon us, each threatening to erase
our identity. The Babylonian exile,
following the destruction of the First
Temple, was aimed at disconnecting us
from our land and Temple. No other nation
has ever survived an exile after being
uprooted from its homeland. Yet
remarkably, in Babylon, Torah and Jewish
life flourished—great yeshivot were
founded, and the Babylonian Talmud was
composed.
Rome
The Roman exile was even harsher. The
Romans had learned from Babylon’s
failure: if you exile the Jews to one place,
they survive and rebuild. So Rome
scattered us to the four corners of the
earth. Still, the Jewish people miraculously
established Torah communities
everywhere they went.
Spain
Next came the Spanish expulsion. The
expulsion occurred in several countries,
but since Spain was home to the most
prominent and flourishing Jewish
community—known as the Golden Age,
where Torah and culture thrived—the
expulsion came to be named after it.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews were
forced to choose between conversion or
exile. This exile had new elements:
• Jews were forced to abandon their faith,
not just their homes.
• Now, not only did the Jew lack a
homeland, but he had no place in the
world to rest—perpetual wandering
and rejection became his lot.
Still, despite this unprecedented hardship,
the nation survived.
The Holocaust
Then came the ultimate evil: the Nazi
Final Solution, seeking to annihilate every
Jew—young and old. And yet,
miraculously, even this failed. After this
unimaginable abyss, the Jewish people
experienced a sudden and inexplicable
ascent. Like a cosmic reset, the nation
emerged stronger than before—rebuilding
in its homeland a stronghold that flourished
in many areas, most significantly through
the reestablishment of yeshivot across the
country, filled with an enormous number
of students learning Torah day and night.
The Exile of Ishmael
But now there is a new trial, unprecedented

in history: the Exile of Ishmael. This final
exile, as will be explained, is intended to
prevent Israel from reaching the final
redemption. To understand it, we must
look at Daniel’s prophecy.
Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream: the Four
Kingdoms
Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a great statue,
and Daniel interpreted each segment as
representing a different empire.
• Head of gold (Babylon)
• Chest and arms of silver (Media and
Persia)
• Belly and thighs of copper (Greece)
• Legs of iron (Rome)
• Feet of iron mixed with clay
What is puzzling in the feet is the iron
mixed with clay—explained by the
Malbim to mean that Rome splits into two
parts: iron (Rome) and clay (Ishmael).
This clay is mixed into the iron—meaning
Ishmael does not conquer Rome but
attaches itself like a parasite.
Rav Saadiah Gaon interprets Ishmael as
being included in Rome, while Ibn Ezra
holds Ishmael is the fourth kingdom itself.
In truth, there may be no contradiction. All
earlier empires rose by conquest. Ishmael
is different: it doesn’t conquer—it attaches
itself, like a tick that feeds off a host, as the
Torah says of Ishmael: “He shall dwell
upon all his brethren.”
The Zohar states that this final exile under
Yishmael is, in fact, the most difficult of
them all (vol. 2, 17b): “And a maidservant
who inherits her mistress—this refers to
Hagar, who bore Ishmael, who caused
many evils to Israel, ruled over them, and
afflicted them with many torments and
decrees. To this day, they dominate Israel
and prevent them from practicing their
faith. There is no exile as difficult for
Israel as the Exile of Ishmael.”
The Rambam writes similarly in his
Iggeret Teiman: “Their evil is heavy upon
us, and they cunningly seek to harm and
demean us… no other nation has been
more hateful or has done more to diminish
and disgrace us than they. Even King
David, when seeing in prophetic vision the
suffering from Ishmael, cried out: ‘Woe is
me that I dwell in Meshech, that I dwell
among the tents of Kedar’ (Tehilim
120:5).”
He continues:
“We endure their domination, their lies,
and their deceptions beyond human

capacity… Though we seek peace, they
pursue us with hatred and war, as it says
(Tehilim 120:7), ‘I am for peace, but when
I speak, they are for war.’”
The Red Heifer and Modern Times
Recently, social media has seen a strange

explosion of interest in the Red Heifer-
Para Aduma. Rashi’s comment on Chukat

suddenly makes sense in our time:
“Because the nations of the world taunt
Israel: What is this command (Referring to
Para Aduma)? What logic is in it?—
therefore it is a decree.”
Throughout history, the nations had never
mocked Israel over the Red Heifer—until
now. Suddenly, there are thousands of
videos portraying it as a threat or end-time
event.
The Ohr HaChaim explains that every
detail of the Red Heifer signifies harsh
judgment, alluding to Edom, who
throughout history shed the blood of other
nations without enduring suffering
himself—reflected in the red color of the
cow.
Red is Esav’s color. He was born red,
craved red lentils, and was spiritually
drawn to redness. The Kli Yakar explains
that Esav didn’t desire the lentils
themselves, but their red appearance—he
was drawn to the color.
The Red Heifer now appears to threaten
the nations, as they sense that the end is
near. According to tradition (Rambam
Para Aduma 3, 4), there were nine red
cows, and the tenth Red Heifer is to be
brought in the End of Days by Mashiach to
purify the people, enabling them to ascend
to the Beit HaMikdash and offer sacrifices.
It thus symbolizes the slaughter and
downfall of the “cow”—representing
Edom and Yishmael, who have merged
into one entity. This explains the growing
uproar surrounding the Red Heifer and the
mounting tension over Har HaBayit. Just
as Egypt’s mission was to prevent the
formation of the Jewish nation, so too the
final trial of the nations is to prevent the
final redemption—before they lose their
power and dominion.