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September 10, 1999/29 Elul 5759, Vol. 52, No. 1
Red heifer birth wanted in Israel
PETER EPHROSS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - If Clyde Lott has his way, several hundred cows will be flown to Israel this December. And the Mississippi preacher has some unlikely allies in his quest: Jews living in Israel and the West Bank.
The cows, the first of what Lott hopes will be 50,000 sent to the Jewish state, are part of his plan to fulfill a prophecy that a red heifer being born in Israel will lead to the "Second Coming" of Jesus. The return of Jesus is part of a Christian apocalyptic vision of the end of time, which includes the slaughter of those who don't accept the Christian messiah as their savior.
A cattle rancher and ordained minister with the National Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ, Lott believes, like most fundamentalist Christians, that three preconditions mentioned in the Bible are necessary for the coming of the messiah: the state of Israel must be restored; Jerusalem must be in Jewish hands; and the Temple, last destroyed in 70 A.D., must be rebuilt.
The modern state of Israel, of course, was established in 1948, and since 1967, the Jewish state has controlled all of Jerusalem. That leaves the rebuilding of the Temple, and since a red heifer was part of the sacrificial ritual in the Temple, many believe the birth of a red heifer in Israel will signal the Temple's return. Many Jews believe that the same preconditions will bring about the coming of the Jewish messiah.
An apparently red heifer, Melody, was born in Israel in 1996, but it soon grew a white tail.
Lott's quest began 10 years ago, when he heard from a preacher that the apocalypse might be approaching.
In 1989, Lott drove to Jackson, Mississippi's capital, and asked the state's agriculture minister, Roy Manning, for help. Manning wrote to the American envoy in Greece in charge of Middle East agricultural exports, explaining the prophetic connection.
The letter eventually made its way to the Temple Institute, a private organization in Jerusalem dedicated to rebuilding the Temple. The institute contacted Lott and invited him to come to Israel.
Lott and the members of the Temple Institute, which is headed by Rabbi Chaim Richman, didn't talk about their religious differences, preferring to focus on their common desires to help Israel prosper and to see a red heifer born there.
The birth of a red heifer would "unquestionably be seen as a sign from God to take further steps in rebuilding the Temple," says Richard Landes, the head of Boston University's Center for Millennial Studies.
But this could have disastrous political implications because rebuilding the Temple on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which contains several Muslim holy sites, could antagonize the entire Arab world.
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