the ugly age of Kali

Kulapavana · May 17, 2004

The Lesson of the Beheaded Heifer

by Samuel Schwartz

May 17, '04

One of the most puzzling commandments in the Torah is that of the Beheaded Heifer. Deuteronomy 21 describes the procedure to be followed if a dead body is found in open ground outside of city limits and the criminal investigation does not turn up the murderers.

The elders and judges of the closest city must go to the spot where the person was killed, behead a young cow and literally wash their hands as they confess that they were not personally responsible for this person's death. From that day on, the spot where the calf was beheaded would not be cultivated. Instead of turning the spot into a field that could grow food to feed hundreds, the place where a man was murdered becomes an eternal reminder that a terrible crime society failed to prevent happened there.

In commenting on this strange ritual, the Mishna asks, "Would it ever occur to us that the elders of the court were murderers?" Of course not. The 15th century Spanish-Jewish commentator, Abarvanel suggested an interesting interpretation: "All of the details of this commandment come to make the matter known, as though the act announces and testifies that they [the citizens of the town] are all suspect…. The act will arouse attention and hint at the great punishment that will come to the city because of the murder…. and this is cast upon the judges and the city elders because the lack of justice among them led to the bloodshed."

The Torah is teaching us that following a murder, all of us (up to and including the leaders) must investigate our own responsibility for allowing the murder to occur. A heifer is beheaded on a spot that will forever remain barren so that we will remember this perversion of justice and never let it happen again. The ritual was meant to shock us with the utter waste of the brutal killing of the heifer and the unnecessary non-cultivation of the land. The rite cried out to the heavens, imploring us to act proactively in the future so that innocent blood would never again be spilled.

Two years ago, Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl was abducted, tortured and beheaded in Pakistan. Islamic militants (according to Pearl's captor) searched for a Jew to kidnap and murder. In an unequivocal act, Pearl's killers forced him to recite the words, "My father is a Jew, my mother is a Jew, and I am a Jew," and then cut through his neck, recording the entire scene on video tape for the world to see.

Some historical events cry out to the heavens for a reaction. Daniel Pearl's murder was one such obscenity. A talented, handsome father-to-be, who had so much vitality and promise, was taken at the prime of his life and beheaded in a wanton act of blood-curdling waste. Like the beheaded heifer ritual of the Bible, we should have been moved by Daniel Pearl's murder. He was both the murder victim and the heifer whose beheading was designed to shock us into action.

The world should have been turned upside down. The entire terrorist network in Pakistan should have been dismantled. The connections between the terror group and Pakistan's intelligence service should have been fully investigated, going all the way up the chain of command if necessary. The spot on which Pearl was murdered should have been turned into a museum whose exhibits teach what can happen when intolerance and hate is allowed to act unimpeded. Freedom-loving countries should have been inspired to unite to root out terrorists in every place, wherever they found refuge. Tolerance for the "motiveless malignity" of militant Islam should have ended that very day.

But this did not happen. Many nations and individuals continued to attempt to better understand the motivations of terrorists who behead their Jewish captives. Many continued to maintain an underlying belief that while the terrorists' methods may be unappetizing, the killers' operate in order to rectify real injustices that were perpetrated against them. Many continued to believe that if we only could talk with the terrorists, find out what was bothering them, and reach an amicable compromise solution, they would stop beheading Jews.

Of course, they were wrong. And that is why this past week, Nicholas Berg, another American Jew, was beheaded in Iraq. Evidently, the beheading of Daniel Pearl was insufficiently shocking to arouse the world's outrage at militant Islam's modus operandi and the bloody ritual was allowed to happen a second time.

I pray that Berg's beheading will shock the world into changing its approach to militant Islam. But I am not very optimistic. Sometimes, even the most shocking experiences fail to effect change.

The Talmud describes how the beheaded heifer ritual went out of practice because of the rise in the number of murders. The ritual's implementation became impractical and it became ineffective in purpose.