Frankenstein, Igor Bummed At Having To Get Sprinkled By Red Heifer Ash

“I’m a little busy now trying to locate my monster.”

Geneva, July 6 – A scientist and his assistant whose work has required them to come into contact with human remains, and thus to contract what the Bible considers spiritual defilement, voiced their dismay today at the need to undergo a special purification ritual before they may enter the Holy Temple, a procedure that entails traveling to Jerusalem for the weeklong process.

Victor Frankenstein and his laboratory technician Igor voiced their displeasure today upon realizing that their use of limbs and organs from dead bodies to construct living creatures made each of them tamei, or “unclean,” a status that occurs when a person comes into contact, forms a “roof” over, or remains under the same roof as a human corpse, a human limb, or a certain volume of human blood or tissue. The only way to restore a person to “cleansed” status involves getting sprinkled by a mixture of sanctified water from a specific Jerusalem source and the ashes of an unblemished, unworked, completely red cow, applied with a bunch of hyssop branches, over the course of seven days: on days three and seven of no longer longer coming into contact with the source of the defilement, the subject undergoes the sprinkling, and at nightfall following day seven, they may enter the Temple and eat or handle certain foodstuffs.

“This is going to be a pain,” admitted Frankenstein. “I’m a little busy now trying to locate my monster. It’s going to put a serious crimp in my plans if I have to travel to Jerusalem and spend a week-plus on the whole cleansing thing. Ugh.”

“I’m not looking forward to thith,” concurred his hunchbacked assistant. “Jutht thinking of the nethethary packing thendth me halfway to a nervouth breakdown. Pathport control won’t pothe much of a problem, but cuthtomth and baggage claim are jutht not what we need right now. I’m trying not to think about the hoopth we’ll have to jump through to get our thupplieth and equipment through. Oooh, we better not be on any blacklithtth. That could complicate thingth even further. Mathter, remind me pleathe why we’re doing thith?”

Biblical clean/unclean sensibilities relate in great part to loss of life or loss of potential life, with the different types of “tum’ah” carrying different potencies, methods, and materials susceptible to transmission and secondary, tertiary, and sometimes quaternary sensitivity, at heightened levels of sanctity. Frankenstein told journalists that he wishes to undergo the red heifer ritual because he has long had a fascination with death and how to mitigate its effects. The red heifer’s ashes only treat corpse-tum’ah; most other types of defilement require only waiting and immersion in a body of water.

Frankenstein disclosed that he had written to the Temple administrators to inquire about the process and to offer them any expertise he might be able to provide them, such as reassembling any dismembered animal offerings thy have lying around. He received no response.

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