Parah 3:10-11

Parah 3:10

The cow would burst (from the fire). The kohein stood outside the pit and took the cedar, hyssop and scarlet wool. He asked the elders, “This cedar? This cedar? This hyssop? This hyssop? This scarlet wool? This scarlet wool?” He repeated each question three times and they answered, “Yes, yes” three times about each item.

Parah 3:11

The kohein then wrapped these three items together using the excess scarlet wool and threw them into the fire. When it burned up, they beat it with sticks and sifted it with sieves. Rabbi Yishmael says that this was done with stone hammers and stone sieves. If a black coal had ashes on it, they would crush it but if there weren’t any ashes on, they left it alone. A bone was crushed in either case. The ashes were divided into three parts: one part was placed in the cheil (a location in the Temple), one part on the Mount of Anointing (i.e., the Mount of Olives), and one part was divided among the duty shifts of the kohanim.