Holy Cow
It is the most enigmatic mitzvah in all of Torah: the parah adumah, the "red heifer." If a person comes in contact with a human corpse, she or he must go for ritual cleansing. The "defiled" individual shall then be sprinkled with a concoction made of the mixture of fresh water (literally "living" waters, mayim chayim) and the ashes of a slaughtered and burned "red" cow that had absolutely no blemishes nor ever bore a yoke. But here's the paradox: while the mixture of these "waters of lustration" (mei nidah) cleansed the person who had been rendered ritually impure by contact with a corpse, the individuals who burned the cow, made contact with its ashes, and sprinkled the mixture on the "defiled" person would be rendered impure in the process. In other words, the act of making one person ritually pure makes the purveyor of purity impure.
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