When was the last time you were genuinely excited about a Torah commandment? When was the last time you had the opportunity to to fulfill a mitzvah that your ancestors could only dream of?
Well, I’d say the settling of the land of Israel is one commandment that fits that description.
But I just experienced another one.
In the prayer of Shema, there is a Torah commandment called Ptil Techelet, which is the commandment to wear the fringes on a four cornered garment, and one of those fringes needs to be the blue string.
The thing is, that blue string isn’t just colored or painted and this is gonna sound nuts, but the blue is a dye taken from a very rare snail. That is why, when described in the Talmud, it says that techelet is very expensive.
Anyway, this commandment is something our ancestors could only dream of. Why? Because the tradition of that snail was lost. We simply didn’t know where to find it or how to dye the string.
Over the past few decades, we rediscovered that snail and that’s how Ptil Tekhelet was launched.
Good friends like Ari Greenspan, Baruch Sterman, Marc Tobin, and others began factories to offer techelet to the public.
I wear them on my tzitzit as well as on my prayer shawl. Aviel also wears them as does Nadav.
Ya know, I’ve been feeling for a very long time, and that feeling was strengthened in this war, that we are living in truly biblical and messianic times.
This Torah commandment and the fact that we can fulfill it just magnifies that feeling for me.
Anyway, today, I was invited to a new factory and guest center to hear more about the history of techelet and to learn more about this fascinating commandment. Nadav asked to join me!! (If you think Nadav is wise beyond his years, you’d be right. On the way here, on Spotify, wanna know what music he chose? 80s music! Yes, for real! 
)
)Well, I wanted another pair of techelet because I only have one pair that I wear every day under my shirt.
So I went to check out what they were selling.
Another fascinating part of this mitzvah is how the strings are tied. Many different Torah scholars have different opinions on that.
Whichever type of thing you choose, you fulfill this mitzvah.
I chose the tying method of Maimonides and the method with 13 knots.
There are still some people and some rabbis who aren’t convinced that this is the real deal, but without getting too deep into the details of techelet, my understanding is that even if it’s not the original, you can only gain by wearing it. If it isn’t the genuine techelet, then you lost nothing by wearing it. If it is, you just gained another Torah commandment.
Anyway, it is a super fascinating topic and here’s the thing. I have a confession. For years, I had a problem with this mitzvah, the commandment to wear a four cornered garment under my shirt and to have those fringes. I had a hard time wearing it because it’s just another layer. It gets hot!
But now that I have this techelet, I’m super excited to put it on every day. It’s not very often you get to do a Torah commandment that our ancestors couldn’t even dream of fullfilling. This is the ONLY Torah commandment that was lost and rediscovered after thousands of years.
Also, I don’t know what it is, but something about this blue string is just so beautiful.
