Debate Responses
1. The “min ha-mutar b’ficha” rule is mainly for Torah items
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Chazal learn from the pasuk:
“למען תהיה תורת ה׳ בפיך”
that certain things must come from animals you could eat – “מן המותר בפיך”.
Classic examples:-
Klaf for Sefer Torah, tefillin, mezuzah
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Batim of tefillin
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Retzuos of tefillin
These are all Torah items or directly serving the Torah inside.
Many Rishonim and Acharonim say this rule does not automatically apply to every mitzvah object in the Torah (see Noda BiYehuda OC Tinyana 3; R’ Mois Navon, Threads of Reason “The Hilazon and ‘Muttar b’Fikha’”).
So we can already say: tzitzis are not automatically in the same box as klaf and batim.
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2. In tzitzis, the mitzvah is on the wool – the dye is just color
For tzitzis:
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The mitzvah object is the string – normally wool from a kosher animal.
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The chilazon only gives the blue color (techeiles).
The Noda BiYehuda (OC Tinyana 3) – quoted and explained in Levush HaAron – says a big chiddush:
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Techeiles in the Mishkan and bigdei kehuna came from the blood of the chilazon, which Chazal call a tola’as (worm-type thing), not kosher.
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Yet the Torah commanded to use it.
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From here we learn: as long as the wool itself is from something tahor, there is no requirement that the dye be from something you can eat.
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Dye is only חזותא – appearance – and “צביעה אין בה ממש” – there’s no real “substance” of issur left.
In simple terms:
You’re not wearing “snail meat,” you’re wearing kosher wool that happens to be colored blue.
That’s exactly how Levush HaAron uses the Noda BiYehuda: to say that the chilazon, even if non-kosher, is not a kashrus problem for techeiles, because it’s just the color source, not the cheftza of the mitzvah.
3. The Mishkan itself used dyes from non-kosher creatures
The Rambam (Hil. Klei HaMikdash 8:13) writes that tola’as shani is wool dyed from a tola’as (a worm / insect). That dye was used:
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In the paroches
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In the bigdei kehuna
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Together with techeiles and argaman
Chazal and Rishonim describe these dyes as coming from living creatures that are not kosher.
The Noda BiYehuda brings this as a proof:
If the Torah itself commands us to use colors that come from non-kosher creatures in the Mishkan and bigdei kehuna, it must be that dyes from non-kosher creatures are allowed, as long as the material being dyed (the wool / cloth) comes from a kosher place.
R’ Aharon Lifschitz in חלזון התכלת במשנת הראשונים collects many Rishonim:
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On one side: Rabbeinu Bachya who speaks about meleches Shamayim from tahor species.
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On the other side: Rishonim who clearly sound like the chilazon is not kosher (“חלזונות באשפות” etc.).
Yet none of them say techeiles is invalid because of that. They all treat techeiles as the proper way to do the mitzvah.
R’ Yisroel Rosenberg (in his תגובה לקונטרס) also stresses that many Rishonim assume a non-kosher chilazon, and no one turns that into a kashrus problem.
