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- Just because the below authorities wearing Techeiles are listed doesn’t mean we have contact info on all of them. This is for informational purposes only.
- Hebrew Name: הרב בנימין זאב הורביץ
- String Ratio: Raavad Ratio
- Tying Method: Vilna Gaon (GR”A) Method
- Location Born: Bnei Brak, Israel
- Current Location: Bnei Brak, Israel
Type of wearer: Author, Founders and Organizers, Rabbi
Affiliation: Charedi
HaRav Binyomin Zev Horvitz is a Bnei Brak-based talmid chacham and author best known for his serious halachic work on modern-day Techeiles. In a subject that can get noisy very quickly — part Gemara, part mesorah, part archaeology, part chemistry, and part communal nerves — Rav Horvitz took the quieter route. He sat down with the sources and tried to sort the sugya from the inside.
His best-known work is Chosam Shel Zahav, a detailed kuntres on the identity of the Chilazon. The sefer argues that the Murex trunculus, known in Hebrew as the argamon keheh kotzim, fits the evidence for the Torah’s Techeiles. It works through the sugyos, the words of Chazal and the Rishonim, the ancient evidence, the dyeing process, and the common objections raised against the Murex identification. The style is not casual advocacy. It is a beis midrash-style presentation: bring the proof, test the proof, answer the pushback, and let the reader see the structure of the argument.
Rav Horvitz also wrote Ein HaTecheiles, a focused treatment of the color of Techeiles. There he deals with one of the more slippery parts of the discussion: what color, exactly, is “Techeiles”? Is it blue? Dark blue? Purple? Green? Turquoise? Something else? His basic position is that the straightforward mesorah and the plain reading of the sources point to blue — the color associated with the sea, the sky, and kala ilan — and that many of the supposed color-based objections rest on reading earlier terms too narrowly.
One of Rav Horvitz’s strengths is that he does not pretend the sugya is simple. He knows there are real questions here. He also knows that some of the questions only sound strong until the sources are lined up properly. That comes through in the seforim themselves. Rav Horvitz keeps returning to the exact lashon of the Gemara, the Rishonim, and the earlier mefarshim. Not as decoration. He is testing the argument where it has to be tested: inside the words of the sugya.
His work has become part of the contemporary Techeiles conversation, especially among those looking for a serious Torah-based defense of the Murex identification. He has also spoken publicly on the subject, including a shiur on identifying the Chilazon and a presentation on whether archaeology and other evidence can help prove that the argamon keheh kotzim is the halachic Techeiles.
